Children and sexuality education: kept on a strictly 'need to know' basis?

An exasperated 11-year-old boy holds a small square of cardboard aloft and asks, "does anyone know what the clitoris is?" He is frustrated and impatient. His group has been assigned the difficult task of piecing together a puzzle representing female genitalia, and this poor kid appears to be the one holding the short straw.

This presumably "absurd" slice of life was one of the snippets used to promote an episode of 60 Minutes earlier this year. The media's interest in the topic flared up, due to the release of findings of a study of Sex in Australia conducted by Latrobe University. Although there were many fascinating and occasionally disconcerting findings in this comprehensive study of Australian sexual peccadilloes, the main focus has been centred on the statistic that indicated, rather unsurprisingly, that the average age of first sexual activity has dropped from 18 to 16 in the past 50 years. According to the study, it was this finding in particular, that "highlighted the need for improved sex education in our schools". (By the way, how did this screamingly obvious tidbit of info become "news"?) Nevertheless the great sex-ed debate has been back on the table ever since.

While the ensuing 60 Minutes story presented a fairly convincing argument for a more comprehensive and extensive sex education curriculum in schools, another far more compelling finding from the study has remained ignored - till now.

Consider this. All respondents to the survey were aged between 16 and 59 - so a lot of the information given is retrospective - i.e.: old news. Of the 9000 women surveyed, 21 per cent said they had experienced being "forced or frightened into unwanted sexual activity". Half of these incidents occurred at the age of 16 or younger. Of course, sexual coercion happens to young males as well but a significantly lower proportion (2.8 per cent of those surveyed). More compelling still was the revelation that few victims had talked about the experience to others and even fewer to a counsellor. One wonders, then, how many of those surveyed didn't fess up at all.

No one who has ever attempted to speak publicly about sex would be surprised by this statistic. Ridiculous as it seems (considering our society's fixation with all things raunchy) many adults still cringe with ridiculously hypocritical, false embarrassment when discussing even the most straightforward sexual practices - let alone discussing the experiences which are decidedly less pleasant.

Then there are the so-called experts. During the 60 Minutes story, the editor of Dolly Magazine - a tome that prides itself on being responsibly unabashed about such matters - was completely unable to move her lips in answer to the question "what sort of unusual sex practices do teenagers write to you about?" This fully grown, supposedly intelligent woman, who represents a towering font of carnal wisdom to thousands of other people's children, could not utter one single syllable. She was completely stupefied with embarrassment.

Hello?

When those of us with the privilege and opportunity to speak up on behalf of others can't bring ourselves to even open our mouths - what hope in hell do our children honestly have of developing responsible and healthy attitudes?

And doesn't this predominantly coy attitude continue to make the world a rather convenient, nay, idyllic place for perpetrators of sexual offences to reside in?

It's time for parents to wake up and be more realistic. Everyone's so het up about the supposedly hideous moral implications of two 10 year olds playing doctor - and the horrible threat this poses to their "innocence" that they keep overlooking one irrefutable fact: paedophiles have a vested interest in the ignorance and innocence of children. Every day, in so many ways, society gleefully plays right into their hands.

Whenever the subject of sex education is raised - the same asinine question is always asked: How young is too young to start talking about it?

Are we all in the grip of an amnesia epidemic? Doesn't anyone honestly remember those first, confusing feelings of sexual arousal? Those scary, oddly compelling feelings that pounce, unbidden and unexpected, can and do start happening very, very early on.

Currently, we teach primary school children about drug and alcohol addiction under the banner of "Life Education". This doesn't seem to scare people at all. Yet the chances of a ten-year-old being exposed to heroin usage is far less than the chances of a ten-year-old being exposed to some kind of sexual stimulus - be it deliberate or peripheral. Yet many of us prefer to think that children wear invisible blinkers and their erogenous zones are completely numb - until well after the onset of puberty.

Why are people so afraid to talk to children about something so important - at an age when they are probably the most open and receptive, as they'll be in their entire lives? Why wait till they are teenagers - when, for many families, communication between parent and child begins to break down.

Surely anyone who can't remember their childhood, but has ever experienced intense sexual arousal can vouch for its intoxicating, compelling properties and the incumbent vulnerability that goes with it. Consider then, the concentrated effect this would have on the young and innocent - for whom the feelings are completely unknown and uncontrollable.

Currently, the language that sex educators use in connection with sexual abuse is "uncomfortable" - i.e: Children are told "if someone touches you in a way that makes you uncomfortable, tell them to stop or inform an adult". This description doesn't quite cut it, for the child who has been unwittingly molested from a very young age, by a trusted family friend. This child will most likely have grown to find the experience a pleasurable, secret game - and has been persuaded or threatened not to talk about it to anyone.

This is real life, and sexuality education is no time to be squeamish. Language needs to be precise and direct. Sure, it seems as though a child's innocence is at stake but it's really their ignorance that is being extinguished. Innocence is truly only lost when trust is violated.

Yet it is that very word: "innocence" which provided the tag for the 60 Minutes story - Tara Brown reminded us of the fleetingness and preciousness of a child's innocence and how we should seek to preserve it. Paying lip service again to the highly subscribed theory that learning everything there is to know about sex is the surest way to sabotage purity of heart.

Which brings us back to what many viewers would have seen as a defining and shocking component of the story. Our young friend with his pudendal dilemma - The Clitoris Kid.

No doubt many a viewer would have mistaken the child's exasperation to be a direct result of their own preconceived notions of the "delicate and embarrassing" nature of his quest - viewing the situation from their own paradigm of embarrassment at the utterance of such a naughty word.

However, it was abundantly clear that this exercise had been laid out as an educational game, and being a typically competitive young male - he was just deadly keen for his "team" to win. His innocence was certainly still palpable and his ardency, adorable.

Nonetheless, some parents would just plain horrified by the concept of any child so boldly addressing genitals by their correct clinical names.

News flash: learning where the clitoris belongs isn't learning about sex - it's discovering anatomy. Learning about fallopian tubes isn't learning about sex either - that's biology. The whole reproductive scenario (ie: puberty, conception, contraception and childbirth) which forms the basis of current primary school sex education methods, should be taught in school under the big umbrella that is "Science". This would free up sexuality educators to concentrate on the more relevant stuff.

Sexuality - particular female sexuality, is a multi-faceted and highly misunderstood beast, which takes more than an hour-long sex-education seminar to understand - yet we've been thinking for years that this is all it takes to inform young people how to deal with their sexuality.

Meanwhile, look at the kind of apparel that clothing manufacturers encourage little girls to buy - in the name of fashion. Look at Britney Spears. The exploitation of the female population continues unabated, and sex symbols grow younger and more provocative every day. We have to stop ignoring the implications of all this gratuitous input and deal with it.

The Sexual Revolution did nothing for our children except prevent a lot of them from being conceived, and elevating the level of this commercial pre-occupation with sex. Feminism has yet to provide a truly level sexual playing field. In spite of both feminism and the sexual revolution, it's still very much a man's world. In recent times, the phenomenon of "date rape" has come to the fore. There is even the casually named "date rape drug". Apparently we're still raising boys to still think they are well within their rights take without asking, or that "no" really means "wait till I'm unconscious".

Women are starving themselves and continuing to allow themselves to be manipulated and exploited - all in the name of sexual desirability and acceptance. If only we could turn the boat around - but we can't.

What we can do, is fulfil our moral obligation to protect our children from the consequences of the sexual innuendo overkill that surrounds them at every turn. Responsible, comprehensive sexuality education is a very good start. The essence of an ideal curriculum would be self-discovery, self-awareness, self-love (including masturbation) self-respect and acceptance. It would also include personal boundaries and respecting other's boundaries. As well as teaching parents the latest methods in mathematics, we should also be teaching them how to talk to children about sex. The saddest fact of all is parents not only don't talk to their children about sex (until it's too late) that many parents are completely ignorant about the nuances of sexuality anyway, so what's being passed on, isn't really up to snuff.

I like to imagine a world where little girls grow up fully understanding the intimate workings of their own bodies, without thinking it's a boy's job to show them. Children would recognise "inappropriate or uncomfortable" situations from miles away.

Teenagers would be happy to wait for the time to be right. With no great mysteries to be uncovered, surely romantic relationships would have to be about love, understanding and spiritual compatibility - sex wouldn't be an issue.

Then I try to imagine a world where, despite all consumer advice to the contrary, sexual attractiveness is no longer aspired to as the ultimate virtue.

Ah, to dream, the impossible dream.