What are the aims of sex education?
Sex education seeks both to reduce the risks of potentially negative outcomes from sexual behaviour like unwanted or unplanned pregnancies and infection with sexually transmitted diseases, and to enhance the quality of relationships. It is also about developing young people’s ability to make decisions over their entire lifetime. Sex education that works, by which we mean that it is effective, is sex education that contributes to this overall aim. Comprehensive Sex Education Substantial evidence of the effectiveness of comprehensive sex education has recently emerged. Comprehensive sex education addresses both abstinence and age-appropriate, medically accurate information about contraception. Comprehensive sex education is also developmentally appropriate, introducing information on relationships, decision-making, assertiveness, and skill building to resist social/peer pressure, depending on grade-level. Sexual emotional abuse When most of us think of sexual abuse, we think of inappropr