What My Parents Told Me (How I learnt about sexuality) - Essay Example

?How I learnt about sexuality Sex is an important part of a human being’s life. Without sex and romantic feelings, there would be no concept of reproduction of human race. However, that does not mean that every human being loves to have sex or likes to have romantic feelings toward another person. That solely depends on one’s experiences. The experiences of one who has been sexually abused in the childhood or at the hands of a spouse can never be compared to those experienced by one who has always seen healthy romantic and sexual relationships. Love or hate about sex depends on how one perceives sex, and how one experiences sex in life. I have always been deprived of proper sexual education right from my adolescence into my adulthood, which led to my suffering from fear of sex, and HSSD later on in life. In this paper, I reflect upon how I learned about sex and sexuality when I was an adolescent, and how the lack of parental support and sex education led to my deteriorated concept of sex. I would also reflect upon why there is a need for a full fledge program regarding sexual education in schools. I would also describe what HSSD is, to explain what I was going through. To me, sex had always been a taboo. My parents had never spoken to me openly about sex and sexual issues. When I stepped into adolescence, sex became a mystery thing for me. With no sexual education at home or in school, I thought about sex as a dangerous activity. Aunt Sally was there to guide me a bit. She had told me to go to her if a boy approached me or tried to lure me into sexual activities. She said, “When you start feeling like you want to be kissed by a boy come to me first, you and I will discuss birth control.” She wanted to tell me about birth control; however, her warning struck me in a negative sense, so I started fearing the word of sex and thought of it as a harmful activity. I was 12 at that time. My mother had told me her stories of horrible experiences about sex, and thus, I was unconsciously fearful about the whole thing. She was sexually abused at the hands of my step-father, and for her, sex was all about a dick and getting fucked. This story got validated when I was myself raped at the age of sixteen by my boyfriend. I had become pregnant, and I lost my child five months later. This deteriorated the concept of sex and romantic love in my view. I had my first alive child when I was eighteen, in California. Even that did not improve my concept of sex. I was afraid to indulge in sexual activities or have a partner. I lost interest in sex, which proved that I was suffering from Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder (HSSD). My body stopped responding to physical stimuli regarding sex. I never felt like advancing to solicit sexual desires, and I cringed when the sun would set. I gained no sexual knowledge from the media. Actually, I loathed media for exposing my and many others innocent children to a wrong perception of sex. When I reflect upon my life experiences about sex, I become convinced that United States should have a national policy on sex education (Lindberg & Maddow Zimet, 2012). Many advocates are working in collaboration with individuals from health sector and sexuality education, to bring forward national sexuality education standards. The main objective of these national standards and policies is to offer understandable, reliable and simple assistance on the sexual education, which is right for the age and developmental phase of students belonging to Grades K–12. There is need for such a national policy that addresses the issue of minimum core content. In other words, educators and parents need to decide what minimum level of sexuality should be taught to what age. Should a second grader be taught what AIDS means and how it is transmitted? Should a third grader be made familiar with the birth control programs? There is need to devise such a policy that fosters age-appropriate sex education. Without such a national policy, it is very likely that our children will keep on getting indulged in age-inappropriate sexual activities out of lack of sexual knowledge. Since I had no such sexual knowledge, I went through two drawbacks; 1) I started fearing sex as if it was a dangerous activity; and, 2) I got indulged in early-age sexual activities, that led to my teenage pregnancy. I believe that there should be abstinence-only programs, teaching young people to refrain from sexual activities until marriage in order to escape sexually transmitted diseases as AIDS, and unintended teenage pregnancies. Abstinence-only programs are very effective in a sense that they ensure sexual health. It is also morally wrong that one indulges in sex before marriage. Examples of abstinence-only programs are Aspire and True Loves Waits that have formed in the United States. Also, sex education does help in motivating the children and young people to refrain from sex in order to escape unwanted pregnancies. Lack of proper sex education also leads to hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSSD). Some researchers (e.g. Rymer et al., 2010) believe that the rising number of female HSDD cases may be related to the way most women approach sexuality; that is, hypoactive sexual desire disorder can be psychological, as well as biological. A woman’s desire for sex is often predicted by a great number of factors working together in both of these realms. These factors include relationship satisfaction and health, personal and partner well-being, and physical and emotional responses to lovemaking. Sexual disinterest among some women may be related to sexual inhibition, conditioned in women by longstanding cultural tradition. In addition, researchers also suggest that a lack of sexual desire in some women may not constitute a disorder at all, but may be a natural protective mechanism against having too many children, which has evolved over time. The theory is that if conditions are not favorable to having a child, the woman would be uninterested in sex. As for me, I was a teenage when I became pregnant and had my child. Teenage pregnancy never has favorable conditions to bloom. Hence, the circumstances led to my becoming disinterested in sex for many years to come. To conclude, I believe that if a young person under age 18 has decided to become sexually active, he/she should be able to obtain reliable birth control knowledge after he has been given appropriate sex education. If he decides to indulge into sex, it is his own choice but, at least, he should be allowed to avail birth control to avoid unwanted pregnancies. If I am a parent of a 15 year old son or daughter, I would openly tell him/her about my views on sex, and will provide him/her answers to all the questions that he/she will ask me about sex, abstinence, sexually transmitted diseases, birth control, and pregnancies. So, my experiences about sex tell me that there is a dire need for such a national policy that promotes sex education in schools. The policy should foster age-appropriate sex education only. Abstinence-only programs help in keeping the individuals from indulging in sex before marriage to maintain sexual health. Parents and educators should make combined efforts in providing young people actual information about the pros and cons of sexual activities at an early age. References Lindberg, L.D., & Maddow-Zimet, I. (2012). Consequences of sex education on teen and young adult sexual behaviors and outcomes. Journal of Adolescent Health, 51(4), pp. 332-338. Rymer, J., Wylie, K., Barnes, T., Mander, A., et al. (2010). Hypoactive sexual desire disorder. The Obstetrician & Gynaecologist, 12(4), pp. 237-243. DOI: 10.1576/toag.12.4.237.27615 Read More