Opinion: If You Don’t Want Sex Education Taught in Schools, Kids are Going to Learn About it Somewhere Else
It might not have been the first time, but my earliest memory of any kind of sex talk was when I was in fifth grade and a classmate was telling me about where babies come from. I remember him making gestures with his hands complete with sound effects. As a bonus, he explained to me the significance of the number “69” in sex and, upon seeing the look of confusion on my face, patiently explained to me exactly what it meant.
I asked my mom about it, and while I don’t remember the specifics, I do recall her telling me some vague story about how children come out of one of the holes in a woman’s body. She didn’t specify which one and, as a 10-year-old, I was left to make my own assumptions.
These memories came rushing back after news of the proposed sex education bill hogged news and social media headlines in recent weeks. The discussions surrounding the bill principally authored by Senator Risa Hontiveros have been passionate and incendiary, to say the least, with arguments for and against the bill garnering support from multiple sectors. Opponents of the bill, in particular, have been extremely vocal about their disdain for the bill, calling it an affront to Filipinos’ values and morals.
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In addition, critics of the bill have muddled the issue by spotlighting supposed provisions in the bill that don’t even exist in the first place. By now, many of the country’s so-called moral guardians have voiced their opposition to the bill, latching on to the mention of “childhood masturbation” in the bill that they say desecrates the innocence of our children. (There is no such mention). That has led to several senators withdrawing their support for the bill and causing Sen. Hontiveros to go on the defensive, filing a revised bill that addresses some of the criticisms levied against the original version.
The sheer scale of the misinformation cast against the bill—not to mention the breathtaking speed at which it has reached ordinary citizens—is one thing, but what strikes me as even more troubling is just how violently opposed some people are about getting formal sex education out there in the open. It’s almost as if they view the act of sex itself as dirty and something that should be left in the shadows of their bedrooms. If sex between consenting adults is seen as lascivious and objectionable, how much more when we add children into the mix? Exposing them to the realities of bodily functions is then seen as even more depraved and immoral.
But the thing that these self-appointed guardians of morality fail to take into account is that if the state doesn’t provide a science-backed, age-appropriate, culturally sensitive sex education curriculum for young people, they will get this information somewhere else and you can bet your last condom that the information they will receive—or are already receiving—is closer to the type that can be classified as crude, vulgar, and ultimately unhelpful. They will learn about it from their classmates making hand gestures and sound effects at the back of the classroom or in school yards. They will see suggestive videos on the internet, maybe by accident, and feel guilty and ashamed for doing so. And, god forbid it happens, but it’s possible they will be taken advantage of by an authority figure or even a stranger and they will be ill-equipped to deal with the intrusion.
Critics of the sex bill can rail all they want about how teaching kids the basics of sex ed is morally wrong and robs them of their innocence, but hard data suggests that ignorance has even more dangerous consequences. According to the Philippine Statistics Authority, one in 20 Filipino babies are born to mothers between 15 to 19 years old, and that registered births to very young mothers aged 10-14 have been increasing. In 2023, there were 3,343 children born to children 10-14 years old.
What’s even more disturbing is that “most births delivered by teen mothers are fathered by men significantly older than them, highlighting disturbing power imbalances that often lead to abuse.” In addition, as many as 162 girls aged 10 to 19 died from pregnancy or childbirth in 2022 alone, highlighting the perils of teen pregnancies.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, the PSA also says that teen pregnancy accounts for almost 60 percent of school dropouts among young girls, which “severely limit their potential and cost the country billions in lost opportunities.”
And, believe it or not, while people in power debate the effectivity of teaching sex ed to young people, many of these young people grow up not being properly equipped with basic knowledge about sex in the first place. In fact, a study by the University of the Philippines Population Institute found that as many as 44 percent of young Filipino females and 39 percent of young Filipino males lack material resources about sex and often rely on inaccurate and often misleading sources like social media. In fact, a licensed sexual therapist I spoke to told me that it’s not uncommon for her to have clients who are newlyweds who come to her seeking help about what to do in the bedroom, meaning they literally have no clue what to do.
That may be fodder for jokes to some, but it’s serious business for people who grew up with a stigma attached to sex, who think it’s filthy and demeaning and shouldn’t be talked about in polite society. It’s depressing to think about how Filipinos have such a distorted, unhealthy view toward sex, when, on the contrary, the entire reason we’re here is because two people came together and…actually, that’s pretty much it.
The level of hypocrisy of Filipinos when it comes to things concerning sex is staggering. We don’t want open discussions about sex because we fear it’s dirty and immoral and yet we’re one of the top viewers of porn sites like Pornhub in the entire world. We don’t want frank discussions on preventive solutions against sexually transmitted infections, yet the Philippines has one of the highest rates of HIV infections in the region. We don’t want our kids learning about sex in schools, yet we have the highest rates of teenage pregnancies in Southeast Asia, with kids as young as 10 years old giving birth, often because of much older, predatory men.
If we’re more worried about damaging our perceived morality over the very real consequences of not providing beneficial, potentially life-saving sex education to our young people, then we have failed as a society.
