Sex Education

Some time this term, Primary 6 students in Singapore would have to undergo various sex education programmes, usually vaguely titled with some euphemism for ‘sexuality’. It’s a difficult conversation to put off, given how a child’s body is changing at this age, and how ubiquitous sexual imagery is in advertising, movies, and even gaming. This exposure to sexuality is even more pervasive with the internet being so easily accessible on hand-held devices. While we can’t stop our children from learning about sex, we can help them have a proper perspective on it.

A Dirty Word

Before I was a trained teacher, I did some relief teaching at a boys’ primary school. During one of the Primary 4 classes, a group of boys were huddled together and giggling and whispering. I asked what was going on and they came up to me, one of them holding a pocket dictionary, and said, “Mr Tan, we found dirty word!”

The whole class erupted into laughter. I groaned internally, thinking that they probably found the F-word.

The word was ‘sex‘. Thankfully, some higher power must have guided my thoughts, and I responded with a straight face, “‘Sex’ is not a dirty word. It’s a beautiful thing. It’s an act of trust between two married people. To be totally vulnerable with another person and trust them with your body. That’s a big step. And that’s what sex is.”

The laughter stopped, replaced by a glitter in their eyes as if they had understood something.

Were they too young to hear about sex? I obviously wasn’t the first one to talk to them about it. But I was probably the first one to present it in that way. That revelatory impact I saw on the faces of those children reinforced my belief that proper sex education is hugely important.

Demystifying Sex

Every batch of Primary 5 students that I’ve taken, without fail, would be overly excited about the topic of ‘sexual reproduction in humans’. ‘Page 18’ they call it. An awkward silence would always descend on the class on the first lesson of the topic, when I tell the class to flip to that page. I would flash the diagrams on the screen and the girls would look down shyly while the boys would laugh out loud.

But I don’t blame them for behaving that way. ‘Sex’ is always this secret taboo to them. It’s something little kids are not supposed to talk about. The more we try to hide this information, the more we allow misinformation.

And that is a big problem, especially for Science. One girl I taught thought that the penis was inside the boy’s body, which would be a logical conclusion given her own anatomy and the 2-dimensional representation of the male reproductive organs. As teachers, we present them with the parts, but the missing link is how the parts work together.

Teaching the process doesn’t have to be graphic or awkward. In my class, I present it in a matter-of-fact manner. Here’s the vaginal canal. The penis goes in here (I point at the vaginal canal) – it’s like a long tube – and deposits the sperm here (I point somewhere below the cervix). So, the penis is basically a delivery system. From there, millions of sperm race for the egg, which is here (I point at one of the fallopian tubes).

Then I show them a video on the perilous journey that the sperm take. There’s always a look of amazement and disbelief when they realise that the whole stretch of the uterus is designed to kill sperm. And to end the lesson, I always make it a point to highlight the incredible odds that they, the students, had to beat in order to be sitting in that classroom that day. It’s a one in fifty million or 0.000002% chance. “Each of you is a miracle,” I’d say. “No one is an accident.”

Sex and Society

I know my lesson on sexual reproduction is successful when it naturally segues into topics like abortion, pre-marital sex, congenital abnormalities, adoption, purpose of life, twins, IVF, etc. I always make sure we have time to talk about these things; and I’m never disappointed at the level of maturity that many of my Primary 5 and 6 students have in our discussions. This is important because science is not just about concepts and theories, and sex is not just about body parts.

Nothing Casual About Sex

If the overwhelming representation of sex in the media is held as the standard, then it’s simply what two people do when they’re in love; or worst still at the lowest denominator, what two people do when they are attracted to each other. Casual and recreational sex is a very low bar and is one of the reasons why so many relationships don’t work out.

Sex is so much more than just a biological impulse of animal instinct. Sex is an act of unity and commitment. It has less to do with sexual prowess and physical endowment and more to do intimacy and trust. And that takes commitment, forgiveness, and hard work.

Some of us may be lucky enough to have children who open up to us with questions about sex. I believe that if we don’t dismiss them and have honest conversations about it, we help them to have a holistic and healthy perspective on the function, beauty and dignity of sex.

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