Recently I did a week looking at sexual health. I didn't hate it (which surprised me) but I did find it a struggle and just really sad.
We have been working through a series on healthy living in our School lunch clubs since Christmas and have looked at healthy eating, healthy friendships, healthy finances, sport and exercise. So sexual health fitted into the theme and was something we thought relevant to cover.
Trying to work out what to say in a 5-7 min talk to 11-14 year olds about sex is really tricky. I tried to keep it simple and spoke about knowing the right time for sex, how being in a stable, committed, long-term relationship was a good place to start. How we, as youth workers, care about and believe in them and that we want the best for each of them. How if they were having sex that they needed to be sure that they visited a Sexual Health Clinic to get tested etc...just realised you probably don't need all the details....
...anyway. At the end of one particular talk we got into discussion groups and were talking about how sex is all around us in the world. A year 8 boy asked me what I thought about porn, and before I got a chance to answer, the boy sitting next to him said, "porn is actually really bad for you, it reduces your sex-drive." This was a year 7 boy. When I asked him how he knew that he told me he had looked it up on the internet.
In every school we talked about this in there were young people who clearly were engaging in some form of sexual activity. Whether it was full on sex, or looking at porn, having pictures of their peers in limited clothing on their phones, posing for those pictures...
I just find this incredibly sad.
It is no surprise that there are attitudes like this when porn is becoming more and more easily available. It used to just be in top shelf magazines and page 3 of the Sun. Now it's clicks away.
I think what saddens me most, is the fact that girls I work with think that their value comes from posing for a half-naked (or in some cases, naked) picture to send to a guy they like.
Porn normalises sex. It gives unrealistic expectations of what context sex is appropriate in and how girls should behave. It actually makes me angry that people think it's ok for kids to access this as it totally skews their own morals/ideas.
Teens need more help than ever navigating through the whirlwinds of puberty - even though talking about sex isn't my favourite thing...someone's got to do it.
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