Sexual education can be identified as several things. According to Jaafar & Chan (2008), sexual education is the study of the structural, functional and behavioral feature of human reproduction. It covered different aspects, including reproductive health, affection, interpersonal relationship, intimacy, gender responsibility, body images, and most importantly, sexual development. In the words of Spielhagen (2013), generally sex education is education revolving around sexuality, prevention of STDs (sexually transmitted diseases), contraceptive methods such as drugs and condoms, significance of protection, and attitudes as well as principles around sex. Additionally, there are 2 types of sex education, including comprehensive education and abstinence-only programs. Nowadays, sex education has become a highly debated topics that has continued to be discussed whether it is in homes or in school. It is discussed among scholars whether sexual education can be made as an elective subject or not. Some argue that sex education implementation in public schools is necessary because, according to Vivancos, Abubakar, Philips-Howard & Hunter (2013), the reduction of sexual transmitted infection (STI) diagnosis varied based on how young adults learn about sex. There was a 17% reduction associated with first intercourse at a younger age, 54% reduction of learning sex from peers, and 85% for both learnings from first girl/boyfriend and lessons at school. Moreover, sexual education should be introduced in order to reduce sexuality transmitted infection (STI), to stop premarital pregnancy, to eliminate unwanted behavior and to control promiscuity (Jaafar & Chan, 2008). Unfortunately, others believes that this type of education is better left off and consigned to the obscurity. This is because they are understandably afraid that young adults will be exposed to the risks of sexual behavior and STIs during school-based sex education. The importance of sexual education is more signified when, according to Mutalip & Mohamed (2012), the number of reports of misbehavior sexual activities in Malaysian teenagers appears to be increasing, even though sexuality is one of the proscription subjects in the country. There are many cases that are perfect fit for the statement above. One such instances is in Mantin, Nilai, where a young couple, both aged 17, are caught having sex in the girl’s stepmother apartment. Thus, the purpose of this essay is to discuss the importance of sexual education and, as a result, answer the question of whether this type of education should be taught in public schools.
Firstly, one such reason of why sexual education should be implemented in public schools is it may prevent teenage pregnancy. Researchers from the University of Washington found that adolescents who receive comprehensive sex education are significantly less likely to become pregnant than adolescents who receive abstinence-only-until-marriage or no formal sex education. Getting pregnant while you are a teenager does not necessarily mean it’s the end of the world for you. For sure that there are teenage parents who are doing quite well for themselves, but it is very sure not an advantageous position to be in. Teenage pregnancies also should be avoided because, according to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), “pregnancies among girls less than 18 years of age have irreparable consequences; it violates the rights of girls, with life-threatening consequences in terms of sexual and reproductive health, and poses high development costs for communities, particularly in perpetuating the cycle of poverty”. This usually happens in third world or underdeveloped countries, such as Togo and Madagascar, where poverty is a normality among its citizens. For an example, there are many cases where teenage parents who have to quit schools because they cannot keep up with their studies. They got to take a job because many teenage parents came from families with poor financial background. They got to earn more money because they had an extra mouth to feed. Teenage pregnancies also pose many risks not only to the parents, but also to the children. As in teenage pregnancy children are less like to be born with a low weight, which are not necessarily an indication of the baby healthiness, but it is a serious concern indeed. Teenage pregnancy children are also more likely to born prematurely. Being born prematurely is a very serious matter because it is one of the major causes of deaths in infants and young children. While the mothers may face several medical difficulties such as postpartum depression.
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Secondly, sexually transmitted disease (STDs) may also be prevented if sexual educations are allowed to be implemented in public schools. According to CDC (2010), the term sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) refers to a variety of clinical syndromes and infections caused by pathogens that can be acquired and transmitted through sexual activity. There are many sicknesses that can be classified as STDs, such as chlamydia, gonorrhea, genital herpes, human papillomavirus (HPV), syphilis, and HIV. All of the sicknesses mentioned earlier are very dangerous because of the STDs can take up a lot of time before its symptom shows up, and I am scared it might be too late to get treatment at that point. HIV can only be detected after 6 months of its incubation in your body. That is a long, long time. Think about all the sexual partners that you can have in that period of time. It’s even more worrying if you are sexually active. According to Avert, there is no cure for HIV, although antiretroviral treatment can control the virus, meaning that people with HIV can live long and healthy lives. If you do get contacted HIV, your immune body system will be wrecked, and eventually even a simple flu may cause death. Normally, a person can get STDs by having vaginal, anal or oral sex with someone who has STDs. However, one other reasons of why it is so dangerous is that you do not have to have sex with STDs patients to contact the same disease. Only skin to skin contact is suffice to spread it. According to STD Statistics - Teen Help, nearly half of 20 million Americans that get a new STD infection each year are teenagers and young adults aged 15 to 24. I know that teenagers are very impulsive and most of them are very sexually active before they settled on a partner, but it is very dangerous to participate in all kinds of sexual activities without taking protective measures. Sure, having sex with various people or, in other terms, fooling around are fun, but I can assure you that it will you caught up to you someday if you keep doing it and you will pay the price. Contacting STDs can ruin your life in many ways. For instance, not many people will want to be your sexual partner when they found out that you have AIDS or herpes. Fortunately, there are several ways that can be used to prevent STDs, such as making sure that you and your partners are getting a medical check-up for any STDs and also to wear condom at all times during oral, vaginal, or anal sex. This may be bothersome to you, but it goes a long way towards ensuring your partner and your well-being in the future.
Thirdly, we also should implement sexual education in our public schools so that it can protect our kids and teens. According to Berliner (2000) and Finkelhor (1979), sexual abuse involves any sexual activity with a child where consent is not or cannot be given. Sexual abuse can be classified to two types: physical behaviors and non-physical behaviors. Examples of physical behaviors include touching a child’s genital for sexual pleasure or other unnecessary reason and putting objects or body parts inside the vulva or vagina, in the mouth or in the anus of a child for sexual pleasures or other unnecessary reason. Examples of non-physical behaviors include intentionally exposing pornography to children and performing sexual acts in a child presence. Both types are very wrong, and equally harmful to the receiving children. Sexual abuse is a very delicate matter. It is not an easy thing to be detected. According to Finkelhor et al. (1990), “It is difficult to establish incidence rates because most sexual abuse is not reported at the time it occurs. There are many cases of sexual abuse victims who are only discovered long after it had already occurred, some as longs as 25 years. Studies of clinical and nonclinical population of adults reveal that fewer than half of the victim tell anyone at the time of the abuse, and a large percentage never reveal the victimization until asked for research purposes” (Finkelhor et al., 1990; Smith, Elstein, Trost & Bulkley, 1993). These sad facts are mainly caused by feelings of guilt, fear and wrongly inflicted humiliation on the victims, which oppresses their psyche and, in turn, prevents them from reporting the violence to authorities and even their own parents. Some cases, however, are only discovered accidentally by the victims’ parents. This is because the victims did not even know that they are sexually abused. Many of the them are very lacking in terms of understanding what sexual assaults is, and also what they should do if they end up in situations that they might be a victim of sexual abuse. Studies of clinical and nonclinical population of adults reveal that fewer than half of the victim tell anyone at the time of the abuse, and a large percentage never reveal the victimization until asked for research purposes (Finkelhor et al., 1990; Smith, Elstein, Trost & Bulkley, 1993). The realities of sexual abuse cases are very damning, to say the least, because, according to Finkelhor et al. (2001), in general, crimes against children are less likely to be reported to the criminal justice system than crimes against adults, even when they are comparably serious in nature. If even the criminal justice system is failing to help the children in need, we must take our own initiative to ensure that our own children does not share the same fate as the sexual abuse victims. This is where the importance of sexual education comes to play. With it, they will know what sexual assaults entails, what to do in a situation like that, can recognize the characteristics of a sexual offender and a sexual abuse victim, and what sexual abuse can do to its victims. First, let’s start with the sexual abusers. They mainly work in some kind of pattern. According to Berliner & Conte (1990), more typically, offenders engaged in a gradual process of sexualizing the relationship over time. There are many cases of children that are being sexually abused by their own relatives, such as an uncle or sometimes, even by their own parents. These types of cases usually happen for a long period of time. First, they just act friendly to the children or spends a lot of time with the children to earn their trust. Then, slowly but surely, they will ask the children to do sexual favors and most of the time, the victims did do what the abusers because for God’s sake, they did not know a single thing about sexual abuse. Repeat offenders generally calculate and plan their approach to victimizing children, often employing elaborate strategies to involve the children, maintain their cooperation, and prevent reporting (Conte, Wolfe, & Smith, 1989; Elliott, Browne & Kilcoyne, 1995; Lang and Frenzel, 1988). The abusers are very evil in the fact that if the children grew tired of the sexual abuse and did not want to keep cooperating with the abusers anymore, they will blackmail the children to humiliate them or worse, they use force to keep the victim’s mouth shut. The children then, understandably scared, are forced to endure the sexual abuse, hoping someday that it will ends. Sexual education also teaches about the characteristics that can be found in sexual abuse victims. Sexual abuse can happen to basically any child. What that is observed on the surface does not always reveals the truth beneath. It can happen to rich kids, poor kids, and many more. However, there are also some patterns that can be found in its victims. According to Mannarino & Cohen (1996), empirical studies have found that families of both incest and non-incest sexual victims are reported as less cohesive, more disorganized, and generally more dysfunctional than families of non-abused individuals. Most important of all, sexual education teaches our children about the terrible effects of sexual abuse. Sexual abuse can impact its victims in many ways. Some are impacted neurologically. Einbender and Friedrich (1989) reported greater cognitive impairment in a sample of sexually abused girls, and Rost and Troupe (1991) found that sexually abused children to have deficits in school achievement. Others can be affected emotionally. Anxiety is a well-documented sequel of sexual abuse (Gold, Lucenko, Elhai, Swingle, & Sellers, 1999; Lombardo & Pohl,1997). If you have been touched inappropriately by someone that you deeply trust, you must know what it feels like to have many difficulties in building relationships in the later parts of your life because you are afraid the sexual abuse experience will come back to haunt your mind again. In the general population, survivors are more likely than non-abused individuals to meet the criteria for generalized anxiety disorder, phobias, panic disorder, or obsessive-compulsive disorder, with sexual abuse survivor having up to 5 times a greater likelihood of being diagnosed with at least one anxiety disorder than their non-abused peers (Saunders et al., 1992; Stein et al., 1988). Sexual abuse is very crippling indeed. Sexual abuse also can play havoc with your minds. Survivors frequently report chronic irritability, unexpected feelings of rage, and fear of their own anger (Briere & Runtz, 1987; Lisak, 1993; Scott & Day, 1996). There are many cases where sexual abuse children grew up to be someone with very combustible personality. The victims did not want to feel as helpless as they were during the abused, they will everything to make sure it does not happen again, even though their reactions are in the extreme. Such feelings can be expressed internally through self-blame and self-injury or externally, resulting in the perpetration of violence against others. If left alone, the victims can even commit suicide because they just cannot accept the such atrocity has been committed to them. That is why sexual education are so important to kids and teenagers as to make sure that are well-equipped to face such horrors.
In conclusion, sexual educations should be taught in public schools because kids and teenagers need all the information on sex and many other related issues, such as contraception method, etc., and sexual educations can provide most, if not all, of it. Granted, this implementation might face some difficulties in the face of religious schools, such as Muslim and Christian schools, where such a risky topic as sex is a taboo, but these efforts are not without reasons and justifications. Some balance and middle ground can always be found when all parties involved are willing to compromise. Without sexual education, there may be more cases of teenage pregnancy, STDs among young children, and last but not least, more cases of sexual abuse in kids and teenagers again.
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