When I was fourteen I experienced one of the most mortifying moments of my life. During our weekly PHSE lesson, my 64 year old maths teacher handed out a supply of bananas followed by a flurry of little square metallic packets that could have contained elements of plague for all we wanted to touch them. Even though I attended an all girl's school and didn't have to attend with idiotic remarks from rather embarrassed boys, it was not an experience I would ever want to repeat. Sex education was brief, top-line and mostly consisted of the potential list of infections and diseases you could contract if you didn't do it properly; there was no choice provided about contraceptive methods, no information on relationships in general and certainly no advice on what to do when it all goes a bit tits up (i.e. when you've had six jeagerbombs and wake up somewhere unfamiliar.)
It may be twenty years later, but I don't think sex-ed has improved much in this country: we're still struggling with an increase in STIs (figures published by Public Health England state cases of syphilis had jumped by 76% between 2012 and 2015 while cases of gonorrhoea rose by 53%,) even if teenage pregnancy is at its lowest since records began in the 1960's. The majority of us still don't really understand our bodies or how contraception works, and are generally ill-informed about sexual health. I'm a firm believer in giving young men and women as much information as possible, encouraging them to practice safe...