Harry Benson: The fundamental flaws of sex education

Harry Benson runs Bristol Community Family Trust, a local charity that is pioneering short relationship courses that teach couples how to stay together, and was deputy chair of the family policy group that produced Fractured Families and Breakthrough Britain.

Yesterday morning the Today programme greeted me with the welcome news that David Cameron wants to address the growing sexualisation of children and society. But when the news item concluded that Mr Cameron’s proposed solution is yet more sex education, my heart sank. The official solution has always seemed the same. Sex education isn’t working yet because we’re not doing enough of it. So let’s have more sex education for ever younger children.

When I delved a little deeper into the story, it turned out that the BBC headline misrepresented Mr. Cameron. What he was actually saying was that more sex education should mean a different kind of sex education. But is he on the right track?

The epidemic of sexually transmitted infections, high rates of teenage pregnancy and vast numbers of abortions are all direct consequences of our liberal and tolerant approach to sex as recreation rather than simply procreation.

According to the Health Protection Agency, the relentless rise in incidences of STIs is especially pronounced amongst teenage girls. Some 42,000 teen pregnancies take place every year in England and Wales, roughly half of which are aborted. This is the highest level in Western Europe.

Studies into the effectiveness of sex education are far from encouraging. The 12% fall in under-18 pregnancy rates since 1998 may well be due to population changes rather than government strategy. Recent British Medical Journal studies of both sex education programmes and better access to the morning-after pill found that neither had any effect on pregnancies or abortions. A Family Education Trust report found that many areas with programmes set up by the Teenage Pregnancy Unit have actually seen rises in teen pregnancies.

There are two fundamental flaws in the way sex education is currently presented. The first flaw is that sex can be "safe". Yet any GP will confirm that condoms reduce but do not prevent the risk of STIs. Nor do they provide a 100% guarantee against pregnancy. In other words, there is no such thing as "safe sex". Trust me as a parent who has had three additional children by this means!

Second and most importantly, the whole psychology of sex education is flawed. Because we have given in to the assumption that sex is inevitable, we are then teaching children how to say yes. But if we want to reduce incidences of sex and its consequences, we should be more interested in teaching children and young adults how to say no and why that is most often a sensible idea. The two approaches are not exclusive. It’s the emphasis that is wrong.

The consequences of a sexualized society are not just in STIs, unintended pregnancies and abortions. In the Social Justice Policy Group reports Fractured Families and Breakthrough Britain, we mentioned some of the destabilizing knock-on effects of sex and cohabitation on relationships that are not explicitly committed. The latest research is showing up important gender differences in attitudes to commitment. Men in particular who slide into a cohabiting relationship tend to be less committed even if they subsequently marry. The acceptance of casual sex and cohabitation are thus a direct contributor to the relentless increase in family breakdown.

Having whinged and whined for years about the lack of serious family policy amongst any of the main parties, I am personally delighted that Mr. Cameron has put family policy at the top of the political agenda. It’s far from clear that any sex education programme, whether yes-based or no-based, can have much impact outside the context of a wider family policy. Despite the BBC’s misrepresentation, I welcome the change in emphasis.

Comments

[Andrew Lilico]

Recreation and procreation are not the only - or even, I submit, the main - alternatives. What about as an act of bonding, as an expression of love and/or commitment and/or intimacy and/or vulnerability and/or uniqueness, as an act of healing or restoration, and so on. The reduction to "procreation vs recreation" seems to me a poor error, reducing sex to either biological function or meaningless exercise. Sex is much richer than that.

[Tony Makara]

There is nothing wrong in the right type of sexual education. Sex is a major part of life, a life-affirming experience and one that brings couples together and is the prime-mover in the creation of the family unit. The problems with sex occur when sex goes beyond a one-to-one relationship and leads to licentious behaviour. The right type of sexual education can put emphasis on the positive aspects of sex as a bonding experience in a loving relationship. At the same time it can point out the severe psychological and physical damage that comes with leading a debasing promiscuous lifestyle. Sex education, the right type of sex education, can be of great benefit.

[IRJMilne]

I hated sex education at school and consequently support its full abolition. Some woman coming into a class full of boys and telling them how to put on a condom strikes me as disgusting - thank God that only the first elements of "Sex Ed" were taught at my co-ed primary.

I remember being especially insulted by being told that "you will need to know this" - basically presuming that everyone in the class was going to have sex before they got married. We were also shown a somewhat disgusting video of a boy masturbating in biology, which strikes me as being pornography, but in this day and age passes for "education".

You go to school to learn Euclides and Herodotus, Ptolemy and Cicero - not the blasted Karma Sutra. Modern liberalism makes many peoples teenage years a much more miserable nightmare than they need to be.

[Deborah]

I don't think Harry Benson meant to minimise the importance of sex in a loving relationship.
Unfortunately the media and the national curriculum promote sex with anyone who's willing as an everyday form of recreation. For teenage boys that must seem great, but for teenage girls it is a disaster - they need support to say no. The sex education curriculum provides little or no help in this.
My teenage daughters have been taught all about contraception and the most gruesome details about STIs with the underlying assumption that they will be out there with multiple partners so STIs are inevitable.
Teenagers do need to be taught about the risks - but in the right context. They need to understand that they won't be "odd" if they don't indulge in underage and promiscuous sex.

I wonder how many parents know what their teenagers are being taught?

[Mr Angry]

COMMENT OVERRIDDEN FOR BEING UNCONSTRUCTIVE

[Tony Makara]

"the media and the national curriculum promote sex with anyone who's willing as an everyday form of recreation"

Deborah, you have hit the nail on the head. Soap operas like 'Eastenders' promote this sort of behaviour. The volume of affairs and casual sexual relations in such programmes sends out a message. Children are exposed to these messages and will take them as being the norm. These programmes should be cleaned up or moved well beyond the watershed. In fact the watershed itself should be raised to well beyond a childs bedtime.

[Patsy Sergeant]

Deborah I agree with you entirely, there is just one thing that I think needs to be added to this debate or problem, and that is the part that alcohol (and drugs too of course, but it is easier to get alcohol) plays.

It is rich that today on the news was something about Mr. Brown 'doing something' about teenagers and alcohol, when it was his government (he was the Chancellor!, and getting the increased revenue) that brought in 24hr, or longer licensing hours. As we can see from police programmes shown regularly on TV, this has lead to increased drunkeness of young people.

No matter how much a young person is taught about saying 'no' (which I entirely agree with), when they become inebriated, whether male or female, it becomes virtually impossible to say 'no'. Nearly every morning Jeremy Kyle (I am sure someone will disapprove!), has young people, sometimes couples but most with ast least one child or one on the way, AND most as a result of a drunken one-night-stand, and he says overand, overand, over again - 'why don't you keep it in your pants, or use contraception?!'

I think the problem is more profound than what is being discussed on this thread, because I think that in our hedonistic society, it is 'uncool' for a lot of young people to have a belief in something, something that would help them to direct their own lives. People have been urged to 'do their own thing' for a few years now, without anybody actually defining WHAT is meant by 'do your own thing' !!! After all, to a psychopath 'do your own thing' could constitute going on an enjoyable murder spree!!! (As for as they are concerned of course).

Over and over again I say to the TV screen 'why don't you qualify what you are saying' !!, time and again, politicians and clerics and advisors make statements, which sound good for a moment, but then you realise that what they have said doesn't say anything specific, its just a nice sounding phrase.....

[Ken Stevens]

How about a new subject -"Love & Respect Education", of which the sexual bit is a more moderate part and not regarded as invariably requiring early project work!

[Chad Noble]

"In other words, there is no such thing as "safe sex"."

Is there any such thing as 'safe' anything? But if you insist on being pedantic, then I assume 'safer sex' would be OK?

Of course the government should continue to highlight how essential it is to wear a condom, then they should leave us to get on with it.

Surely drink, drugs and shagging are the very foundation stones of a happy life!

[Deborah]

"Surely drink, drugs and shagging are the very foundation stones of a happy life!"

They are the foundations of Brave New World

[David]

"This is the highest level in Western Europe"

The rest of which has a slightly less prurient attitude to sex education. Want to stop STDs and teenage pregancies? Then just teach about safe sex. Best way to go about it.

"Unfortunately the media and the national curriculum promote sex with anyone who's willing as an everyday form of recreation"

No, really, it doesn't.

[Harry Benson]

David
Regardless of the UK studies that show sex education does not stop STDs and teenage pregnancies, it's simply not the case that the healthier family statistics in other European countries are down to less prurient sex education. Family stability and more conservative social attitudes are far more likely underlying reasons. See the report "Deconstructing the Dutch Utopia" as an example - download from www.famyouth.org.uk/pdfs/DDU.pdf

[Alan]

Harry,

It's been a lot more standard as, Chad alludes to above, that the term 'safer sex' rather than 'safe sex' is used. I think it's an important distinction. There shouldn't be a pretense that sex is ever risk free but nor should there be a hyterical, puritanical scare campaign about what are risks that adults (including young adults) can and will ultimately choose to take, if they wish.

I work in this field and kids ARE told that condoms don't offer full protection and why this is the case. The problem is that this is not done consistently and in a way that it becomes something young people know intuitively. I know that by the time I'd reached univeristy I'd forgotten the ins and outs of what the risks were and I don't think I ever really knew some of them.

I really do question why you fear more sex (& relationships) education at a younger age when the evidence from the Netherlands for example (where the age of consent is lower) seems to show that young people delay sex to a later age there than uk young people. They also have fewer teenage pregnancies and lower rates of sti's.

I think kids are not eqippued with a full and frank knowledge of the risks at an apporopriate frequency and in good time. This means they don't have the saavy to make choices that will help to keep them as safe and happy as possible whatever their sexual choices.

I am often surprised that kids and even young adults in my peer group do not understand that the cancer causing hpv can be passed on by sexual activity even using condoms or that you can contract sti's from sexual acts besides anal or vaginal sex. Then I remember that I didn't know these things either in the right amount of detail until I started working in sexual health. This says to me that something is amiss in the way we're tacklin' sex and relationships education. People are bound to forget unless the topic is broached regularly and imaginatively. The state, the voluntary sector and others can all bring their talents to bear to make this possible.

I'm not against talking about the benefits of monogamous relationships or delaying/abstaining from sex (in fact that's already happening, though there is much room for improvement) but those things need to be spoken about in the wider context.

I don't want to see a scenario where we're just talking about monogamous relationships and dealying sex until you're 16/18/married/whatever. We need something more sophisticated than that, where by we can help people develop strategies to protect their sexual health & emotional wellbeing and that of others.

We need compulsory age appropriate sex and relationships education from the early years of school just as in the Netherlands.

I reccommend this website for a perspective on this topic: http://www.channel4.com/learning/microsites/L/lifestuff/content/up_close/letstalksex/

[Tim Roll-Pickering]

Well here's a basic question about whether or not current sex education is working or not - when everyone had their sex education at school, approximately what proportion of the class were virgins?