The only thing I learned in sex ed was how to make babies. (Not, you know, how to experience pleasure). And that having sex before marriage meant 'giving yourself away'. (Not, you know, sharing intimacy with someone you love).
It was popular culture that taught me (for better or worse) that stimulating your genitals feels good. I guess a lot of people discover this on their own, but it never seemed like a priority for me. Sex just wasn't something that a social outcast got to experience - that was for the popular kids.
My education largely ignored the issue of masturbation (sexual stimulation for the purpose of pleasure) - except where framed in terms of the mechanics of arousal and ejaculation - in favor of the importance of sexual intercourse (something your body desires because you're programmed to make babies).
Masturbation wasn't a healthy step in the path towards personal sexual fulfillment. If anything, it was a pathetic last resort for those too lame to get a date. Legitimate sex required a partner, and for that, you'd have to be able to ask a girl out first.
I think I've only ever asked a girl out once in my life (yet), and even then it was earth-shatteringly difficult. The first girl I 'went out with' had to practically beat me over the head with "I want to be your girlfriend!" Which made me feel very happy, seeing as I wanted her to be my girlfriend, too.
At the time, I honestly didn't believe a girl could feel that way about me. It turns out she was very perverted, and it was during that time that I learned how to masturbate. Before that, I had no idea of even the concept of 'orgasm' and how good it felt. I was comically uninformed.
I'd had emotional feelings for girls all throughout my childhood. Romance was still embarassing, because kids love to tease, but I always thought girls were more enchanting than icky. But it wasn't until later that I recognized the connection between hot girls and the pleasant tightness in my pants.
That happened when I first got unsupervised access to the internet. I started looking at pictures of bikini models, and then later graduated to nudes, after I overcame my superstition that somebody would find out if I lied about my age on porn sites. Incidentally, I don't know if this was the trigger or just a symptom of my pictophilia.
It wasn't that I was oblivious to sexuality, I just didn't understand how it fit into my own life, personally. Sex was what other people did. Older, or more socially popular people. It certainly didn't pertain to something a person did alone, and especially if explicit stimulation wasn't even involved.
After I finally got a girlfriend, I noted the injustice of having to hide our sexual feelings behind the backs of our parents. Sure, they admired our romantic affection for one another, but why were we made to feel guilty and ashamed for lying in bed together naked, when it felt so fucking beautiful?
I was a good kid, and I still chose deception over denying my sexual desires. Because adults are so uncomfortable with childhood sexuality that they don't give kids a safe space within which to explore their sexuality. They say, "don't do it, but if you must, wear a condom, but even then, I'm going to be disappointed in you, and I don't want it happening under my roof, and I'll kill any guy that does it with my daughter." Where do you expect them to turn?
We chose to be naughty because it felt right (no matter what anyone else said), but we weren't being dangerous. We didn't even have sex - not really. It wasn't because we didn't want to, but because I didn't feel ready for it. And I wasn't. I didn't want to hop into something so risk-laden and life-changing (so they say) without knowing more about it first.
I guess I was one of the responsible ones. And that's not a function of age, but of personality. And you know what? If scare tactics affect the responsible ones, but fail to convince the irresponsible ones, what good are they anyway? If anyone should have the privilege of being allowed to have sex, it should be the ones who can be trusted to do it responsibly.
I refrained because I was inexperienced and undereducated. Would a fuller, more rounded education have led me to become sexually active at a younger age? Possibly, but only because I'd have been ready at a younger age. And being ready and prepared is the greatest preventive cure for regret. Not to mention the other risks of sexual activity.
If teens having sex were a universally bad idea, I doubt I would have decided to engage in it under any circumstance. And I could have come to that conclusion based on accurate knowledge and sound reasoning - not incomplete, misleading information. People use propaganda and scare tactics when the truth contradicts their desired conclusions. I avoided smoking and drinking - neither of which I engage in now as a legal adult - because I felt they were bad habits. Sex, however, is a different matter.
You can't choose whether or when a person will become sexually active. You can make various options look more appealing, but if you're doing it at the expense of giving potentially life-saving advice to those who choose otherwise, you're engaging in unethical deceit.
It's extremely patronizing to attempt to 'teach' someone via the attitude "I know better than you". Only the most obedient conformist drones will stick to your rules, and though the public education system tries very hard to foster this kind of attitude in kids, it's neither right nor just, from a civil rights perspective.
Knowledge is a consequence of truth. Not coverup. If you really want to teach kids to make good decisions in their lives, then show them how to evaluate claims and balance the pros and cons of an activity to make a rational choice, and then respect that choice when they make it.
If it's the wrong choice, that will bear out, but if you want them to learn from their mistakes, you have to let them make those mistakes themselves, or point out to them what those mistakes are in the hope that they will see it themselves before it's too late. But be honest - telling me that lying in bed with my girlfriend naked is a "mistake", even though we didn't do anything to risk our health or our lives, only undermines my respect in you as an authority figure.
Treating a person like they can't even take responsibility for their own choices, and that they need to be tricked and deceived into making what you believe is "the right choice for them" is a great way to strip mankind of his humanity, and reinforce the belief that persons are not responsible for their actions.
For a young child this may be justified. But treating a teen-aged young adult this way is unhealthy. And I admit regrettably that this sort of maltreatment is systemic. But just because it's common and accepted doesn't make it any more right. And the longer we prolong this diseased tradition, the longer we prolong its societal symptoms.
