Sex blogger Tatyana Nikonova about sex education
Sex education in Russia has not yet been included in the school curriculum, children receive information fragments in biology and life safety lessons. In January, Inna Paustovskaya, an expert at the All-Russian Professional Psychotherapeutic League, suggested introducing a lesson in “Sexology”. And the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences has created a commission to combat the HIV epidemic and announced that the way out is also in sexual education.
But these are only plans; now the completeness and accuracy of the information that schoolchildren hear in class depends entirely on the teacher. In the mass consciousness, sex education leads to "the growth of licentiousness" and "health problems", therefore many parents are against such a school course. Sex blogger Tatyana Nikonova gathered popular questions and myths about sexuality in Russia and answered them.
Why learn sex? This is natural!
Sex education in the first place implies not learning the intricacies of sex — existing sexual literacy courses cover a much wider range of issues. At the lessons you can learn about the structure and functioning of the body, how to use contraceptives to protect against unwanted pregnancies and genital infections, how to understand your own and others' boundaries and how to respect them, how to take care of yourself and your partner, how to determine consent in sex, about that everyone has the right to refuse, as well as understand how to act in difficult situations, including Internet harassment and blackmail. The well-being of young people depends not only on how successfully they passed the USE, but also on what they consider permissible in relation to themselves and others.
Knowledge is power, especially considering that most of the widespread ideas about sexuality and sexuality in Russia are myths, menstruation is a taboo topic, and masturbation is almost an abusive word. A full-fledged MRI scan of the clitoris, for example, was taken only in 2009, and its publicly available 3D model appeared in 2016. At the same time, children are surrounded by sexualized images in the media and can draw patterns of behavior from there. They live in an environment where everything talks about sex and calls for it, but no one teaches them about safe behavior. It is logical to offer the role of a mentor to the school.
We in Russia will manage somehow
Russian people need sexual education. We have about a million abortions per year (the highest rate among most European countries and the United States); while many are still confident that because of birth control pills, "hair growth" begins, and condoms "kill desire." The country has long become the epidemic of HIV infection, while in about 40% of cases the infection is transmitted through heterosexual contact, and many have no idea what their HIV status is and why you need to know it at all. At the official level, false allegations are often heard that condoms do not protect against HIV — and loyalty and trust in a partner should serve as protection. Women often become infected from previously unprotected husbands and regular partners, and 40% of them only learn about their positive HIV status during pregnancy.
Due to the lack of sex education and an archaic attitude in society, the consequences are very serious - and they concern not only sex directly. Anti-scientific fabrications about telegony are being sneaked into the school for children who do not yet have all the necessary critical thinking skills, the country continues the barbaric practice of female genital mutilation, and forced marriages with underage girls are approved by the Commissioner for Children's Rights.
In the country's best schools for decades, horrible things have happened to children, crippling the psyche and those who have been sexually harassed, and those who knew about everything, but could not do anything because of their young age and lack of life experience. In this case, the police scoff at the survivors of sexual violence, and the main refrain of the discussions, even if it concerns minors victims, is “It’s my fault”. The current situation definitely needs to be changed, and the necessary knowledge is the first step to these changes.
And if teenagers go peddling if they learn more about sex?
Often parents are afraid that children, having received information at school, will start having sex earlier. In fact, sex education, on the contrary, helps to postpone the beginning of sexual life - besides, according to the same study, boys with the necessary knowledge start using condoms two to three times more often, even at the first sexual contact. In the United States over the past twenty years, the number of teenage pregnancies has dropped dramatically - primarily due to the greater distribution of contraception. In Sweden and Germany, where sex education lessons are required, the level of teenage pregnancies is four times lower than in Russia, where there is no such education.
Moreover, sex education protects adolescents from the encroachments of other people - both adults and peers. For example, in Kenya, for teenagers and young people, lessons were held where they explained what gender stereotypes are, how to determine active consent to sex, and what to do if you witnessed violence — as a result, they became more respectful of women. In Russia, there are frequent situations when a teacher uses his power and starts having romance with female students - while many believe that the relationship with the teacher cannot hurt 16-year-old schoolchildren and does not understand why the rights of adolescents are violated in this case.
The fear that children, having learned more about sex, will start to engage in it more often, is unfounded. Sex education is more likely to help them to resist the irresponsible behavior of adults, to distinguish between manipulations, in time to ask for help and behave more respectfully with each other. It provides the skills necessary for survival in a world where it is so difficult to find really necessary information about sex in the sea offered.
Maybe it is better to teach children abstinence?
At first glance, this question sounds reasonable: there is no sex - there are no complications associated with it. The snag is that abstinence propaganda does not guarantee that a teenager will behave all the time the way he is demanded. Even adults are not always able to adhere to the line of behavior, which is considered to be correct in principle, - what to take from children who have not yet reached psychological maturity?
Experts of the American non-profit organization The Center for Advancing Health in 2008 studied the results of a survey of 1719 heterosexual teenagers of fifteen or nineteen years, which were divided into three groups: some did not receive any sexual education, the second taught abstinence, and the third described in detail the methods of protection. Among adolescents from the second group, the probability of pregnancy was 30% lower than among adolescents from the first group. But the probability for adolescents from the third group was already 60% less. The main thing that shows this study: the propaganda of abstinence is not the most effective way to protect, and therefore, children need a thorough explanation of sexual life. This is confirmed by research data in conservative American states and in religious Northern Ireland and Romania: where abstinence is primarily promoted, adolescents are more likely to experience infections and unwanted pregnancies.
Yes, let them give birth while young and healthy
A positive idea of early pregnancy ("Rodi, and then take a career") is quite popular. Idyllic pictures of a young mother immediately appear in her head with a charming baby in her arms. In reality, an early girl who becomes pregnant does not always have the opportunity to finish school - and this means that it is impossible to get a higher education, find a more qualified job and that it will be difficult for her to support herself and her child. Not always parents are ready to help a young mother with her early grandchildren. Children are rarely willing to have children themselves, so the chances that the mother abandons the child increase two to three times if she is underage.
But social difficulties in early pregnancy - this is not all. The health of both the mother and the child in this case is endangered. “Young and healthy” is true rather for women of twenty to thirty years: their children are a half to two times less likely to be stillborn or die during the first month of life than teenage mothers. Almost a quarter of the global burden of disease (number of years of life lost due to disability) caused by pregnancy and childbirth falls on mothers aged ten to nineteen.
Teens need to be clearly aware of the consequences of their actions, and in order for them to plan a pregnancy, they need reliable and knowledge-packed knowledge.
But why talk about it in schools? Parents will cope!
Conversations between children and parents about sex are really quite effective. An analysis of fifty studies in which more than 25,000 teenagers who have been conducted for thirty years participated showed that children with whom they talk about sex more often use condoms and communicate better with their sexual partners. It turned out that parents do not even need to have any special knowledge - it’s enough just not to be shy to keep the conversation going. A teenager has a language in which he can talk about sex, and he can discuss his fears and desires with partners.
However, parents and children are often shy to talk about this topic. In Russia, talk about sex is tabooed in every third family (for comparison, suicide is not spoken about in only 15% of families). That is, every third family with children will not discuss sex topics in principle, and in the rest - how lucky they will be. But there is a huge number of single-parent families with a very busy parent who simply has no time to hold such conversations; families in which information about sex is served through religious dogmas; parents, for whom talking about sex comes down to phrases in the spirit of "Put on a short skirt again!"; orphans, whose sexual literacy simply no one to do.
A reasonably organized course within the standard school curriculum would solve most of the listed issues. From educated children, educated adults will grow up, who are able to discuss their concerns with their children, help them in time to cope with troubles or prevent them. Sex education does not make children licentious - on the contrary, it gives the ability to talk about important things. Sex education should be publicly available, and the school is the best place for it.
Photo: Antonio Gravante - stock.adobe.com, weerapat1003 - stock.adobe.com