From Sexuality and Society: An Introduction by Gargi Bhattacharyya:

Sex education is based on the premise that both knowledge and technique can be imparted through the machinery of mainstream education. There is a strictly informational moment in this - the approach that teaches the most biologistic account of reproduction through line drawings of body segments. In an era which has seen greater and more virulent appeals to morality in mainstream politics, with a corresponding anxiety about any public representation of sex that does not constitute a prohibition, it is this disembodied information that has survived as the heart of sex education.

... By inserting sex education into this model of education - 'this is what happens in the natural world, I tell you the facts of it and values do not complicate the process' - everyone attempts to side-step the far trickier questions of morality. Accounts of young people's reactions to this form of schooling reveal a variety of resistances. However early the induction, they always know all this already - there is no point at which the biological account of sex can be taught as interesting non-social mechanics, the whiff of the social is always hanging around. Equally, the strange depictions of sex education seem to bear no relation to young people's experience or self-narratives. As a result, what is taught has little impact on how people choose to behave.

... Sex education combines a number of genres of understanding - biology in its non-deterministic version has a role here, as does some discussion of the emotional experiences that surround sex and the wider social relations which impact on our cultures of sex. Many commentators also advocate that teaching about diversity should address and diffuse fears, and therefore encourage tolerance. in a more directly instrumental vein, moral panics around teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases demand a certain style of informational scare story. The difficulties of combining these modes of information and manners of learning into one coherent and useable understanding of the (sexual) world are not addressed.

In the end, we are left with the same old conundrum. Sexual knowledge demands and understanding of the body and its various irrational imperatives, with all their uncertain intersections between the biological and the cultural. But it also requires a far more complex form of understanding in order to place these strange drives in some comprehensible social context. Combining both forms of knowledge stretches the framework of existing forms of education almost beyond their limits.

... For all the concerned talk about feelings and emotions, and the whole messy human context of sex, nothing can be learned without fostering some level of antomical confidence. The feelings do not happen on some other plain, far from the dirty deed itself. Learning to negotiate pleasurable sexual encounters requires both kinds of knowledge, as well as an understanding of the ongoing tussle between mind and body, emotion and desire." (p.125-128)

So, that's a conundrum. It seems especially difficult when you consider who is teaching these courses and what sort of preparation they have for it. In my experience, it was the Phys. Ed. teachers teaching "health", which covered everything from eating habits to exercise to periods to stages of development of the fetus. Since most of the semester is spent on Phys. Ed. rather than Health, I imagine that most of these teachers come from a Kinesiology background or something similar, and there isn't much in that discipline about the social and cultural context of sex. I'm starting to think that one of the key issues in sex education should be how sex educators are educated in order to hold the position.

But how are we to teach students about the socio-cultural context of sex? Especially in a place like Toronto, where you can't assume anything about a person's background, religion, country of origin... There's such a mix here. It would be ridiculous to teach abstinence to one student, and offensive to teach anything else to another. However, then the issue of effectiveness comes in.

Abstinence-only programs don't produce abstinence-only. I have read that the pregnancy rate is sometimes higher in school districts that teach it, but I haven't got the citation handy, so you'll have to take that with a grain of salt. (It would make sense though, if people refuse to teach you about condoms, make them available, etc., then when you do have sex there would be a higher rate of pregnancy.) If schools taught safe-sex rather than abstinence, does that mean that more students would have sex? Personally, I doubt it. I didn't make my sexual choices based on health classes that I barely remember. There wasn't information in those classes about birth control (heck, we didn't even have the condom demonstration!), but I think I might have retained some of that.

I suspect that there will be a shift in sex education in Canada in the next few years, since we have recently legalised gay marriage, and the government will have to acknowledge that somehow. You can't legalise something and give it equal rights and then keep pretending that it's dirty and shameful and doesn't exist. Well, I suppose you can, but I hope we don't. Clearly, gay couples are here and vocal enough to get those rights, and they have sex that wasn't discussed in my health class. This might open it up to talk about various sexual practices, applicable for both queer and straight couples, other than "sexual intercourse."

It seems like sex education courses try to pretend that sex is just about human reproduction, which is strange to me, because it's targeted towards kids in high school, and you'd better hope they're not reproducing. That's not the sex they're having, so why not talk about something that's applicable to them? Reproduction too, of course, but don't just leave it at that.

When you get into the realm of the emotional aspects of sex... that's a whole bucket of worms. Some of us were raised in very sexually repressed cultures and have a lot of shame and embarassment associated with it. Others were sexually abused. Some people get off on domination or subordination. Some people like to mix pain with sex. Others are very vanilla. Some people are struggling with whether they're gay or not, and that brings a lot of complexity to it. How is a teacher supposed to negotiate that without leaving someone out, hurting someone, offending someone?

I'm just starting to think about this, so... yeah, I've got nothing.