By Megan Kangas
A couple days ago I was scrolling through twitter when one post in particular caught my attention in the most infuriating way. A man claiming to be of the age of 28 thought a period lasts a month!! I thought this must be a joke, and the more curious I became the more it prompted me to look at the discussions in the comment section of the post, which was an even more alarming wake up call for me. It was in fact not a joke and the man, who shall be named anonymous for his highly embarrassing sake, was quite serious. In fact when someone commented on my exact disbelief he swore to god he was not joking which makes this article imperative to write in my mind.
I did some research before deciding to write this article and I have found that there are actually schools out there who don't have any sex ed in any level of class, either that or some schools allow parents to opt their children out of sex ed!! Now a lot of these schools are religion based schools, but even if you are religious, you still are a person and therefore need to know the basics of how your body works or the basic concepts of consent.
What I remember of my education in the sex ed form was that it started in 5th grade, which is far too late in my opinion considering girls receive their first menstrual cycle in about two years, or even earlier. Another red flag was that girls and boys were separated into two different classes, prompting the question how would men ever know what a menstrual cycle is like or what happens to women as well as vice versa what a man is like in the minds of women. When I came into my high school years we never even had sex ed classes to begin with which is the time when we are more used to or in tune with how our bodies work and when we experiment with them as well. This should have been the time to learn about safety practices and to teach both sexes on consent with your partner. When college comes and no sex education has been taught in previous levels of education, how would someone know that rape is not okay when they have not been taught the nature of consent and the practices of sex.
Being uneducated in sex is detrimental for many reasons. First being that we learn far to late about our bodies and the confusion of how they change even before we hit puberty. Children should learn far before this time in order to fully understand the fundamental rules and revelations of sex and the nature of ones bodies. The second is that if young adults do not learn about the ideas and revelations of consent how will they know when the time arises when the word "No" is used in cases of sexual conception. In college alone rape and sexual assault has raised to 1 in 5 for women and 1 in 71 for men in the last 3 years alone. When students are not taught the natures and rules and divisions about sex ed, how do we expect them to understand what they are doing is wrong. And i'm not saying what they are doing is okay, but how can someone fully understand something unless they are taught the basics of consent and basics of the anatomy of the human body?
Not only should sex ed be taught in all levels of school, but the idea that same sex as well as heterosexuality. High school aged teens are around the age of finding out who they are as people and what they want to become, but also who they love and who they believe they are to be inside. In high school I can't remember a single person who was openly gay and I believe that is because high school is intimidating and a doggy dog world. It's competitive and scary and unbelievably confusing in all aspects. You have to chose a path that could affect your entire life, and you have to choose a career and be pressured into a field that you don't even know is the best fit for you. Let alone how your romantic life is and how you should or shouldn't feel about a certain gender. It's confusing and scary as well as absolutely where you find who the true people in your life are. Students should be taught that is okay to be in love with someone who is not "regularly" seen together in movies or books or normal everyday life, although that is starting to change in today's day and age with representation, it now needs to be a normal occurrence and not an abnormal ideal.
To paraphrase Sex Ed is highly... highly.... highly... necessary for all grades and all humans and all sexuality's and all love's of life. A better world and a better understanding of one's life starts with the education of one's body and the the natural cycle of life.
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