Op-Ed: Why Colleges Should Teach Sex Ed

You have graduation requirements, right? Math, writing seminar, something science-y that makes your GPA plummet like an anchor to the bottom of the sea (damn you, Astronomy 001!) Unless you go to Brown where you can major in underwater basket weaving with a minor in shoelaces and be left to your own merry liberal artsy devices, your school likely has at least a few graduation requirements.
 
One requirement you probably don’t have is sex ed. But I think you should.
 

“Graduation requirements! Don’t make me laugh,” says Emma Watson, typical Brown student.
 
A university’s primary aims should be to educate and promote the welfare of its students, and comprehensive sexual education is essential to meeting both of those goals.  Colleges aren’t just institutions of higher education; they’re home to thousands of teenagers and twenty-somethings for four of the most formative years of these young people’s lives. Schools have a responsibility to ensure that each student has an adequate foundation of sexual knowledge, from the basics of STDs and birth control to the definition of consent. In the event that students choose to be sexually active (sorry, Juno), colleges have an obligation to prepare and inform.
 
Schools might oppose sex education for any number of reasons. It’s possible that colleges are secretly invested in students hooking up, accidentally getting pregnant, and sending the surprise spawn to be double-legacy graduates of the Class of 2034. For some reason, I find this unlikely.
 
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There is the always-popular argument that teaching young people about sex will inspire students to have sex. This, however, assumes said students weren’t already thinking about sex. Interesting. Here is a list of things that make teenagers think about sex: homework, nail polish, Smurfs, the State of the Union address, toothpaste, literally everything in the universe. What’s more, when the National Campaign To Prevent Teenage Pregnancy analyzed 250 studies of sex education programs, they determined that “the overwhelming weight of evidence shows that sex education that discusses contraception does not increase sexual activity.” As you likely know, this finding ended the debate over the dangers of sex ed once and for all, just as the Roe v. Wade decision   ended the dispute over abortion.
 

 If you are a teenager, there is a 100% chance you are thinking about sex right now.
 
You could say that, upon arriving at college, most teenagers have already received some form of sexual education in high school. Michael Gold, a University of Pennsylvania senior who went to a magnet public school, said of his high school sex ed experience: “[My sex ed class in high school] was very comprehensive. We were taught about spermicides, IUDs, diaphragms. Abstinence was discussed but condoms were emphasized a lot. I know that I had friends [who bought] condoms with spermicide because they learned that a condom with spermicide makes it much less likely you’ll get a girl pregnant.”
 
Still, while plenty of schools provide excellent sexual education courses, there are schools with inadequate sex ed curricula. Some teach abstinence only; some teach nothing at all.
 
“For me, now, the most important thing about sexual education is how to have safe sex and how to say no. I think the hardest thing, and most important thing, is learning how to have a two-sided consensual agreement, where both people understand what the other person wants. I would call what we had reproduction education, not sex education,” said Hannah Ware, a University of Pennsylvania senior who attended private high school in Alabama.
 
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Anecdotally speaking, I can say that my high school’s version of sex ed was pretty similar to the Mean Girls method   of “sex equals death.” It was completely useless. Our health class spent about two weeks on shaking baby syndrome and about two seconds on safe sex. We never even put a condom on a banana! What’s up with that, Governor Livingston High School? riteofpassagefail (go to 6:10, kids).
 

“Birds and bees?” Snoopy thinks to himself. “But what about dogs?”
 
“I think that depending on the way people were raised, they might come to college without any real knowledge of how to have safe sex, i.e., people like me who were raised ‘abstinence only,’” said a female senior at the University of Pennsylvania (name witheld upon request).
 
High school sex ed is usually heteronormative; heavily focused on pregnancy prevention and defining sex as something between a man and a woman. There’s rarely discussion about any other type of intercourse, and it sends a message that there’s only one “normal” or “acceptable” way to be sexually active.
 
College can and should see to it that every student has basic sexual education, regardless of his or her previous expertise, or lack thereof, about sex. And a university that mandates sexual education would not be a university that instructs all incoming freshmen to jump into bed with each other. Even though the 500-plus colleges and universities in the U.S. that require students to complete Alcohol Education (Alc Edu) —an online alcohol prevention program—do not and cannot condone underage drinking, they still require that students complete this compulsory alcohol education course before arriving on campus. These schools hope for the best—that we’ll all make smart, legal decisions—and prepare for the worst, namely, that we’ll all end up puking in our dorm bathroom with some kid from our hall holding back our hair.
 
I applaud this preemptive damage control, and there’s no reason not to do the same thing with sex education. While it would be nice to presume every student on campus is waiting for that serious, monogamous relationship with a person he or she loves, trusts, and respects (or is waiting for marriage, if that’s your preference), plenty of students don’t.
 
There is a sexual assault module in AlcEdu. It’s an excellent start, but surely universities know that there’s more to college sex than date rape. Sex ed wouldn’t even need to be a semester-long class. In fact, I believe the program would be more effective and, obviously, more efficient, if it took place as a mandatory seminar-style orientation event students attend every year.
 
Even if a school elected to teach only abstinence, they could still educate students about consent. How do you not teach consent? This is a failing that goes beyond the realm of sexual behavior. Consent is about open communication, self-respect, and respect for others. How is a person supposed to graduate from college, prepared to be a functional and contributing member of society, without learning all of that?
 
To be a happy and healthy adult, you need a basic foundation of sexual knowledge. College is the perfect place to teach sex ed, and universities should seize the opportunity to inform and enlighten students so we are all equipped to make smart, safe decisions.
 
If nothing else, sex ed would be a hell of a lot more practical than Astronomy.
 
Sources: http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED456171&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED456171
 
 

• sex
• sexual health