We are not a noticeably prudish society, yet there is something about teaching young people about sexuality, sexual health, sexual differences and sex itself that makes many people squirm.
Perhaps it is a mistake born of good intentions: children seem to be sexualised so early, encouraged to wear provocative clothing before puberty hits, that parents resist the idea that children and teenagers should be formally taught about such things as oral sex, sexual diseases, orgasm and contraception. Let them be children a little longer; they have years of sexual insecurities and home pregnancy tests ahead of them. Sex is also laden with morality in our culture, intimately linked with what people different views about issues such as sex before marriage, promiscuity, homosexuality and infidelity and may fear that classroom sex education might impart values they reject. Teaching sex, they say, is a private matter.
It is understandable, then, that anything to do with sex makes lawmakers nervous. Yet the overwhelming evidence about the value of sex education - taught in a calm, factual, nononsense
way - should give them courage. The ad hoc nature of sex education in Victorian schools should make them squirm.
In this state, sex education can be of a high quality, poor quality or non-existent. Teachers often have no specific qualifications to teach it, and some do so reluctantly. Sexual health experts throw up their hands: rates of sexually transmitted infections are rising (Chlamydia diagnoses have doubled among 15 to 19-yearolds in five years). Too many teenagers still get pregnant, with all the physical and emotional turmoil that results. Young people, as sophisticated as they may appear, are often ignorant.
A Marie Stopes International survey last year found that 31 per cent of teenagers were sexually active but almost a third did not know they could catch sexually transmitted infections from oral sex. The AMA, often a cautious lobby group, is pressuring the State Government to face this issue. Its budget submission, obtained by The SundavAge, is a a snapshot of the best evidence
available: sex education must be mandatory and well organised, it must start long before children are sexually active, it must be specific- no euphemisms- and it must be age appropriate.
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