MAP Forum

A recently published study by researchers affiliated with the Kinsey Institute examined the perceptions of 3,895 single American adults about their sex education in school. Over 40% believe that better sex education would have helped them gain more sexual self-confidence and have healthier romantic relationships. The majority said their sex education mainly focused on reproductive biology, but substantial numbers complained about a lack of information on how to date, communicating with partners, how to convey or obtain consent, how to augment partner pleasure, how to decide when they were ready for sex, and what to expect in their first sexual encounter. All of these are topics essential to healthy sexual growth for young people and should form part of well-designed comprehensive curricula, but are seldom discussed in school.

Instead, educators worry that the trend is for more bills out of state legislatures restricting what can be taught in this area, as documented in a new report from SIECUS.