What did you learn in your high school sex ed class? Do you even remember?

I don’t remember much of mine, but I do know it was the sort of stereotypical shoddy “education” taught by a bored gym coach in our required semester-long health class where we had more movies than tests. It involved not much more than sterile memorization of sex organs and a brief rundown of scarily-depicted STDs, a competent educator’s nightmare.

If we learned about contraception or even abstinence I can’t recall. To ninth grade me, this might have seemed fine as I was embarrassed enough already by that sort of thing and too nerdy and awkward at the time to think about much more than books and friends. To slightly older (but no less nerdy and awkward) me though, the scenario I, and I’m sure most of you, experienced is problematic.

We are living in a curious time, to say the least. On one hand, we are presented with highly sexualized images and messages from the time we can walk, and yet on the other hand, sexuality education remains a point of contention with politicians and school boards and a point of embarrassment with our parents. It’s acknowledged, then, that as people we are sexual beings, but we aren’t supposed to talk about it. The people who could give us factual and useful information—well-trained teachers, people who specialize in the field—aren’t given a real voice. Potentially negative forces, like advertising and stereotyped masculine and feminine culture, fill in the gap left by our education system and do give us messages. These have real power to be harmful.

For example, dominating images in the media and, unfortunately, in people’s minds, still emphasize masculine virility and control and women’s passivity. This helps perpetuate rape culture, just as continuous messages that the only valid relationship is heterosexual perpetuates sexual prejudice.

Is it any wonder that in the areas where abstinence-only education is taught there are also some of the highest rates of teen pregnancy? According to a study released by the Guttnacher Institutute, a non-profit group which released a study earlier in the year on teenage pregnancy.Abstinence education is not sexuality education—it could be one small part of it, but it’s absolutely not the only option and information young people need to hear. A good sexuality education encompasses a lot of things: information on varied means of pregnancy prevention as well as on self-respect, abuse, empathy, peer pressure, etc. It would take into account the wide variety of sexual and gender orientations experienced by humanity, and take care to emphasize and respect informed personal choice of both men and women. These and more are all elements of a well-rounded curriculum.

Sexuality is an important, far-reaching area of our lives to be developed, learned about, and explored. I am puzzled why developing this element of our beings is so much more controversial and left to chance than our intellect and physicality. With the enormous potential for harm due to poor sex ed, this is the last thing that should be left to chance.

Sexuality education should be the responsibility of both schools and parents, both striving to fill the air with positive, well-rounded messages to counteract the ever-pervasive media.