"The case for starting sex education in kindergarten "conix, What are the odds American children 20 years from now feel more relaxed in relationships, and grow with fewer sexual hangups..."""
In the Netherlands, one of the world’s most gender-equal countries, kids learn about sex and bodies starting at age 4.
By Bonnie J. Rough
Library of Congress / Corbis / VCG / Getty
August 27, 2018
Stepping into Nemo, Amsterdam’s science museum, visitors encounter the usual displays: bubbling vinegar, kinetic games, chain reactions, hydropower demonstrations, and experiments with lenses, prisms, and mirrors. But upstairs in the Teen Facts gallery, an area dedicated solely to puberty and sex, unsuspecting parents might be forced into a quick decision: proceed with the kids, or hightail it to another exhibit?
As an American parent visiting Nemo over the years, I’ve noticed that Dutch families hardly blink at the permanent Teen Facts display. There, guests of any age can put their arms in tongue puppets to mimic French kissing. They can learn about hormones, mood swings, and zits. Guests can peer into a tank of white ooze representing a lifetime’s manufacture of semen, then settle in to watch a giant cartoon, on loop, in which a boy and a girl traverse puberty side by side.
Behind a velvet curtain for patrons ages 12 and older, there’s more: a video about orgasms (faces only), a display of novelty condoms and old-fashioned birth-control methods, and a shelf of wooden mannequins glued together in zoo-like acts from the Kama Sutra. On the wall, a guide to good sex printed in Dutch and English encourages plenty of educational “solo sex” and honest partner communication: “Tell or guide your partner around your body. Don’t worry about losing control ... Your pleasure is your partner’s delight.”
When sex ed discusses gender inequality, sex gets safer.
While researching my new book on sex education, I observed how Dutch parents, health-care workers, and educators achieve these public-health results by being almost unbelievably open with children of all ages about bodies and relationships. And, in part because of its low teen-birth rate, the Netherlands ranks as one of the most gender-equal countries in the world, placing third on the United Nations Development Program Gender Inequality Index .. http://hdr.undp.org/en/composite/GII .. . The U.S., meanwhile, doesn’t even crack the top 40.
Since 2012, the Dutch education minister has mandated .. https://www.eerstekamer.nl/id/vj3ti28d5m9v/document_extern/w33421abijlage/f=/vj3ti2yv5frs.pdf .. that all students, beginning in primary school, receive some form of sexuality education that includes lessons on health, tolerance, and assertiveness. The core objectives are to prevent sexual coercion, crossed boundaries, and homophobic behavior, as well as to promote inclusion. And new research confirms .. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10964-017-0638-z .. that students who receive comprehensive sexuality education in school—that is, lessons on sexual diversity and inclusiveness in addition to biological lessons—are less likely to engage in name calling and more willing to intervene when a LGBTQ or female peer is bullied in school.
In Dutch schools that use the country’s most popular sex-ed curriculum, Kriebels in je buik (Butterflies in Your Stomach), yearly lessons begin with 4-, 5-, and 6-year-olds talking about differences between male and female bodies, learning about reproduction, and discovering their own sexual likes, dislikes, and boundaries. Third-graders learn about love, including how to be kind to your crush. Before middle school, children get lessons on sexual diversity, gender identity, deciding when to have sex, and how to use barriers and contraceptives. All along, students are schooled in healthy relationships and how to reject gender-role stereotypes. (Gender-stereotypical thinking is a risk factor for poor sexual-health outcomes .. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4244004/ .)
In contrast to the nationwide blanket approach to school sex ed in the Netherlands, fewer than half of American high schools and only 20 percent of middle schools—let alone elementary schools—provide .. https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/data/shpps/pdf/shpps-results_2016.pdf .. instruction on all 16 topics that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevents (CDC) considers .. https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/data/profiles/pdf/16_criteria.pdf .. critical to sexual-health education. Schools mostly operate under state and local, not federal, control, meaning that the quality of American sex ed differs enormously from state to state and district to district.
Of course, no country is immune to sexual violence, but sex ed serves as an important bulwark against it. As the CDC reported .. https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/SV-Prevention-Technical-Package.pdf .. in 2016, “comprehensive sex education programs have been shown to reduce high risk sexual behavior, a clear factor for sexual violence victimization and perpetration.” In the Netherlands, Kriebels in je buik and other sex-education curricula attempt to instill known preventative factors such as empathy and concern for how one’s actions affect others.
While health matters such as birth control and abortion access are considered private rather than public concerns in the Netherlands and other more gender-equal countries, in the U.S., partisan politics can whiplash policies and programs geared toward sexual health. For example, the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program, initiated in President Obama’s first term and credited .. https://www.guttmacher.org/article/2018/05/teen-pregnancy-prevention-program-was-right-track-now-its-being-dismantled .. with a massive reduction in teenage pregnancy, has been transformed by the Trump administration to favor abstinence-only education, despite a mountain of evidence showing .. https://www.jahonline.org/article/S1054-139X(17)30297-5/pdf .. that abstinence programs are ineffective at preventing sexual activity and can leave young people uninformed and unprepared when they do have sex.
Americans overwhelmingly favor .. http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0180250 .. medically accurate sex ed in schools, and calls to action .. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/03/23/sex-ed-metoo-era-consent-parents/419690002/ .. in the #MeToo era have parents and teachers wondering how to bring new, more egalitarian ideas about sex and gender to the next generation. The answer may rest in emulating those who normalize human sexuality by getting the facts of life out in the open early and often—at home, in school, or even at the science museum. Given how politicized sex education is in the U.S., it may be easier for families to impart these lessons at home than to change curriculums at a national level. But teaching young children that human anatomy and reproduction are normal—even mundane—makes way for the most essential lessons about our bodies: how to care for, respect, and enjoy them.
Bonnie J. Rough is a writer based in Seattle, Washington. She is the author of Beyond Birds and Bees: Bringing Home a New Message to Our Kids About Sex, Love, and Equality .. https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781580057394 .
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