A Sex Ed Course I Wish I'd Received

Before we get started, I need to disclose a couple of things.  I never received formal sex education in school.  I know what you must be thinking; how did someone end up studying sex if they never learned about it in school?  Honestly, never having received a formal sex education is most likely the reason I am studying it now.  There are a lot of sex negative ways of thinking that school based sex education programs can drill into your head, and I never had a chance to become poisoned by those ideas.  Also, curiosity probably had something to do with it.  If I wanted to learn about sex, and I very much did, then I had to go about it on my own.  I wanted to preface this blog with that because, while I don't have any firsthand experience with the educational system and sex, I am familiar with the laws regarding sexual health education and what schools are generally required to cover.  With that said, the laws regarding sexual health education can vary greatly depending on where you live.  The Guttmacher Institute tracks the laws regarding sex and sexual health education globally.  Please check out their website to better understand your laws and your rights.

Now, there are some aspects of sexuality that I wish I had learned about much sooner, whether in a classroom setting or in my own independent studies, and I believe that if others learned these lessons during their early periods of sexual development, that it would make growing up as sexual beings much easier.  For instance, if I had known about demisexuality at a younger age, known how to separate the often abusive portrayals of love that are often found in the media versus the healthy and supportive love that should be striven for in real life, or known that my sexuality and gender identity is fluid and can fluctuate throughout my life, I would have been able to skip over a lot of the confusion, and even suffering that I experienced while developing in my sexuality.  For me, an ideal sex education course would cover these topics, as well as many more.

For those that are not yet familiar with the term, let me be the first to educate you.  Demisexuality is a sexual orientation for those that only experience sexual attraction towards someone after having established a deep emotional connection with the person.  Demisexuality is on the asexuality spectrum, which is a spectrum of sexual attraction used to determine the level of sexual attraction that you typically experience.  There are a lot of misconceptions relating to the term demisexual and towards those that identify with it.  Firstly, those that identify as demisexual are not asexual; they do still experience sexual attraction, just only after having developed a deep emotional bond with the person they are attracted to.  The other misconception regarding demisexuality that I have encountered frequently revolves around the question "but isn't that the right thing to do?"  This was actually one of the questions I had received when I first came out. At that point, I didn't have an answer for it.  Now I do.  If you have a moral obligation to abstain from sexual activity until you are much more secure in your relationship with someone, then you are likely still experiencing sexual attraction towards that person.  You are just choosing not to act on it.  If you identify with demisexuality, you often won't even feel sexually attracted to your partner until after that emotional connection arises.  That's the difference.  If you're holding out sexually on the terms of morality, the chances are that you are experiencing sexual attraction; you're just choosing not to act on it.  If you are demisexual, then you are not experiencing sexual attraction.

This leads me to my next point.  I would have been saved a lot of confusion and heartache had I been taught at a young age that my sexuality could change. When I came out as demisexual, it was because I had finally found a term that felt right for me.  But I have slowly started to feel less and less connected with the term.  I believe that this occurred when I started to feel more confident in my queerness.  As I grew to realize how attracted I was by those that appeared as female, I became more and more disconnected with demisexuality.  As it turns out, it is completed normal and valid for your sex drive, your preferences, your sexual orientation, and even your gender identity to fluctuate over time.  I had thought initially that when you came out to someone, it was for forever, and that you could never retract or modify your identity once coming out.  I had to watch other people struggle to accept their changing sexuality in the same way that I was to learn that my experiences were completely normal.  The damage, however, was already done.  For the years that it took me to realize that my changing sexual identity was valid, I was terrified that I had been lying to those that I came out to, and that if I had to come out again, I would be pegged as a liar, or that I was faking it for the attention. I know that others have experienced this type of fear before, but I very much wish that no one else had to.  The fact that your relationship with sex and your sexuality can change, and likely will over time, should be public information.  It should be taught as an essential part of sexual health education in school, and we should all be provided with the resources to cope with the confusion that it can bring.  So many people experience this type of fear and confusion each day, and it is completely preventable with the right education.

We also tend to live in a very romantically inclined society.  Almost everything you do in life is about finding "the one" you want to marry and spend the rest of your life with.  Growing up, those socialized as girls tend to fantasize about their future wedding dress, and the number of kids they want to have.  On top of that, there is so much material produced in this society that romanticizes romance, and if you consume too much of that at an age in which you cannot really process it, it can really mess you up.  The truth is that you may never fall in love, or you may fall in love over and over again.  Who knows, maybe you will find someone at a young age that you just end up spending the rest of your life with.  The thing is, none of us know how our love stories are going to play out, but we pretend that we do because the messages we constantly receive tell us that we're going to find our "happy ever after."  Relationships are much more complicated than that, and some us don't learn that until we are in one, or even until we are in one that goes poorly.  Expectations are often the most destructive force in relationships, and so many relationships could be saved if we could learn to manage those expectations before getting into one.  The best way to do that is in school, as a part of sex education.

For those reasons, my ideal sex education course would provide comprehensive education regarding demisexuality, help to separate the harmful messages that the media spreads around about romantic relationships, and properly inform as to how your sexuality is always in flux.  Of course, my idea of a perfect sex ed course would also provide education regarding contraception, practices of safer sex, and puberty, among many other things.  These are just three of the more specified topics that I would make sure to include, as my life would have been a lot easier had I not had to learn these things for myself.  Hopefully learning about them now helps you navigate some of the tricky situations you may encounter in your life too.

Thank you for reading!  And thank you to @gumbie2 on Instagram for suggesting this topic.  If there is a topic that you would like me to write about, please comment it below or reach out to me on social media.  All of my accounts are listed below.

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