A critical need for sex education

2019-08-22

In a prevailing society of silence and taboo on adolescent’s natural desires or habits, the assumption-based project of sexual ignorance appears to have failed its grade in streamlining the youth’s sexual well-being and state of mind.  In the contemporary era of helicopter parenting where parents pay attention to every aspect of their children’s lives, they somehow neglect or struggle to discuss and educate their teenagers about the one aspect of life – natural and beautiful habits of reproduction, as they frequently feel ashamed, or too shy to speak about its progression. However,  this wrong approach of neglecting household education in sex-related growth has resulted in severe impairment in the mental and physical aspect of a young adult’s sexual health, as this deprivation of knowledge has often led to people’s high school and college life to be driven with unwanted or uncontrollable sexual desires, which could potentially harm both life’s conditional growth and career’s prospects.  

When human species are living within the realm of adolescence, i.e., from the age group of 15- 21, the human body experiences a hormonal outburst; which explodes into a range of emotions, affecting many aspects of life such as personality, emotions, feelings, sexuality, self-acceptance and personal belief.  It is within this region of growing existence, where teenagers (adolescents) find themselves stuck in the web of vulnerability, due to imbalances in sensation and life’s intentions.

During this phase of hormonal imbalances, teenagers require critical assistance, as similar to how cruise-ships navigate past rough seas with the crucial aid of anchors and other facilities during long journeys, the social-human vessels, i.e., adolescents require additional anchors called parental support and guidance, to prevent them from sinking beneath the ocean of strenuous difficulties within life. This representation of parental streamlining requires careful and delicate crafts of care to not just extrinsic standards of living such as academics, or sociability, but it also requires a matured approach towards explaining, some of the crucial and delicate functions of intrinsic life such as sexuality in a responsible manner.  

If the educational discussion of sexuality remains boycotted between both generation of adults and adolescents, then the entire stand of guidance based on academics, physicality or sociability could fall into hindsight, as though parental advice on academics and sociability play a key role in one’s holistic development, the negligence of sex education from parents could damage teenagers and young adults’ lifestyle and entire existence. Why? It is because this negligence has seen adolescents taking a leap of pleasure through self-sex education by indulging in several life-destroying activities by being sub-consciously manipulated by stress imbalances and curiosity caused by hormonal activity.

Today, thousands of parents have been blinded by the innumerable ways where their children often attempt to educate themselves sexually and participate in several pleasurable activities (stress relieving).  The most common scenario for pleasure is in person; where youth enjoy sexual indulgences with unwanted and unfamiliar people by making college life a sexual paradise, where people visit unwanted attractions such as HIV, hepatitis, other Sexually transmitted diseases, teenage pregnancy, and relationship issues.  Additionally, the internet is also another pleasurable hub where adolescents follow daily educational illustrations, carried out through webcam sex on Appear, Skype, Facetime, and many other portals. The reasoning for why these practices are carried out is due to sub-conscious possession and self-hypnotism based on curiosity whose original purpose of sexual relations, hasn’t been established by parental advice and intervention (the emergence of dangerous addictions).

Consequently, the aftermath of repercussion faced by victims of sex-related education-turned-addiction often results in the need for parents to dive deep down into treacherous waters, to find their incapacitated teenagers or young adults who drowned after being wrecked by their inability to fight off addictions.  This wreckage is a result of the burden formed by shame, depression, unbearable sensitivity, and self-inflicted guilt, which ultimately causes suicides, illnesses, and family damage. Eventually, this slow realization has been a norm due to a variety of factors, such as weak generative guidance from parents and growth of taboo related ignorance.  

Therefore, as parents in a sensitive and complicated world, it is essential to maintain a standard of personal respect and dignity in public, but it is also even more important to value personal space and expose private and intrinsic vulnerability (sex education) to teenagers (15-16 and above) and young adults.  Conclusively, as we continue to nurture the youth, we need to realize that though different people will have different opinions regarding sex education, I believe that with the constant rise in adolescent irresponsibility in sexuality, sex education should not be considered taboo in families, instead, it should be taught with the most responsibility. As not only, will its inculcation prevent the youth from going astray, but it will also help them genuinely recognize their maturity and responsibility in life. Ultimately, parents should realize that sexuality is not a self-learned subject for adolescents, but a sensitive subject which without intervention could destroy, but with care could flourish in the purest form.

“ I believe that, if parents genuinely value their children’s lives and future by doing whatever it takes for the child’s growth, then they should abandon the substantiation of taboo-related excuses of shame when discussing the crucial aspect of sex education, and instead consider it as the one significant lesson which forms a tight rope between the balance of success and a slip of failure into darkness.”DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author’s own.

Author: Rohan Keni I am a 19-year-old student hailing from Goa, India. Over the years, I was raised in Dubai and have recently relocated to Missouri, USA to pursue a degree in. . .