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So, there's this ongoing debate in Certain Countries (*cough*) about sex education; between, well, actual education, and a concept I find nonsensical called 'abstinence-only'.
The reason I find it nonsensical is this: it is safe to assume that, of any group of teenagers, the majority of them will, at some point in their lives, engage in sexual activity.
This is true even if they remain purely abstinent virgins until their church-based heterosexual marriage. And most heterosexual married couples these days do, in fact, use contraception.
This means that the use of contraception falls fairly firmly into the category of general life skills that high school education should be teaching, anyway.
I think the approach my school took was actually pretty good. It opened with: "Here are the studies that show that becoming sexually active too young is really quite unhealthy for your emotional and social development. So, you know, keep that in mind. Also, if someone wants to have sex with you, it's your decision, and if they're pressuring you, it's a pretty good sign you should say no."
So far so good, in terms of discouraging us from going right out and banging the first person we saw.
However, it continued, more or less: "However, at some point in your lives, hopefully a fairly significant number of years from now, odds are most if not all of you are going to have sex, at which point it would be good for you to know a few things..."
At which point the class covered sexually transmitted diseases, pregnancy, methods of contraception, and the success rates to be expected from different forms of contraception with regards to pregnancy and disease prevention.
All in a framework of: We're telling you this now because ideally, it shouldn't be relevant yet, but we want you to know it when it is.
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