Sex Education: Anecdotes and Apathy
Sex Education in most schools and societies has ensued multiple euphemisms and metaphors. It has been the center of awkward giggles, division of boys and girls in the class, and a universal feeling of isolation and shame. This blog explores these ideas of misinformation about bodies, the lack of concern to engage in important conversations, and its contribution to period poverty.
Sex education forms the cornerstone of important adolescent awareness, since it encompasses the role of the body in function and expression, and indicates of relations between individuals. Growing up, Sex Education was an hour-long seminar, on a sleepy weekday afternoon, when the girls were sat in an auditorium and told that their bodies were developing. Boys ran off to play, and returned an hour later, with hundreds of questions about what they had missed. This seminar was my first introduction to concepts like periods and sanitary products. We were told that when we bled, we needed to make sure to ask other girls if we had bled through our skirts and that we needed to visit the washroom multiple times a day to see if the pad was in place, so we wouldn’t stain our uniform. We were taught the intricate, coordinated dance of receiving a pad from a friend, in class with boys around, maybe through a notebook, or gingerly walking with your friend to the washroom, with the pad, safely away in the pocket of your skirt.
When it came to the biology of periods, teachers used the words developing, maturity and ‘becoming a woman’, and how it came with changes in thinking and feeling. What could have been an insightful session about hormones and their different embodied manifestations, was turned into a talk about the ability to deal with period pains, and cramps, to make one stronger and wiser. As the seminar drew to a close, we were told we should not talk to boys about what we had discussed, and that we could always rely on each other, as girls to help us through our questions about periods, and our bodies, but it is not something to be talked about with the boys.
Sex Education in school was pivoted by ideas of hiding and concealing, rather than informing, and empowering. When I spoke to my friends about sex education in their schools, they had similar experiences. They too spoke about how boys and girls were separated, and how more often than not boys did not receive a monotonous seminar about their developing bodies. In fact, so many boys that I know of were never asked to sit through a talk of this kind, ever. It was never deemed important for them to learn not just about their own bodies, but that of others.
This apathy and lack of concern outlines the taboo that is experienced by menstruators. It underpins the incredible period poverty we are dealing with today, and the complete inaction on the part of wider structural systems like policy making, and administration involving those who do not menstruate. It is because they were never taught about it.
This blog deals with the implications of insufficient sex education solely on period poverty. In order to resolve this impertinent issue of period poverty, there is an important role that is exercised by sex education. Sex education forms the grassroot function of informing children about their bodies and about periods. Involving boys, and typical non-menstruators in these conversations is exceptionally important in destigmatising menstruation. It will play a central role in creating in open, empathetic and safe space for all, and normalising these ideas. It will also prevent disease, and illness around period health, since they are informed of the biology of the processes. For example, the knowledge that severe pain during periods is unnatural, and requires medical advice. It will exponentially scale up the impact of policies of global health and population-wide interventions. Sex education should move away from the concept of gender, and focus on the model of sex. That menstruation is not an experience that is exclusive to women, but is a natural process of the female body. Not all women menstruate and not all those who menstruate are women. This type of education is imperative to tackle, challenge and alleviate period poverty.