Education crucial for sexual health

There was a time when a health minister like Mary Harney would have provoked public outrage by suggesting that contraception is the key to minimising the number of crisis pregnancies.

But the findings of the Irish Study of Sexual Health and Relationships, commissioned by the Crisis Pregnancy Agency and the Department of Health, has apparently had the salutary impact of compelling people to face unpalatable changes in our sexual mores and the disturbing attitude towards prostitution.

The survey found that most Irish people now in their 20s had their first sexual experience at 17 years of age.

Even more disconcerting was the finding that 31% of men and 22% of women aged between 18 and 24 had their first sexual experience before 17, which is the legal age of consent in this country. Those women are 70% more likely to have an unplanned pregnancy and three times more likely to have an abortion, while they and their male counterparts are also three times more likely to contract sexually transmitted infections.

These figures prove that there is an urgent need for sex education both in schools and in the home. The aim should be to facilitate and encourage an informed approach towards sex, rather than ignoring the issue and allowing ignorance and ill-informed peer pressure to promote the current unhealthy recreational attitude towards sex.