Comprehensive Sex Education Doesn’t Consider Cultural Values

Myth: The Comprehensive Sex Education is usually conducted by not considering the cultural values and traditions of our society.

Fact: Sex Education has traditionally been part of certain geographical regions for a very long time. For example, several European countries like Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, France, Netherlands, etc have started giving sex education to the children in the early years of 20th century and few others have started in the late years. But in other countries, the need for such sex education was not recognized extensively until there was an outbreak of HIV/AIDS in many countries.

Conservative societies like few in India think that it is against the culture to have the children exposed to matter related to sex and sexuality. It is strongly believed that children undergoing sex education can disrupt the social construct of the family and could not uphold their cultural values. Hence, such countries adopted abstinence only sex education curriculum by focusing more on preventing all unmarried people, especially teens from involving in the sexual activity. However, the results of abstinence only program were more or less same as the results of not providing any sex education. There were also extreme cases reported, where people showed unwillingness towards contraceptives like condoms, wherever it was necessary. Thus, the abstinence only sex education focused only on the cultural values and traditions of the society and lost focus on the need of sex education.

When the situation went beyond HIV/AIDS and faced critical situations like teen pregnancy, increased sexual abuse and violence, the need for introducing the comprehensive sex education was realized. Especially, after countries like Germany and Netherlands shown proven results in terms of lowest teen pregnancy rates and STDs, the role of comprehensive sex education has enlightened.

Comprehensive sex education gives equal weight age to both the norms and the age-appropriate knowledge on sex education. Each country carries its own socio-cultural norms and hence the designing of the curriculum for the comprehensive sex education is customized accordingly. Mostly, the curriculum does not only cover the aspects of sexuality, but also deals with the relationship issues.

Simultaneously, one must also understand as to what is culture. The culture keeps changing and evolving over a period of time, according to the needs of the society. Once Indians were practicing Sati system very effectively, which became irrelevant in today’s time. Similarly, the sex education must also be encouraged to ensure a safe and health being, physically and psychologically.

Also Read: Comprehensive Sex Education Encourages Youth to get Involved in Sex

Also Read: Myths for Sex Education is not Required For Country like India

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