Sex education in a UK classroom

[Puffin]

Belgian sex therapist & educator Goedele Liekens goes to the UK to teach 15/16year olds about sex in a very direct and explicit way to break preconceived notions kids have after watching porn.



As a brit it's sad how poor sex education is in schools. The girls didn't know where the clitoris was.

 

[StacySins]

Sex ed in the UK is terrible, while at school I thought it was alright but now that I actually know more I see how bad it is.

 

[Ann_Sulu]

Man...if it weren't for the accent being different, I'd have thought that these people were from where I grew up (except for the sex ed teacher of course). My school actually wound up not teaching the kids sex ed due to half or so of the kids acting too immature about it. Not a joke. My mother handed me a book from the library on sex ed (a huge table top-like book), and she said for me to read it, because of it's importance. After this, she sent me to a girls camp, which taught me nothing about sex, but promised me that I would get a horrible traumatic event once a month. They gave the girls complimentary tampons too, which were promptly taken away from most girls, because in the Bible belt it's improper to use tampons before marriage.

Gotta say it was a good video. I watched the full thing. It's incredibly sad that teachers have to worry about being fired for answering basic questions. Also sad, is how parents/teachers are so uncomfortable that they seem to barely even know half of the facts themselves. The guy who says "Oh you know some kids will look at porn, but the others won't" is only fooling himself thinking the kids won't talk about it and tell each other things that are completely wrong about sex. I'd say I have at least one private a day on average where a member asks me why I responded the way I did, or said what I said...and the reason why is because lots of times porn is just flat out wrong, and I'm not going to play up a fantasy that isn't true. Most of the time they seem shocked I wouldn't agree with what they've seen. Glad how it turned out in the end...if only that scenario would happen all over/sooner.

 

[RubyDimples]

Sex education is so essential and important for young adults. For many years I've been pro sex education in America and in other countries for the simple fact people need to be educated! In America I experienced about eight years worth of sex ed in the public school system. We discussed it openly and honestly. Even were exposed to photos of STD's on vaginas and dicks. Shock value was the main reasoning behind it to make us more likley to use contraceptives in our sexual relations. Unfortunately I'm sure parents don't think its important and its promoting promiscuity. Total crock of shit if you ask me...but I can't say how they should raise their kids...just not my place.

 

[fandango]

Uk sex ed is terrible. I dont know what its like now but when I left school 9 years ago the sex ed consisted of a short cartoon that showed how all the parts "slot together like a jigsaw puzzle" (exact words from the video that are burned into my memory) and then when that was over we got shown how to put a condom on a cucumber and that was it.

 

[TacoBelle]

Ditto to everything @Ann_Sulu said. Apparently, sex ed in the UK is extremely similar to how it is in the Bible Belt of KY. In school, we didn't even have "sex ed" or any form of it until highschool. We had half a year of gym and half a year of "health." In health, we learned how to do the Heimlich, that drugs are bad, and sex is bad. Our sex portion was literally just learning the names of diseases (Basically, just "Gonorrhea is called 'the clap."). To give an idea of how bad it was, I just had to google that, cause at first I wrote Chlamydia is the clap. See, no idea. *facepalm*

Anyway, they didn't teach us anything. Not even how to put a condom on a cucumber. Luckily, my older sister was sexually active and answered my questions. But I would love for schools to teach proper answers and ways to practice safe sex. There's a reason that nearly 1/4 of my graduating class females were pregnant. But what can we do about it???

 

[StacySins]

Ditto to everything @Ann_Sulu said. Apparently, sex ed in the UK is extremely similar to how it is in the Bible Belt of KY. In school, we didn't even have "sex ed" or any form of it until highschool. We had half a year of gym and half a year of "health." In health, we learned how to do the Heimlich, that drugs are bad, and sex is bad. Our sex portion was literally just learning the names of diseases (Basically, just "Gonorrhea is called 'the clap."). To give an idea of how bad it was, I just had to google that, cause at first I wrote Chlamydia is the clap. See, no idea. *facepalm*

Anyway, they didn't teach us anything. Not even how to put a condom on a cucumber. Luckily, my older sister was sexually active and answered my questions. But I would love for schools to teach proper answers and ways to practice safe sex. There's a reason that nearly 1/4 of my graduating class females were pregnant. But what can we do about it???

I'm not sure I'd say our sex ed is that bad. We started to be taught sex ed in primary 5, at the age of 10 and we got it for a few weeks every year until we left at 18 but it wasn't that informative, it was the basics with no frills but we were told all about safe sex and the different forms of birth control and barriers including female condom and dam. We were also taught how to put a condom on but that was an hour maximum

This was in Scotland though and our education system is separate from the rest of the UK.

 

[Ann_Sulu]

Hahaha the way you said "health" class...curious, I'm guessing you know of A Beka Books too?

 

[TacoBelle]

Hahaha the way you said "health" class...curious, I'm guessing you know of A Beka Books too?

Nope, never heard of it. But I went to public school, not Christian.

 

[Ann_Sulu]

Ah ok, @I_Am_Iris at least your books didn't teach evolution as being the devil too. ^.^

 

[AuroraKnight]

Sex ed outside of the Bible Belt wasn't much better. In 5th grade (so 10 years old) boys were sent to one room and girls to another to learn about puberty, and after that it wasn't talked about again until high school and it basically consisted of "If you have sex before marriage you will get an STD or pregnant and your life will be ruined" we learned the names for the different parts of the reproductive system, all the different STD's and the different contraceptives, but the majority of health class was stressing abstinence.

 

[LydiaFrost]

i think i never had sex ed classes/ health class in school ( germany, went to a non-christian public "gymnasium")

i'm not even sure if we touched the topic of how babies are made in biology. but i'm certain we were never educated about stds, our genitals, periods,how to use condoms..
i was educated by my parents and through books and magazines. ( one of these magazines is called "bravo" and it has "ask dr.sommer" thing, where you could ask anything sex / love/ bodyfluid related.)

 

[weirdbr]

Sounds like I was one of the lucky ones - the private school I went to in Brazil had decent sex ed classes, focusing on STDs, contraception and a bit about relationships, but I know that compared to other schools we had a much more comprehensive curriculum (most schools didn't even have a sex ed class, covering only some basics under the biology class because that was content that could be present in the admission exams of the local universities).

In fact, my class was kinda like the proposed curriculum from John Oliver's program from the weekend :

As a brit it's sad how poor sex education is in schools. The girls didn't know where the clitoris was.

Look at the bright side - at least there's Channel 4 making all those programs with useful information that students can look for; I haven't watched this one yet, but their previous program (called 'The Sex Education Show') was quite filled with information and was very direct and non-judgemental.

 

[LydiaFrost]

i mean..this is for teenagers. they even had this feature where teenagers showed off their naked bodies and i even remember photo-love-stories involving sex.

no wonder people think that germans are pervy

but at least it was educational and probably the only kind of sex-ed available for many teens.

edit: please tell me you had these too Oo

 

[Johndoe91]

sex ed here was basically non existent too. i don't remember it well, but i had to be at least a sophomore in high school, and it was maybe 2 or 3 class periods. not coed either, a male teacher taught the guys, and it was just the "here is a biological diagram of your junk, and heres one of the ladies reproductive stuff too." they might have thrown in some pictures of diseased junk too for good measure, but don't quote me on that.

for what its worth, that was in a small town in the Midwest in a mostly christian area, and the grade school i went to was catholic, so that's definitely a factor too.