Sexual Health is still profoundly influenced by shame and stigma around sexuality
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In 2010, the World Association for Sexual Health (WAS) set September 4th as 'World Sexual Health Day' (WSHD) to promote social awareness of sexual health worldwide. However, what do we truly mean by sexual well-being?
I remember the first time that I took part in an S.E. class. I was around seventeen years old and, like many folks of my age, interested in learning more about sexuality and its implications. I have always been extremely curious about sex, probably more than my peers – which soon made me 'gain' the s-word epithet.
I can recall a woman, who I now assume must have been a therapist or sexologist, dividing my classroom into two different groups, separating 'boys and girls' (binary vision of gender, off to a great start!). Then, she proceeded to explain how to put on a condom, to enlist all the types of STDs that you could contract through blood and/or sperm contact, and to explain that it’s okay if we’re upset once a month because our hormones are a bit crazy those days.
Sex Education should cover more than just talking about condoms
I don’t want to undermine the importance of talking about safety and the use of contraception when engaging in sexual activities, as it is fundamental. However, I felt these topics were faced shallowly and that many other things could have been discussed. To put it in different words, I remember being so disappointed: I wanted to talk sex, and instead, I witnessed a condom being placed on a banana.
Now, it might be true that Italy, the country in which I was born and raised, doesn’t really have the reputation of being a remarkably sex-positive country. According to the European Institute for Gender Equality, Italy scores 68.2 points out of 100 on the Gender Equality Index, “2.0 points below the score for the E.U. as a whole”. In my personal experience, this is not difficult to believe: the whole “Madonna-whore” complex in Italy is still present in everyday life, and as Amanda Castleman explains in this great article, 'Mary, Mary Quite Contrary', the most vulgar, vile thing that you can say in the Italian language is the s-word contraposed to the name of the virgin Mary (paraphrasis made by me). There are certainly better examples of education around gender and sexuality. However, it would be really convenient and ultimately unfair to point the finger toward countries that have the reputation of being more conservative; talking like the rest of the world wasn’t far from teaching about sex without a massive burden of stigma, shame and puritanism.
What about the 'sex talk'
When talking about S.E, overall, the idea is always the same: education on how to put a condom, talking about how to get an abortion (but, at the same time, describing it as a sort of tragedy that MUST ruin your life and that should make you feel horrible for the rest of it), and scaring the shit out of teenagers showing them pictures of genitalia affected by all sorts of STDs. Don’t get me wrong: unwanted pregnancies and infections are no joke, and young people should be taught in detail about such topics.
However, this type of education is still firmly based on two, and two only, pillars. Firstly, the 'sex talk' should happen once, when you are already a teen. Secondly, the only thing that matters is to teach how to avoid the worst-case scenarios because sex is something nasty and dangerous. Topics such as pleasure and consent are rarely mentioned.
Regarding 'sex talk', I firmly believe that it should always be age-appropriate. Explaining to your three-year-old child what complete sexual intercourse is would be inappropriate and confusing for them. However, as the sexual counsellor Kathleen Hema describes in detail on her Instagram channel @thekathleenhem, sex talk is something that should be done step by step, starting from a very young age. A good start could be teaching children accurate names for their body parts without using silly words such as butterfly, flower, and all that crap. She points out that many cases of sexual assault in minors could have been avoided if we had given them the correct language to talk about their bodies without shame.
Consent and pleasure
Ultimately, suppose we want our kids to grow up without being ashamed of their sexuality and ignorant about their bodies. In that case, you cannot expect to never talk about their bodies and minds until they reach puberty and then bomb them with loads of information at once. There is not one sex talk: parents should give different layers of information to give their offspring the tools to start understanding their bodies.
Consent is another vast topic that should be covered more in Sex Ed. How many times have we heard that not engaging in sexual activities for all different types of reasons could make us lose our partners? How many times, mainly directed toward female-presenting people, certain clothes, mannerisms, or life choices (e.g. taking drugs) have been considered as implicit consent when that was NOT the case? I wish sex education taught folks in the age of consent that they don’t owe sexual acts to anybody and that they're ALWAYS free to say no, in every circumstance, if they don’t feel like engaging in certain acts. I wish it taught people socialised as females that there’s nothing outrageous and disgusting about wanting to explore their sexuality.
A pleasant sexual experience is not only one that will not lead you toward STDs or unwanted pregnancies; that is the bare minimum. It is also one in which nobody feels coerced and pressured, in which physical and mental boundaries have been established, and in which everybody knows how their body works. Yet, it still sounds lunatic or blasphemous to teach people who are the age to give consent that sex should be an enjoyable, pleasurable experience and that it should not only be safe but fun, too.
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