Why class can be sexy

I CAN UNDERSTAND the hysterical campaign which seems to have taken off on radio phone ins recently against RSE - Relationships and Sexuality Education - if I imagine teachers teaching my children values I abhor.

I would object, for example, if they were being taught, deliberately or by implication, that sex was bad and dirty. That "impure thoughts" were mortal sins, punishable by eternal damnation. That boys are uncontrollable sex beasts, and girls alone are responsible if sexual activity gets out of hand.

If I thought for a second that teachers were handing on the poisonous rubbish that so many of us grew up with, I'd certainly take the opt out clause and remove them from those classes.

Of course, none of us or our parents had that opportunity - not that most parents of the 1950s and 60s would have had any problem with the way we were taught, directly or indirectly, about sex.

Often, it looked benign: I can remember the 1950s American religion textbook used in our Canadian school, dealing with the subject of modesty: what is the appropriate dress for a Catholic girl? The answer: "soft flowing robes from head to toe". (Okay, even then it was risible.)

Here, teachers muttered dark warnings "Oh that one, she'll go down a dark alley and come out pushing a pram." Threats of eternal punishment alternating with lots of pious stuff about the temple of the body betrayed a deep unease and discomfort with sexuality that did none of us any good. And the penalties for those who broke the rules - think of unmarried mothers in the 1950s and 60s - were savage.

So yes, I can understand how it might feel if teachers were teaching values about sexuality that I now strongly object to. (Summed up, these values were sex is okay if done by married people to make babies, but otherwise, a sin. Did this serve us well when it came to the complex business of coping with sex and relationships in the real world?)

Naturally, I will want to know the content of the RSE course that our schools will adopt, but I imagine I will be among the majority of parents who are delighted that our schools are tackling this issue.

Of course I agree that children should get information about sex and relationships from parents first. But like thousands of other parents, I am delighted to get help from the schools, for, in practice, sex education is more difficult than many of us anticipate.

From what I understand, the proposed RSE programme will continue the good work already begun in many of our schools. Irish schools are coming to sex education late, but they appear to be approaching it in a thoroughly sensible way. In other words, when they do talk about sex, it is in the context of relationships, which is what makes such education critically different from mere biology classes.

It's hard to see how making children think about the consequences of sexual activity - how it could affect them, and other people - could promote promiscuity. Hard to see how promoting sexual responsibility and children's self confidence and self esteem - so that they can have the courage to say "no", if that's what they want could hurt them.

I believe sex education is more than just a necessary evil, forced on us because children already know so much from TV, or because suddenly they're Spice Girls wannabes, or to protect them from the risks of sexual abuse - although these are very good reasons why sex education is necessary.

Ignorance is indeed not the same as innocence, and it is hard to see how not learning first of all, the basic facts (at the earliest possible age), and, later on, how to cope in puberty can be good or useful.

IT IS NONSENSE to think that children in the pre TV age were asexual (and therefore "innocent") we were interested, alright, just really ill informed. In his book Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt describes, with humour and tenderness, how at the age of seven and eight, he and his friends sought information from Mikey, their slightly older friend who was the local expert on "Girls' Bodies and Dirty Things in General".

Parents should take the lead, and nowadays most of us don't have a big problem with giving children of the four, or five simple, honest, age appropriate facts. But many of us are surprised when it dawns on us that our 10 and 11 year olds are interested in the opposite sex. We're unprepared can be to talk with or listen to children about sex when it matters most either because we're uncomfortable, or they're uncomfortable. (Experts reassure that it is perfectly natural for teenagers and their parents to be reticent with each other on this topic.)

So yes, if teachers are willing to take on the task of discussing sex and relationships in school, I am delighted; ideally, it might provide parents with increased opportunities to discuss the subject with their children. I don't underestimate the challenge RSE poses for teachers, and greatly admire the many teachers at primary and secondary level who are already tackling it.

I don't think that you have to prove that sex education "works" to think it's a good thing. Naively, many sex educators promote it on the basis that it will, for example, reduce the rate of teen pregnancies - a case pretty much unproven in England and the US, where kids have had "biological" sex education for years.

However, anything that gives children a language to discuss and think about a matter so central to everyone's life, that challenges them to think about their sexual behaviour and the sexual messages they get from their friends, the society they live in, from all media, as well as from their own families, anything that makes them aware has to be helpful.

The age of innocence hasn't passed - but the bad old days are over.