The “sexualisation” of children stems in part from society’s reluctance to provide proper sex education

By Jim Sweetman / @Jimbo9848

A fall in the teenage pregnancy rate was a genuine achievement for the government to celebrate last month but the fact remains that four out of every hundred schoolgirls between the ages of 15 and 17 still get pregnant each year and the rate remains the highest in Europe. This stubborn statistic and national embarrassment has resisted the well-meaning interventions of government over the past ten years and says a lot about our attitudes to sex and education.

So, in the same week, the initiative to extend sex education to all pupils up to the age of eighteen met strong resistance from the faith schools and the right wing media. To avoid controversy, an amendment was accepted by Ed Balls which will allow schools to teach about sex in accordance with their “religious character”. It sounds OK in theory but it opens a lot of doors in practice.

Perhaps it is an election year, but the compromise was a pity. It has been widely reported that faith schools are now able to teach that homosexuality, civil partnerships and contraception are wrong while admitting that they exist. There is a world of difference between admitting that abortion happens in the world and facing up to the fact that it might be the best alternative for a pregnant 15-year-old. It is also uncomfortably close to allowing schools to teach creationism while admitting that Darwin had a theory!

Fundamentalism is an increasing problem in faith schools. While there is public concern about the establishment of Muslim schools and a clear and honest understanding that if the Catholics have schools and the Church of England has schools then the Muslim community has every right, it is less commonly observed that Catholic schools are becoming more extreme. Opus Dei, the fundamentalist wing of the Catholic Church, has an active network of governors and teachers pushing Catholic secondary schools towards what mainstream opinion would call relatively extreme views on contraception and abortion.

The rest of society does not seem to have an answer. Part of the problem about sex education in schools is related to sex in society. Currently, around a quarter of girls and almost one third of boys claimed to have had their first sexual intercourse before the age of 16 when, of course, it is technically illegal. Over three quarters of the girls and almost half of the boys, when questioned later, say that in hindsight they regretted the experience. Their parents, according to surveys, mostly had their first sexual experience in the dark and the encounter was, typically, mute. The divorce rate remains unacceptably high and, in case anyone thinks that moral depravity is in the ascendancy, last week another survey indicated that 28% of women over 35 describe themselves as never having sex.

In the post-HIV era, solutions have included the ‘just say no campaign’ which unpleasantly stigmatised anyone else, and a sex education programme called A Pause (Adding Power and Understanding to Sex Education) which was dropped by the government because it mentioned oral sex and masturbation as an alternative to intercourse. Another government advisory body was given the same treatment for suggesting in a footnote that it might make sense to put condom machines in schools. Meanwhile, the links between social deprivation, lack of self-esteem and teenage pregnancy have become firmer. MTV’s ‘Teen Mom’ and ’16 and Pregnant’ ostensibly show the consequences of teenage pregnancy, but undoubtedly they also legitimise it for some groups of young girls.

And, of course, all that confused advice followed the appalling debate over the homophobic Clause 28 and even though that did not apply to schools it introduced more guidance for schools meant to ensure that children understood the importance of stable loving relationships. The groups consulted over these guidelines included the Church of England and Catholic bishops, the Jewish Marriage Council, the National Muslim Educational Trust, the Methodist Church, the Free Church Council, the British Humanist Society, the National Secular Society, Youth for Christ, and the Mothers Union. At least the latter might have had decision-making members who could remember what teenage sex was like!

What is the answer? First, it is solid societal values. When you hear so-called experts saying that children have a right to be children and that parents must do the deciding in the light of religious guidance then you can be fairly sure that core values have gone out the window. Secondly, you need practical advice, information and resources. Sex education in schools needs to be started early and linked to biology and well-being, not to religion.

It is still an offence for a teacher to give a pupil under 16 – who the teacher knows is having sexual intercourse – not only a packet of condoms but even a suggestion on where to get some contraceptive advice. In spite of all we know about sex in silence and darkness, and the inevitability of it happening, we still promote this peculiar mix of paternalism, conversation and delay as being a way forward for young people. In between, we teach them little about the alternatives and the strategies for coping with a society which permits the sexualisation of children and then hold its hands up in horror at the notion that they might be doing it.