Social Policy Regarding Sexual Education - Essay Example

Social Policy “We can understand sexuality to be simultaneously personal, social, structural and historically and culturally specific.” It is true that sexuality is a private matter and personal but when it has affected the social ability and mobility of the person, such as when the person becomes pregnant or suffers from sexual transmitted diseases, it affects the structure of the society, socially and culturally. Everyday we are being bombarded with news and story that project sex as entertainment and as teenage fashion. Many of the teenagers, who are being at their wonder years and as fashion fanatics, are amused and persuaded to thrive on this early sexual fashion without knowing the consequences of their behavior. Denis Campbell, a Social Affairs Correspondent of The Observer indicates that a research conducted by the Trust for the Study of Adolescence found an alarming result, which is an increase in the number of teenage pregnancy, especially in Western Europe, particularly in the United Kingdom. In this country, in fact, underage sex is not new but common in the practice of one generation to another. According to Campbell, the Trust for the Study of Adolescence indicates that from the 3,000 London secondary school pupils surveyed, they found that 39% of them ages 15-18 had sex for the first time with one partner was unwilling to have sex. In fact, girls were trapped in this relationship for the wrong reasons such as 10% of them said they had sex because they want to please their boyfriends. Others claimed they have sex with the sense that they want to do it (57% girls and 37% boys without protection) have protection with at least once without using a condom (58% girls and 39% boys). Two in five felt they wish they had waited longer and 20% felt they felt it was the right time. Campbell quotes Ana Martinez of the Sex Education Forum, who says, the above results indicates that “There’s a lot of ignorance among young people about sex and that many are becoming involved in high risk behavior before they have had the chance to learn about issues such as how to resist pressure from partners, friends and the media to have sex.” Martinez even blames the schools, parents and professionals for failing the youth “by not giving them adequate support and information.” The study also indicates that minority teenagers, especially black youths are more prone to risky sexual behavior. In the past, the ways in which children and young people are constituted, they were used to be taught about the sanctity of relationship and marriage, and the importance of marriage and infidelity. All these have changed with the emergence of single parents and common law relationship. When hearing the news of “Britain’s youngest mother-to-be in West Lothian, British public officials’ response is “We have sex education program.” But today’s sex education is about using a condom to prevent pregnancies, AIDS, and sexual transmitted diseases. The education is intensified with government-funded project where nurses are sent into the primary and high school with free condoms and the morning after pill to help girls who have had sex and forgot using condom. Sex education introduced in school is more like a deployment of condom demonstration. In Scottish secondary schools, condoms are given to children under the age of puberty to prevent AIDS and sexual transmitted diseases. It seems too early to introduce prevention through this kind of sexual deployment such as detail description of contraception to the children at the early age. However, the result has been an increase number of teenage pregnancies. The country is experiencing more number of school age mothers than mature mothers. In Scotland alone, by 2004, the number of underage pregnancies, which is about 12 years old, had reached 700 and the number continuously rising that Scotland’s school has changed the classroom into maternity ward. The government promises more compassion and tolerance to teenage sexual behavior rather than delivering a program that cater to improve the morality of the teenagers. Scientific proof indicates that teenage sex is harmful and “premature sexual relation is dangerous.” But the scientific proof of the harm of teenage sex and the danger of premature sexual relation has been thrown into the dump. Sex education in the classroom is being promoted aggressively by the use of condoms and other sexual gadgets and information that encourage the teens to engage in more risky sexual behavior. Denis Campbell of the Observer Home Pages indicates that the Trust for the Study Adolescence’s report calls for Sex Education and Relationships Education, but the language that is being used to speak about health is becoming the language of the children, young people and their sexuality. Children are being “introduced to sex at primary school.” The sex education introduced at school does not promote healthy sexual education that builds and equips the teens with social, moral, and emotional skills they need for a healthy relationship but one that is illicit. A Scottish’s father complains, “Condoms are described and their deployment demonstrated. Sometimes they are handed out free of charge. Children who have not entered puberty are introduced to the symptoms of AIDS and sexual transmitted diseases. The curriculum insists on describing contraception in intimate detail to pupils below the age of consent. The Morning after pill is prescribed to girls whose parents do not know that their daughter has embarked on a sexual relationship. Children at early age are being guided to explore and engage in sexual relationship at early age and becoming mature before their time. Ann Whitaker of the Western Morning News argues, “It cannot be right to educate children into something that is wrong.” The ways in which sexuality is constituted within the context of sexual health education for children and young people in schools, as one presented by the “safe sex” experts is “not sexual health education, but a hospital service,” argues Whitaker. Then she emphasizes, “Education is expected to raise standards by teaching values and the truth… it is ashamed that young people should be exploited-and abused- by some of the so-called sex education they are receiving.” Generally, in any situation, the most vulnerable to become victims of this type of education are the poor and the poorest because they do not have proper education at home. You have teenage mums who are depress and are basically come from this class of society. As their being guided to focus on the glossy sexual images, they would likely be persuaded into this relationship and are vulnerable toward sexual and physical abuse. Similarly, these poor children, who are immature and psychologically vulnerable, are being intensively pressured by the society that “treats sex as a commercial commodity.” Despite this intensive effort, the number of teenage pregnancies is increasing. When the effort of prevention is not effective, then the program is a flaw. A Brehmen’s doctor once said, “We need to go back to the basic.” We should teach the children the right education and the right principles. Pictorial message and demonstration often have more meaning that the literature to the young mind. The politicization of sexual education in the schools makes the pupils, says the author of “Robbed of childhood in a too much too soon world” of the Aberdeen Press and Journal, “to see their bodies as commodities while they are still too young to concentrate on the pitfalls.” Being teenagers, their characters have not fully developed either. They are not mature enough to face the world and its strife. Consequently, too often you see these “teenage mums may be drunken and foulmouthed, but their arrogance is a fragile charade to disguise the reality of lives blighted before they have properly begun,” says Luckhurst. Both parents and teachers need to work together to give the children the right education to build their moral principles. If the schools have degrading program, it is the responsibility of the parents to take care of the future of the children. Parents could help their teenagers by teaching them to appreciate sex. They need to be made to understand that sexual relationship involves responsibility and morality. Most teenagers are not ready to take on such relationship when there is responsibility attach to it. Children and the adolescents can be guided to recognize the reality of sex drive, provide them with the view of themselves, their life’s plan and life role, which is not consistent with their dream or not as strong as their idealism. These information would help them to be willing to concentrate their mind to complete their education and until they are in a position to set up more mature sexual relationship. Teach them the right principles. There are so many evil in this world. Children and adolescents are becoming victims of unhappy families. They are abused by their own parents, and are robbing mentally and cognitively by the system that promises to educate them to become better individuals. They are not growing up as healthy individuals and what they experience in their young life would be carried on to their future life. They are growing up to be unhappy individuals. The process of mutual constituted between the personal lives of children and young people and sex education policies make it difficult for children to differentiate between love and passion. Indeed, there is a difference between sexual relationship that is based on love and that of passion. Children would be more mature in making decision about sexual relationship if they are taught of self-discipline and self-control. The girls may want to have sex to please their boyfriends. Or the teenagers may feel that it is the right time to have sex, but feeling is deceitful. Above all things, human heart is deceitful, says the Bible. The worst enemy in this world is one’s own feelings. Children should be taught to learn to control their own feelings. Too often, politicians and teachers demand ever more explicit sex education, which would degrade the morality of the children, and gives them an access to resist the temptation of soft pornography images. The ways in which sexuality is constituted within the context of sexual education in the school today is robbing the children and young people of the health and purity of their mind about sexual relationship. Therefore, parents and teachers should implant in the youths’ mind a wholesome thought about sexual relation. Children should learn to resist the temptations. Politicians or policy makers and educators should know and understand that knowledge of sex comes gradually and naturally as learning to talk. If you are teaching the children at early age on how to dress up the boys with condom, then that is what they would do. Even though you are teaching the children about a matter of life, sometimes, there lies a great danger. The early education must be started with “an education that will build a love and respect for purity and a loathing and horror of evil practices,” says Josephine Cunnington Edwards in her Teaching Old-fashioned Values to New-fashioned Kids. Teenage pregnancies are often the result of artificial relationship and impure love. Help the children to have clean and pure mind by keeping them mentally and morally busy. Luckhurst claims that politicians and teachers are traitors to the poor because they demand more and more explicit sex education that seems educated but what lies beneath is a subtly pornography material. By allowing this kind of material to enter education institution, both politicians and teachers are, says Luckhurst, “shattering the link between morality and sex they have helped to trap working class girls in servitude more abject than at any time since the abolition of the Victorian workhouse.” True education is needed more than ever, says Ellen White. Teenagers should be educated about healthy sexual relationship. Politicians, teachers, and parents should learn to receive the sunlight of wholesome knowledge, which will dispel the clouds morbid curiosity and misinformation. As the author of “Robbed of childhood in a too much too soon world” of the Aberdeen Press and Journal says, “The cost of negligence is high… Bringing a child into the world is a serious business… good sex education helps young people to negotiate relationship.” Work Cited Campbell, Denis. What teens really think about sex: Experts shocked as report reveals depths of ignorance that lead many to unsafe sex. The Observer (England). 21 May 2006, p16. Edwards, Josephine Cunnington in her Teaching Old-fashioned Values to New-fashioned Kids. Haggerstown, MD: Review and Herald Publishing Association. 2001. Luckhurst, Tim. “Sex and the betrayal of our young.” Daily Mail (London). 15 May 2005, p14. Whitaker, Ann. “Children sent wrong message about sex.” Western Morning News (Plymouth). 6 June 2006, p7. “Robbed of childhood in a too much too soon world.” Aberdeen Press and Journal. 17 May 2006, p14. Please add the textbook. I do not have complete information on the book. Read More