I’m sure everyone remembers the first time they entered the sex-ed classroom, feeling utterly terrified, embarrassed, and freaked out to the max. Sex education didn’t even begin with sex, however. It began with, for the girls, how to practice proper feminine hygiene, what a tampon is, etc. When we hit middle school, we actually began to learn about our own bodies, and we began to learn about sex.

However, there are so many flaws about the way we teach people about sex. For one, the idea of abstinence is preached to children as “the best method” for safe sex. However, barely anyone practices abstinence, and we can’t expect every single middle school and high school student to wait for their true love to sweep them off their feet. It’s crazy to think that teaching this will actually help lower the number of middle and high school students getting pregnant or getting STDs.

Teenagers shouldn’t be pressured into waiting until marriage. They have so much going on with their bodies, their minds, their own lives, and add the pressure of keeping a relationship and having sex on top of that. Being a teenager is a time to start to understand how your body works, so how can teenagers even began to comprehend how if abstinence is the only answer taught?

What we should be teaching, is how to not be so anxious about it. Sex is portrayed as this dangerous, risky behavior that only delinquents involve themselves with. But, in reality, sex is human nature. It’s how we create life itself, so why is it something that is shamed so early? Students should be taught how to have sex safely, with someone you trust, and someone you feel you can share that connection with. Students should actually know what a condom is and how it works. Girls should know about birth control, Plan B, etc. How to have this relationship and this trust is something that should be taught too.

Abstinence isn’t the thing that’s bad, to clear it up. Abstinence is something that people can choose to follow, and no one should be allowed to give them any grief for it. However, it shouldn’t be the “best method of safe sex” because that’s unrealistic, and it’s unfair. It’s unfair to all the students who look at themselves as dirty, as sluts, as “loose” because they decided they didn’t want to wait until marriage to have sex with someone.

Porn should not be how someone at a young age learns how to have sex. It sets them up for an unrealistic expectation, and it’s now how intimacy actually works. It would be so much better to learn how to have sex from a real-life teacher, not imitating movements that you saw on your computer screen. And abstinence shouldn’t be the other, more enticing option either. Sex is, again, a part of being human. So why don’t we start teaching young people about sex, the proper way, not the abstinence-only way, and certainly not the porn way!