Remember your first sex-ed class? The giggling, the embarrassment, that one kid who was always waving the penis worksheet in your face. It might have been painful but chances are—with the help of friends, parents, and teachers—you more or less figured it out.
That was before the Internet became available to kids under the age of 10, before curious pre-pubescent children were surfing the web on their smart phones and seeing porn pop-ups appear without warning.
Children today have access to unregulated images, and sex-education programs at elementary and secondary schools should make an effort to acknowledge this. A sex-ed program is pointless if it’s no longer relevant.
Efforts to revise Ontario’s 15-year-old sex-ed curriculum were opposed by various family and religious groups. The proposed changes, which were supposed to be implemented in 2010, are currently on hold.
The changes would see open classroom discussions about such topics as sexual orientation, masturbation, and STIs before high school. The mentality is that children should be prepared for, and comfortable talking about, these things before they actually occur.
University is the first place many students have truly open discussions about sexuality in an academic setting.
With the prevalence of online pornography, it’s all the more important to begin those discussions sooner.
As post-secondary students, we should be thinking about how our contributions, whether as politicians, teachers, or future parents, might shape the way this issue is addressed.
