Sexless Education – Wheat and Tares

What was sex education like when you were growing up? This was a question on a Reddit forum called r/AskOldPeople, which despite the insulting title, is actually a fun forum to hear from Gen Xers like me and the occasional Boomer. It reminded me of a post I started about 10 years ago and never finished. The topic of how kids learn about sex in school is always a loaded one, especially now that Project 2025 wants to do weird stuff like burn books that mention anything other than married, heterosexual, missionary, lights out, blinds drawn, no noise, and for procreative purposes only. Or something like that. I mean, maybe they want those books gone too. Who knows? Does it even matter if the kids binge-watch Euphoria?

Sex education in schools often varies by region and should be provided throughout the school year with age-appropriate content. Some people confuse maturation education with sex education, or have only had maturation education. Maturation education is something that usually happens in grade 4 or 5. Boys and girls each get a separate lesson about the changes in their bodies as a result of puberty, things like hygiene and personal care. Sex education is about sexual behavior, how to prevent sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies, how human pregnancy progresses, and appropriate behavior such as consent-based interactions and sexual ethics.

Here’s a quick overview of the sex education I personally received:

• 3rd class. Rural Texas. A wide-eyed classmate told me on the playground that she knew someone who had been in a closet with a boy and he had stuck his finger in her belly button and nine days later she had a baby. I was skeptical of this claim and repeatedly stuck my own finger in my belly button to disprove her dubious claims. Nine days later I had no baby.
• 4th or 5th grade. New Jersey. The girls and boys were separated for “maturation” talks to learn about menstruation (girls) and wet dreams (boys). The girls were given little menstruation kits, but I don’t think the boys were given masturbation kits. Funny how the girls learn about pain and discomfort, but the boys learn about pleasure.
• 9th grade. Pennsylvania. The boys’ coach said, “You know, you girls get in the car with your friends and you say, ‘Ooh, I love you,’ and the next thing you know, BAM, there’s a little baby.” This wasn’t really helpful information. Besides, most of us didn’t have driver’s licenses yet, so whose cars were these? I seriously doubted whether he had the credentials to teach health classes. Given our school’s track record, his credentials to coach football were pretty suspect, too.
• 10th grade. Still Pennsylvania. The coach of the girls hockey team (lesbian, of course – I swear they’re saving the human race) blew up a condom and put it on a banana. We watched a movie that showed 3 different births and one of my friends fainted and hit her head on the radiator in the classroom, which was definitely the highlight of the class. There was a lot of talk about condoms to prevent STDs and also some AIDS prevention (this was the mid 80s). THAT was sex ed. Of course, at least two of my classmates were mothers at this point and a few others had already had abortions. I think consent and ethics were also discussed, but in a very 80s kind of way. Later in the semester she talked about suicide. She also did a thing about drugs that was very informative. Overall, not bad. Two thumbs up.

I am pretty sure all schools do some sort of maturation education, but sex education varies greatly. Here are the most common approaches:

• Extensive. The focus is on medically accurate information, anatomy, reproduction, puberty, contraception, STDs, sexual orientation, gender identity, healthy relationships, consent, and sexual decision making. My 10th grade teacher probably taught the mid-80s version of comprehensive sex ed.
• Abstinence only. The focus is on promoting abstinence from sexual activity until marriage. It often emphasizes the risks of sexual activity, such as unintended pregnancy and STDs. I mean, maybe that 9th grader tried that, bad?
• Parental Consent or Consent. These are obvious terms. I’m pretty sure parents can choose you out where I attended, but it was assumed that if they didn’t proactively do so, you would attend. Even more conservative areas will likely require a permission slip to attend. I can also say with 100% certainty that every kid in that school knows right away which kids have weird, controlling parents who won’t let them attend because they want to keep their precious little babies pure and unblemished from the world. You do not want to be one of those kids. (I should note that my high school district was taken over by rebellious Moms of Liberty types post-MAGA who banned both Romeo & Juliet and To Kill a Mockingbird.)

The most effective approach to reducing teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases is Comprehensive Sex Ed. Since this is a Mormon themed blog, I googled it to see what Utah does, and you may not be surprised to learn that Utah does not require Comprehensive Sex Education. They do what they call abstinence-based, and they require parents to sign up. They also do not teach: sexual orientation, gender identity, or consent. Instead of consent, they teach “refusal skills” (1), which puts the onus on the recipient of the sexual advances instead of the aggressor. I am surprised.

To be fair, I googled and found that Pennsylvania doesn’t require sex ed at all, leaving it up to the school districts. That might be why we got a ridiculously inept attempt one year, followed by a competent one the next. Arizona (where two of my kids graduated from high school) also doesn’t require sex ed, but the law that’s been on the books for 30 years states that if districts decide to teach it, it’s their responsibility to must be abstinence-based and opt-in. So that’s yikes. New Jersey, which I’m sure most of our readers only know as the butt of Jersey Shore and mob-related jokes (2), does require comprehensive sex education, including sexual orientation, gender identity, and the ability for parents to opt out if they proactively request it. Schools that don’t provide comprehensive sex education are penalized. Go, Garden State!

So, by my count, it looks like New Jersey is on top, followed by… Utah. But I’m certainly not praising what Utah is doing.

I remember there being a lot of discussion about this in the 80s and quite a few people who felt that sex education was best taught by parents at home, which may be true but is also gross. I mean, if you learn about sex from your parents, you’re being reminded that they’ve probably had sex at some point (but hopefully not anymore!). But I think there’s no better way to get a boner than thinking about your parents’ sex lives. I’m not sure how good parents are at this in general. This is pretty much how my own sex education “at home” went:

• Age 5. I asked my mother where babies ate from when they weren’t bottle fed. She seemed very irritated and angry at being cornered, and then she finally reached out and touched each of my nipples and said “from your BREASTS!” in a voice that sounded very much like the Wicked Witch of the West. I was shocked.
• 11 years old. My mother called me into her room and gave me a very dry pamphlet about sex (which I already knew about). It had diagrams of internal organs and was pretty boring. No character development. No plot. Luckily Three’s Company was available at the time, although it wasn’t very educational either.
• Age 13. My mother told me that my sister’s husband kept waking her up in the middle of the night for SEX. Yes, she spelled it out loud. I was supposed to agree with her that this was shameful, although I questioned the appropriateness of me knowing this personal information. The most important thing I learned is that sleep is definitely better than sex. And that sex is way too disgusting and dirty to use the word.(3)

Lest you think I was a model parent, I was definitely not great. I don’t recall ever specifically having anything that could be called “the talk” with my kids, mostly because I assumed they would be getting something resembling a comprehensive sex education like I had. Why send them to school when I have to do the heavy lifting?? I often joke with my daughter that her third parent was Olivia Benson from Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Sex education consisted mainly of watching those episodes and sometimes talking about the concepts. Additionally, episodes of Veronica Mars and other shows provided some discussion that could reasonably be called sex education.(4)

Now it’s your turn to have your say.

• What sex education did you get in school? How do you feel about it now that you’re an adult?
• How did your parents teach you about sex education? How did you teach your own children (if you have children)?
• What do you think ideal sex education would look like? Should it be a national standard or regional to reflect different values?
• Are you surprised that sex education is not mandatory in all schools? (5)

Discuss.

(1) Frankly, the term “refusal skills” fills me with quiet rage. As one (probably canceled) comedian put it, “I don’t agree with rape, but I didn’t teach my son to be a quitter.” Refusal skills are a setup for classic victim blaming and unhealthy relationship dynamics.

(2) And yes, I had an Italian friend who lived in a country house with a kidney-shaped pool and said her father worked in “sanitary management.”

(3) E. Bednar seems to agree, as he always says “reproductive potential”, which is alliterative, but also incorrect, unless you only do it during fertile periods, which means once you hit menopause, “no soup for you”. Which in retrospect is a really awful phrase to use in reference to abstinence.

(4) I told my daughter the story about my mother’s explanation of breastfeeding, to which she squealed with laughter and then asked me, “Show me on the doll where she touched you.” Good times.

(5) Or do you have a Twitter account, in which case it’s painfully obvious how uninformed many people are about human reproduction? Personal favorites include the guys who claim that women can “hold” their periods, and that it’s completely voluntary. Also, one pro-lifer claimed that some women have 2-3 abortions every monthOr that one senator from the Deep South who said you can’t get pregnant from rape because your body just won’t allow it.