The revision of secondary school syllabuses is not typically the spark for frenzied public discourse. Yet the revamping of the two-decade-old sexual education course has witnessed a deluge of righteous indignation, and reports of floods of letters to Minister Norma Foley protesting proposed changes. The inclusion of topics like pornography, masturbation and gender identity has been seized upon on social media as proof of some sinister agenda, in a fury of angry claims bearing only limited relationship to reality. In all the sound and fury it is vital to separate fact from fiction.
Moral indignation over sex education programmes is hardly a new issue nor solely an Irish complaint. United States has a long legacy of religious conservatives protesting educational efforts concerning sex and sexuality. The Christian right for decades has championed abstinence-only approaches, excluding information on sexuality, contraception and safe sex. Instead this framework insists on avoidance of sex before marriage. But aside from the shame and fear these protocols can induce, they are utterly useless at achieving their primary aim. Research to date indicates that teenagers subjected to these directives have the same proclivities as their comprehensively educated counterparts.
The abstinence-only cohort are also devoid of requisite knowledge to navigate complexities. Such approaches, for example, do not reduce prevalence of sexually transmitted infections, a telling sign of failure.
More damning still is that abstinence models are associated with higher teenage pregnancy rates, a direct consequence of enforced ignorance over contraceptive usage. In stark contrast, those receiving comprehensive sexual education tend to delay their first time having sex. This alone is a direct rebuke to presumptions that sexual education encourages wanton promiscuity or sexual hedonism. More than this, these findings make it clear that comprehensive sex education substantially benefits student wellbeing, while information censorship is to their detriment.
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It is also a fundamental mistake to conflate education with indoctrination. Giving young people basic social and biological information to protect themselves and others is not tantamount to endorsement. Such thinking pivots on a presumption that people have sex because they learn about it in sex-ed, a logic as backwards as presupposing people only decide to breathe after they cover respiration in biology. Sexual urges are normal and healthy, instilled by biological imperative rather than classroom education. Denying young people information does nothing save render them more susceptible to harms, punishing them for the squeamishness of their elders.
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Such distaste is not a new phenomenon in Ireland. While opposition in Ireland to the HPV vaccine from 2015 onwards was primarily driven by anti-vaccine activists, the rhetoric against it centred on claims it would encourage sexual activity in young girls. This claim was flatly contradicted by ample data to the contrary. More insidious was the implication that threat of punishment for some arbitrary definition of sexual immorality was preferable to giving girls a cancer-preventing vaccine. Similarly twisted sentiment was historically weaponised too in Ireland’s fraught debates over abortion and contraception, where judgemental consequences-of-sex mantras were deployed in lieu of a modicum of compassion.
The current furore cites the fact that concepts like pornography will be covered at Junior Cert level. This is unfortunately pragmatic and urgent. Young people seek out available avenues to sate curiosity and answer their questions. Learning about sex from pornography, however, is vaguely akin to learning about police work from Die Hard.
Pornography is by definition performative, lacking realism, complexity and intimacy. Its contrived nature might be clear to sexually experienced adults, but younger people may lack the context crucial to seeing its artificial edifice in perspective. And they certainly are seeing it. A report in January by the children’s commissioner of England found 10 per cent of children had watched pornography before age 9, raising to 25 per cent by the final year of primary school.
More concerning was that much of this content is violent or abusive in nature, a niche viewed by 79 per cent by age 18. The same report found that this blurred perceptions of what women especially were expected to enjoy. Almost half of respondents aged 16-21 expected women to enjoy degrading or violent sex, with heavy users more likely to engage in aggressive sexually degrading acts. This mirrors the sinister rise of figures like Andrew Tate, selling an aggressive brand of misogyny to an audience of young boys. With over 22 billion searches on TikTok and an abundance of content degrading women, schools in England have had to introduce measures to counteract the noxious hatred of an influencer few over the age of 30 might ever even encounter.
Meanwhile, a landmark report by the CSO into sexual violence in Ireland, published this week, revealed that 52 per cent of women and 28 per cent of men have experienced sexual violence. Some 22 per cent of those aged 18 to 24 experienced sexual violence both as an adult and as a child, compared to 8 per cent of those aged 65 and over.
These unedifying figures are potent reminders that Pandora’s box is already open, and the demons free.
It is completely understandable that parents might resent what they feel is an erosion of innocence, but the sheer ubiquity of online pornography means its role cannot be ignored no matter how much we might curse that fact. Denial is simply not an option. To circumvent damage, comprehensive sex education covering topics like the falsity of pornography and emphasising the importance of consent and communication is imperative.
Related protestations about the inclusion of topics like sexuality and gender identity frequently fail to recognise that these are already topics covered in the existent syllabus. Their inclusion has precious little to do with advancing some secret agenda, but instead reflects the reality that variations in sexuality and gender identity exist and should be respected.
In the cacophony over the new draft syllabus it should not be forgotten that the changes proposed stem from students themselves, who requested a course with more information on navigating not just biological aspects of sexual education, but emotional and interpersonal issues too. And ultimately their needs should be given more consideration than the qualms of older generations.
Dr David Robert Grimes is a scientist, CFI Fellow, and author of The Irrational Ape – Why we fall for Disinformation, Conspiracy Theory, and Propaganda