Sexuality Education

Sexuality Education

Many conservative parents think that sex is frequently sinful and feel ashamed talking about it. To make matters worse, we live in a world of instant communication, which, today, includes the frank and open discussion of sex and sexual issues. After the silence and negative attitudes of the past, we are being told to be open, positive, and relaxed. The ten-year-old girl needs a mother who knows some facts about intercourse and can discuss them with her daughter without feeling frustrated and disgusted by this responsibility.

When people hear the word "sex" they think of intercourse and reproduction. Often, the word "sex" is used in two ways: 1) it labels genders, that is, whether a person belongs to the male or female gender; and 2) it refers to the physical part of the relationship.

For example: "I had sex last night" usually refers to the physical, erotic, or genital relationship. But sexuality means something much broader. Sexuality includes all our experiences, our learning, and our relationships – the parts of our lives that have to do with being male or female. Sexuality begins from conception and continues into eternity.

We need to appreciate that sexual relationships need not, and most often do not, involve sex in its physical aspect. Husbands and wives, parents and children, man and woman, priests and religious – all these people are having sexual relationships in the sense that they are, in part, relating to each other as the male or female each of them is.

As per observation, many parents are apt to think of sex education only in terms of information about reproduction. But far more important are the attitudes that parents unconsciously express about sex, about themselves, or about each other as male or female. We know that children are constantly learning by observation, by being taught, or by experiencing what their culture and traditions consider desirable for males and females to be or to do. This concept of growth and development as male or female is called the process of sexualization.

In early sex education, parents' self-images, their rule behaviors and attitudes, their fears or comfort with the erotic aspects of sex in their own lives – all these become important factors in the sexualization process of their children. It is during this process that children can develop happy comfortable attitudes about themselves as male or female with negative and guilt-ridden feelings.

Herein also lies another struggle. Too often parents wait for a crisis of adolescence to tackle the misinformation, fear, shame and confusion. Rather, young parents of the newborn need to accept and prepare themselves for the responsibility of providing sex education. Adolescence is too late to begin.

Parenting means taking responsibility for many things that are not neat and easy, taking care of sick kids with diarrhea, changing smelly diapers, or learning how to control obscene language in the home. Becoming involved means that you have the choice of teaching your children well or poorly, so you might as well do the best possible job. Parents are their children's primary teachers, whether or not they know or accept this responsibility. Parents can never be the exclusive educators of their children, but they can be the most influential.