Irish Teacher: No need to get your knickers in a twist about sex education

Jennifer Horgan: I’ve always understood that if sex is healthy and consensual, it’s a private matter – and not something to obsess about

Should we be concerned about how many Irish adults are obsessed with sex? And more specifically with Relationship and Sex Education (RSE) in our schools?

My understanding of sex is that it’s personal to everyone and young people need to know basic information about it to stay safe and fully enjoy their lives. As part of their relationship education, they need to understand puberty, sex, gender, sexuality, reproduction, consent – as and when it’s age appropriate. Anyone with a basic level of cop-on understands what that means. You respond to the young person in front of you.

Cop-on is important.

For example, my daughter is ten and she’s about to do a few RSE lessons on puberty. Her teacher will explain the changes that will happen to her body and to the bodies of her male classmates. It’s pretty straightforward.

Strangely, there seems to be some Irish adults who find RSE in schools endlessly fascinating. The mere mention of sex derails them, so much so that the aforementioned cop-on shoots right out of them.

In December of last year an independent senator brought up a truly mind-boggling concern in the Seanad.

She seemed to suggest that teachers might misunderstand the term ‘age appropriate’ to such an alarming extent that they would accidentally teach senior infants about anal sex. This Irish senator is genuinely worried about a book called This Book is Gay, a book clearly meant for mature secondary school students. The senator is genuinely worried that a teacher might share the book with children still struggling to avoid wetting their pants in school.

The mention of sex may have deprived this poor senator of cop-on.

Could the same happen to me? I don’t think so. I just don’t feel the need to get my knickers in a twist about young people getting a basic education in gender and sexuality. Dear God, should I even refer to my knickers? It’s certainly a challenge – with all this sex fear everywhere, ALL THE TIME.

No, I think I’m safe. I’m lucky. I’ve always understood that if sex is healthy and consensual, it’s a private matter – and not something to obsess about. As a teacher, I’ve taught young people basic information they often know already. I’ve taught it without the harmful gloss of pornography, and with a focus on consent, respect, and safety. Yes, I’ve discussed that gay people find people of the same sex sexually attractive. This is a fact, right? Not an ideology? 

I mean, gay people exist, right? It’s not a worldview like nihilism I’m spreading. And they have sex? I haven’t made this up as part of some lefty woke conspiracy to take over the world, have I? You’ll forgive me for beginning to doubt myself given the state of things.

Speaking plainly, we need to have sex to make babies. We need babies. And it’s ok for our bodies to experience pleasure as well as pain. And violent non-consensual sex, the blight of pornography and abuse that thrives on silence, are far, far more destructive forces in our world. 

So, it can never be acceptable to avoid talking about healthy sex, even if it means enduring a minority of people getting obsessive and losing their cop-on.

Perhaps they never had much cop-on to begin with.

Sex and relationships are a fundamental, vitally important part of life. They should be discussed openly. They have a place in education. And we should trust teachers – professionals who work with children every day, and who understand them – to be able to talk about sex and relationships whilst maintaining the cop-on others seem to lack.

People will disagree with me I’m sure. Whatever I say, the department will no doubt continue to receive letters from sex-obsessed parents about the new RSE curriculum, people keen to keep the whole sex thing under wraps. These parents will continue to label it ‘sickening’ to provide a lesson or two on objective sex education, lessons acknowledging the very real, factual existence of our world’s diversity. It must be exhausting for them. I’m exhausted just discussing them. 

I mean, they must never stop thinking about sex! They must sit up, erect (!) in bed every night, imagining what’s going on in the house next door. I wonder if their obsession is enough to keep them from giving themselves a good daily wash. I mean, how do they handle the sight of their own genitalia in the morning? How do they explain their lumps and bumps to little Sally or precious Jimmy? It must be a grind.

A sexless, joyless grind of course. Let’s be very, very clear about that.