By Charlotte Webster
Sex education in schools needs a revolution, according to a young teacher.
A 24-year-old secondary school teacher has told the BBC she is shocked by the stories she hears from her teenage pupils in class. The woman said sex education is taught in school, but not in a manner that educates about consent and meaningful relationships.
The woman worryingly says many teenage girls engage in sexual relations with boys because they consider the advances made to them as an honour and approval of their attractiveness. Providing an insightful analysis to the BBC, the teacher said:
“The language boys use to discuss sex and sexual acts is degrading and shows a lack of understanding of consent and the actual mutual respect required to have meaningful sex.
“The girls, equally, are taught not to respect their own bodies and don’t comprehend the notion that they may be being used.
“There was one time when one of the girls, who was 14, was really upset and said to me, ‘I sucked his dick and he doesn’t love me – he told me he loved me and he doesn’t.’
“That was the main thing that made me think these girls are being used.
“I don’t think anyone can say a 14 or 16-year-old girl has performed these sex acts and enjoyed it – they just go along with it, she said.
“They’re going along with it at the time, it’s almost like it’s an honour that they’re chosen, especially if it’s a popular boy, almost like a validation of their appearance and attractiveness – or they think it is.
“I don’t think these girls are aware of their vulnerability. I think these girls – 14 plus – will look back and think, ‘Yeah, I was coerced into that.'” They get themselves into a situation naively and then they’re in too deeply.
Whether girls enjoy the sexual encounters they voluntarily have with boys is not something another person can determine. Girls may engage in sexual acts for the wrong reasons, but may still derive sexual pleasure of their own depending on how they feel about the boy in question. The relevant point is that sex should not be entered into based on purely lust or a need to feel accepted or honoured that somebody has shown interest in them and therefore given them a sense of validation. Schools are failing in emphasising the need for children to wait until they are at least 16,and explaining the reasons and importance of waiting.
Teenagers who begin having sex at an early age usually end up undermining the values of love and affection that should naturally accompany sexual relations, and they also run the risk having a child at a premature age. They also play a role in activating the early sexual experience of boys, which can make them promiscuous because of uneven weight attached to the thrill of sex over the associated affection and love that should go hand I hand with sex. Sex education at a quality level must include teaching teenagers that they are often too young to appreciate the true value of sex when they are under 16. In fact, most teenagers at 16 are often not even mature enough to understand the emotional and physical risks involved in sex. Sex often becomes a casual practise for boys and men in general.
OBJECTIFIED
The teachers claim that girls bow to peer pressure too easily and are too concerned about the opinions boys have of them.
“You need to make the girls realise they are being objectified and used and make them aware they are vulnerable to this sort of thing.
“It’s their right to say ‘no’ and that nobody should feel peer-pressured.
“If a boy doesn’t want a photo of you or ‘get with you’ as they say, you’re not attractive.
“It’s a very sad state of affairs to have girls empowered by how boys think of them.
“It’s as bad not to have had a boy take a sexual interest in you, in a 15-year-old’s view, as it is to be constantly asked for photos.
“I think the boys are quite clever, they tend to go for the ones who can be manipulated – not all boys obviously.
“Schools do teach sex education, but it’s focused on contraception, how not to get pregnant.
“It’s not about loving meaningful relationships or about consent – that’s not really covered.
“They know a lot about STIs [sexually transmitted infections] and condoms but not a lot about the meaningful aspect.
“I honestly think you’ve got to teach these kids more than about contraception.
“It needs a revolution. They need specialists coming in – teachers can see PHSE [personal, social, health and economic education] as a bit of an extra, they’re certainly not specialists in it, it’s an extra lesson or 20 minutes in form.
“A lot of teachers don’t feel confident talking about these things.
“We’re setting them up to go on to a porn website to learn about sex. I don’t think they’re going on there to get kicks, but to learn about sex and that obviously feeds into a whole societal thing.
EXTENSIVE
The evaluation of this teacher is in many respects sound. Teachers and schools must take upon the important task of providing a mature and extensive coverage of sex education in schools. This should include enlightening boys and girls about the psychological processes at work when they make various decisions that can lead to sex, and emphasising the need to have the strength and courage to say no to sex without losing face. Boys and girls who say no to sex in their teenage years should be commended for their individuality and strength of character, and teenagers should be reminded that most teenage romance or dates are often very temporary.
It will hurt more when one partner realises that the romance is over and the one to whom they gave their body and emotions will now be sharing their bodies and emotions with someone else. This is why sex should never really be rushed, and youngsters should take pride in not being sexually active. Sexual education needs to take on a new dimension that covers the moral aspect of sex and works on strengthening the confidence of those teenagers who feel they need to have sex to feel loved or appreciated. Teenagers should use their teenage years to build their academic strengths and also research the future careers they would like to enter. Sex education must include the crucial awareness that choices made by friends, should not be used as a guideline of how to live.