Sex education Part 1

Every few weeks there is a new news story about the idiotic state of sex education in this country.  I have a feeling this will not be the last post I make on this topic, hence the "Part 1" thing.  Today's story covers a new BAFTA winning video game out designed to teach teenagers the importance of strapping their shit up.  In it, gun toting soldiers with condoms for hats fire at sperm and STD's.  It is designed for teenagers who already know the facts of life to reinforce their use of condoms and to teach them the value of safe sex.

I think that this is the most retarded concept in the whole world ever.  The reason I think this is because I was once fourteen.  Had I been presented this by a well-meaning Sex and Relationships and Ideology Teacher all those years ago, I and my classmates would have died of embarrassment.  When you are a teenager, there is nothing quite so lame and groan-inducing as when grown-ups try to be cool.  Presenting teenagers with a video game to try to be down with the kids and totally at their level is never going to work.

Once the Sexuality and Liberal Indoctrination class is over, the only reaction that any fourteen year old girl is going to have is to call her friends and proceed to shriek and giggle.   I imagine boys will laugh just as much at these things, but perhaps without the shrill cackling.  This is a perfectly reasonable reaction because if you don't see the funny side to this game then you are completely and utterly humourless and have clearly never been a teenager.

But then there's the sinister side.  Teenagers, like it or not, will eventually have sex.  One can only hope that when it does happen, that condoms are used with great care.  But this game makes condoms seem so silly, that I cannot help but wonder if teenagers will regard condom use as an option.  I know that if I or any of my friends had played this game as teenagers the mere mention of condoms would have sent us into fits of giggles many years after the event.  I would hate to think that when condom use comes up in a more serious context that it would not be taken seriously.  

I would never dream of having sex without a condom.  But I do think that the overall message in this game and in much of sex education is problematic, to wit "Use condoms and you won't get STI's or unwanted pregnancy because everybody is hoaching with disease and all women are permanently fertile." 

One fact about sex is that you are statistically very unlikely to get pregnant as a result, and that not nearly everybody has STI's.  My sex education class at school consisted of dire warnings about the dangers of STI's and pregnancy, and yet one of my friends still managed to get herself pregnant when we were 15.  When I asked her why on earth she hadn't used protection, she told me that she'd been sexually active for two years and that nothing had happened as a result, and so she'd dismissed condom use entirely.  Completely dismayed, I asked around and found that many of my friends had shockingly similar attitudes.  Clearly, the scaremongering tactics of sex education don't work, and only result in teenagers dutifully ignoring them.

What we do need are sex education programmes that encourage positive reasons for condom use.  As a heavy user of condoms, I feel I have some authoritah on this matter. I do not actually believe that any of my clients have STI's, but believe you me, safe sex is an absolute must. What condoms do provide is peace of mind.  I know that every time I have sex using a condom, I'm doing my best to keep myself and my clients safe.  While it is true that condoms have done an admirable job of protecting my physical wellbeing, I find that my mental and emotional wellbeing are a much more important aspect of safe sex. 

However, the disease control element of condoms cannot be ignored.  As a society, if everyone used condoms every time they had sex in a non-monogamous context, STI's would cease to exist.  The reason I flip out when some retard calls up wanting bareback is not because he's asking for bareback from me, but because he's probably doing it to everybody.  And the reason he's asking me for bareback is because he's asked someone else at some point at the answer has been yes. In my book the bareback requester has no regard for his own health and that of others.  Using condoms is a way to show respect for yourself and others. 

 One of the best ways to convince young people to use condoms is the emphasise the fact that it is no longer the 1970's.  People did all manner of retardation with sex back then, most of it unsafe, often with dire consequences.  We can still continue in the liberated spirit of the sexual revolution, but with condoms, we no longer need to suffer as a result.  Condoms have become an essentail part of non-monogamous sexual behaviour for three decades now and that is one trend that should never die out.

Teenagers may be immature, but they aren't stupid, and the main fault of sex education programmes is that for a very long time now they have treated young people like idiots.  This game is perhaps the most idiotic thing I have seen to date, and I personally feel as though I have lost brain cells just by looking at it.  Disease control is an important element in all sex education, but scare tactics seldom get taken seriously.  Trying to make sex education "cool" with video games is far worse because it treats young people as much younger than they are. This game is intended to "sell" safe sex to teenagers without any regard for sexual practices they might engage in when they grow up.  After all, the decision to have sex is an adult one, and condom use should be treated as a lifelong practice that is beneficial to individuals and society.