Comprehensive sex education

Comprehensive sex education (CSE) is a sex education instruction method based on-curriculum that aims to give students the knowledge, attitudes, skills and values to make appropriate and healthy choices in their sexual lives. The intention is that this understanding will prevent students from contracting sexually transmitted infections in the future, including HIV and HPV. CSE is also designed with the intention of reducing teenage and unwanted pregnancies, as well as lowering rates of domestic and sexual violence, thus contributing to a healthier society, both physically and mentally. Comprehensive sex education (CSE) is a sex education instruction method based on-curriculum that aims to give students the knowledge, attitudes, skills and values to make appropriate and healthy choices in their sexual lives. The intention is that this understanding will prevent students from contracting sexually transmitted infections in the future, including HIV and HPV. CSE is also designed with the intention of reducing teenage and unwanted pregnancies, as well as lowering rates of domestic and sexual violence, thus contributing to a healthier society, both physically and mentally. Comprehensive sex education ultimately promotes sexual abstinence as the safest sexual choice for young people. However, CSE curriculums and teachers are still committed to teaching students about topics connected to future sexual activity, such as age of consent, safe sex, contraception such as: birth control, abortion, and use of condoms. This also includes discussions which promote safe behaviors, such as communicating with partners and seeking testing for sexually transmitted infections. Additionally, comprehensive sex education curricula may include discussions surrounding pregnancy outcomes such as parenting, adoption, and abortion. The most widely agreed benefit of using comprehensive sex education over abstinence-only sex education is that CSE acknowledges the student population will be sexually active in their future. By acknowledging this, CSE can encourage students to plan ahead to make the healthiest possible sexual decisions. This ideology of arming students to most successfully survive their future sexual experiences underlies the majority of topics within CSE, including condoms, contraception, and refusal skills. Studies have found that comprehensive sex education is more effective than receiving no instruction and/or those who receive abstinence-only instruction. Acknowledging that people may engage in premarital sex rather than ignoring it (which abstinence-only is often criticized for) allows educators to give the students the necessary information to safely navigate their future sexual lives. CSE advocates argue that promoting abstinence without accompanied information regarding safe sex practices is a disregard of reality, and is ultimately putting the student at risk. For example, programs funded under AEGP are reviewed for compliance with the 8 standards (listed below in 'Abstinence Education Grant Program (AGEP) Requirements), but are not screened for medical accuracy. Therefore, critics believe that students under these educational programs are put at a disadvantage because it prevents them from making informed choices about their sexual health. Additionally, under these AEGP programs, health educators have referred to those that engage in sex, especially females, as 'dirty' and 'used.' They have also used phrases such as 'stay like a new toothbrush, wrapped up and unused' and 'chewed-up gum' to teach abstinence. Under a CSE model, language would be more sensitive. There is clear evidence that CSE has a positive impact on sexual and reproductive health (SRH), notably in contributing to reducing STIs, HIV and unintended pregnancy. Sexuality education does not hasten sexual activity but has a positive impact on safer sexual behaviours and can delay sexual debut. A 2014 review of school-based sexuality education programmes has demonstrated increased HIV knowledge, increased self-efficacy related to condom use and refusing sex, increased contraception and condom use, a reduced number of sexual partners and later initiation of first sexual intercourse. A Cochrane review of 41 randomized controlled trials in Europe, the United States, Nigeria and Mexico also confirmed that CSE prevents unintended adolescent pregnancies. CSE is very beneficial in regards to teen pregnancy because studies show that, teen pregnancy and childbearing have a significant negative impact on high school success and completion, as well as future job prospects. A study in Kenya, involving more than 6,000 students who had received sexuality education led to delayed sexual initiation, and increased condom use among those who were sexually active once these students reached secondary school compared to more than 6,000 students who did not receive sexuality education. CSE also reduces the frequency of sex and the number of partners which in turn also reduces the rates of sexually transmitted infections. UNAIDS and the African Union have recognized CSE’s impact on increasing condom use, voluntary HIV testing and reducing pregnancy among adolescent girls and have included comprehensive, age-appropriate sexuality education as one of the key recommendations to fast track the HIV response and end the AIDS epidemic among young women and girls in Africa. As the field of sexuality education develops, there is increasing focus on addressing gender, power relations and human rights in order to improve the impact on SRH outcomes. Integrating content on gender and rights makes sexuality education even more effective. A review of 22 curriculum- based sexuality education programmes found that 80 per cent of programmes that addressed gender or power relations were associated with a significant decrease in pregnancy, childbearing or STIs. These programmes were five times as effective as those programmes that did not address gender or power. CSE empowers young people to reflect critically on their environment and behaviours, and promotes gender equality and equitable social norms, which are important contributing factors for improving health outcomes, including HIV infection rates. The impact of CSE also increases when delivered together with efforts to expand access to a full range of high- quality, youth-friendly services and commodities, particularly in relation to contraceptive choice. A global review of evidence in the education sector also found that teaching sexuality education builds confidence, a necessary skill for delaying the age that young people first engage in sexual intercourse, and for using contraception, including condoms. CSE has a demonstrated impact on improving knowledge, self-esteem, changing attitudes, gender and social norms, and building self-efficacy. While CSE implementation is on the rise in the United States, it remains difficult for state officials to regulate what is and is not taught in the classroom. This is due in large part to the undefinability of CSE; CSE has the potential to comprise such a wide range of sexual information, and over-all focus varies widely between curriculums. Educators have also accused CSE as fundamentally operating as a form of 'abstinence-plus,' due to the reality that CSE often involves minimal body related information and excessive promotions of abstinence. 'So-called Comprehensive Sex Ed' says Sharon Lamb, a professor at the University of Massachusetts Boston, 'has been made less comprehensive as curricula are revised to meet current federal, state, and local requirements.'