Last week I moderated a panel at UW-Milwaukee as part of the campus' observation of World AIDS Day. I have to admit that, before the event, I was worried about what kind of attendance we'd get. HIV used to be the thing that grabbed people's attention, the sexually transmitted infection that could kill you, a terrible death sentence. In fact, in my early career as a sexuality educator, I had a hard time getting people to see past their fears of HIV to more common STIs that they were actually much more likely to contract. Now, the average person seems jaded about HIV. Yeah, yeah, use condoms, don't share needles-what else are you going to tell me that's new?
Fortunately, we had a good crowd at the event. Our panelists-representing the UWM College of Nursing, Diverse & Resilient, the AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin, and the Milwaukee Health Department-made HIV relevant to the audience through their passionate stories about the clients they served. However, the most interesting moment of the evening came during the question-and-answer session. A student got up to ask if the panelists thought that higher rates of HIV infection among those under the age of 25 could be linked to young people receiving sexuality education at earlier ages than previous generations. This student seemed to imply (and hopefully I'm not misinterpreting his comments) that he was concerned about offering sexuality education programs for grade school or middle school students rather than waiting until high school.
In response, the panel members spoke fervently and eloquently about the importance of comprehensive sexuality education, and one panelist stated that the implementation of sex-ed programs in Milwaukee Public Schools and across the country were spotty at best. In my experience as a college health educator, I would have to agree. If anything is related to rising HIV rates among young adults, it's the fact that for the past eight years, abstinence-only programs have been taught in middle schools and high schools rather than skills-based, factual, comprehensive sexuality education programs. I've been amazed at the transformation of incoming college freshmen from being relatively well-informed about safer sex and contraception to being fairly clueless. In fact, I published a sexuality education curriculum for young adults earlier this year to try to address this gap in knowledge.
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When I introduce myself to audiences before leading a workshop, I often say that I've taught sexuality education classes to everyone from kindergartners to grandparents. Inevitably, someone will later ask, "What would you teach a five-year-old about sex?", as if I'm some kind of terrible pedophile. Our society's view of sexuality is so narrow that all we can think of is STIs, pregnancy, and the ol' in-and-out. When I lead sexuality education classes for young children, we talk about the correct names for sexual anatomy, different types of family structures, gender roles, sexual abuse prevention, and how babies grow inside the uterus. The topic of "sexual intercourse" only comes up if parents decide they'd like to address it, but the classes are full of rich discussion and activities, because sex itself is only a small part of our sexuality.
Any parent knows that children are naturally curious about their own and others' bodies. In fact, our experience of sexuality is something that begins at birth. During a parenting class that I co-facilitated at the Tool Shed, one young mother was extremely relieved to hear from other parents that her infant son's genital self-exploration was normal. Sexuality isn't something that springs into existence fully formed once we hit puberty, and because of that, it's important for children, adolescents and adults to learn about healthy sexuality throughout their entire lives.
As one panelist put it, "Sexuality is the only topic where we think that less information is somehow better." We would never think that our children would become more skilled at solving math problems if we didn't teach them about algebra, so why would we think that young people will make better sexual decisions if we don't teach them about sex? And we don't wait to teach young people about algebra until the night before they're taking the SATs - we build their knowledge and skills gradually over time. Sexuality education should be no different.
Laura Anne Stuart owns the Tool Shed, an erotic boutique on Milwaukee's East Side. She has a master's degree in public health and has worked as a sexuality educator for more than a decade. Want Laura to answer your questions in SEXpress? Send them to laura@shepex.com. Not all questions received will be answered in the column, and Laura cannot provide personal answers to questions that do not appear here. Questions sent to this address may be reproduced in this column, both in print and online, and may be edited for clarity and content.
