Sexual education in schools has been and will be an ongoing debate for a long time. The issue is, it’s a debate between parents and the school, and not a debate between students. Some parents do not want their kids to be learning about safe sex and STDs in school. And that’s a reason why sexual education classes are not mandatory in many school systems. Some think that kids should learn about sex from their parents.

Starting with statistics, in 2013, 47% of high school students in the United States reported having sexual intercourse. This may come as a surprise to you, but if you’ve ever eavesdropped on a few conversations between high school students, maybe it isn’t a surprise. 47 out of every 100 high school students have had sexual intercourse, and this means that 47 out of every 100 high school students have been exposed to STDs and the risk of teenage pregnancy. But the issue is, that lots of these students aren’t aware that by engaging in sexual activity, they are being exposed to these risks at all. For example, many high school students think that STDs are visible, which in most instances, is not the case. Someone with HIV or AIDS, for example, could be carrying the disease without any obvious signs that they have an STD at all. Some teenagers are misinformed about pregnancy as well – there are myths about conception prevention methods and myths about what can and cannot get someone pregnant.

Learning about the way our bodies work and how we can protect ourselves, is in my opinion, a right. Having access to information about sex and the risks and consequences that having sex carries with it should be something that all high school students are exposed to. My research for this article is not as extensive as I would have liked it to be, for example, because websites categorized as “Education.sex” are blocked. If you don’t know what that means, it means that websites that have been categorized as ‘sexual education’ are blocked from being viewed while on school grounds because they are deemed ‘inappropriate’.
Sexual education is an ongoing debate and you are entitled to your opinion about what you think students should and shouldn’t learn about in school. But just as you are entitled to your opinion, you are entitled to a proper and informative education. This piece is simply my opinion, and does not reflect the thoughts of the rest of the Mustang Messenger staff.