Importance in Sex Education - Essay Example

Sex “Education” Paper While growing up, we are surrounded by cultural beliefs and teachings that aim at shaping our sexuality and understanding of sex and gender. Basically, our society and culture try to give us a set of beliefs that explain what it means to be a woman or a man in the society, sexual values, intimate relationships and what is expected of us as we grow to become respectable and responsible adults. However, as we continue to grow up and access more information from a variety of sources, we suddenly get shocked at how much misinformation surrounds us concerning issues of sex, virginity and our bodies in general. This helps to create a deep sense of curiosity among youths in a bid to get more right answers for all the information that was given to us from a very young age (Knox and Schacht 28). I have personally felt the need to re-evaluate our cultural and traditional understandings of these issues and how they affect our understanding as we continue to grow up. I got a lot of information about sex and sexuality from very different sources. My family, both my parents and aunts, were at hand to provide me with a wide range of information about myself and my body and how to act and keep myself amidst all the changes that were taking place in my body during my teenage years. The media were also very instrumental in giving me information through various TV shows, music and movies. I also got to read magazines and journals about sexual health, some of which were very erotic. School was also a very important environment for me to learn more about sex, both informally through my friends and formally through the school curriculum. In the later stages of my teenage years, I mostly relied on my peers and the internet for information since we had a common consensus that our parents did not provide us with helpful information and that they did not want us to participate in sexual activities for unknown or unqualified reasons at the time. A recent study about reproductive health among youths and adolescents conducted by Stanford University, however, points out that the sources that I relied upon such as the internet are to a large extent erratic. The study found out that some of the information contained on various websites across the internet contain outdated advice, omissions and are riddled with errors, therefore, making them possible channels of misinformation and myths associated with sex and sexuality (Knox and Schacht 58). Given this wide range of informational sources regarding this subject, I must admit that my sexual life as a teenager was based on a lot of misinformation and myths which at the time, I believed to be the absolute truth. Some of them, especially the ones I got from school my parents, were in fact true although I did not regard them as such during the that time. My parents and close family relatives told me a lot of lies about sex in a bid to protect me from knowing the truth at such a tender age for fear that I would be interested in trying out. They, therefore, sought to present sex as a negative and an unpleasant thing, most especially if done outside marriage. One of the biggest myths that I gathered at from this is that marital sex is the only safe, desired and enjoyable sexual activity. Over the year, however, as I have grown up and gathered more information, both from experience and from reliable research studies, I have come to the conclusion that it is not true. Marital sex, despite being legitimate, is coupled up with so many issues involving consensus. I was stunned to discover that rape can also occur in a marriage set up in cases where one of the partners does not consent to the sexual activity (Knox and Schacht 67). This proved to me that marital sex is not that much enjoyable as it was portrayed to me by my family. It was only a myth to help me avoid being involved in sexual activities at a young age and before marriage. Among my peers, we believed that having multiple sexual partners before would help one to be more experienced in sexual matters and put himself in a better position in future marriage set ups. Of cause, this looks outrageous now, but it is a belief my peers and I held firmly as gospel truth. We, therefore, competed amongst ourselves to outdo each other in terms of how many sexual partners one has at a particular time. Some of us obviously lied to our friends to create an impression that we were having more partners even when we did not have any. With more information at my disposal right now, I came to discard any such belief as just a mere myth because having many sexual partners predisposes one to many health risks, as well as social problems. Having many sexual partners increases one’s chances of contracting teenage pregnancies, sexually transmitted infections and also contributes to the social problems such as illegitimate children, irresponsible sexual behavior and the risk of carrying on the behavior in to a marriage set up, thereby risking family break ups. The media, through the TV shows, movies, music videos, magazines and the pop culture in general, also shaped my understanding sexuality to a large extent. Women are usually portrayed as sexual objects in music videos creating an impression that women are only good for sex. The use of skinny women in modeling and advertisements in general also creates an impression that the ideal beauty of a woman is depends on how thin or skinny she is. These two myths had a huge impact on me on how I treated women in the society. My friends and I had taken it for granted that women are only good for sex and that the most beautiful women are skinny. With time, I was able to understand that this was only a misconception. Women are beautiful despite their body sizes and that women are not only good for sex. As a matter of fact, I have known a lot of women who are intelligent business executives, national leaders, and great family people and, in fact, most of them have done better than men in similar positions (Knox and Schacht 78). In school, I got to learn a lot about sexuality, both informally through my friends and through the school curriculum in formal sessions. Most of what I got through the formal education has indeed turned out to be true facts. One such fact is that responsible sexual behavior is the best way to lead one’s life. I learnt that sex is a very intimate and emotional issue that should be approached with a lot of preparation, care and intention. Responsible sexual behavior involves careful planning, protection, consent from both parties and the parties involved should fully understand the consequences of the sexual act. This is, indeed, a true fact that I have come to ascertain with time. Responsible sex is what should be encouraged for both married couples and unmarried people including teenagers so that they are able to make the right decisions regarding their sexual lives. Given my experience and what I believe is the experience of most youths growing up in our environment, the approach to education needs to change drastically. Feeding young people with misinformation doesn’t not help them to make appropriate decisions and it has, in fact, contributed to many social problems that we are facing as a society now. People have to be given factual information right from an early age so as to enable them make responsible decisions. Parents, too, have a bigger role to play in sexual education and should not let the internet, media and peers take over the responsibility. Work Cited Knox, David and Caroline Schacht. Choices in Relationships: An Introduction to Marriage and the Family. 11 ed. Cengage Learning; 2011. Print. Read More