While educationists all over the world agree that sex education in schools in important, not many are on the same page when it comes to deciding the scope of sex education and what should be included in the school curriculum.
While countries like India are still not comfortable discussing the topic of sex education and have left it on the teens to figure it out themselves (authorities even have demanded sex education in schools to be replaced with vedic maths), countries like Denmark are at the other extreme end where a leading sexologist & professor has called for pornography to be shown in classroom as part of technical education.
Professor Christian Graugaard of Aalborg university says that teenagers nowadays are exposed to porn at a much early age so, he’s not suggesting that you introduce youngsters to porn. But if trained teachers critically discuss pornography with eight and ninth graders, they could become “conscientous and critical consumers” who will be able to differentiate between pornography and the reality of sexual relationships. And imparting this knowledge by showing porn in the classroom would be more effective than just imparting boring & technical Sex Education Where you tell students how to roll a condom onto a cucumber.
Says Graugaard, “We want our kids to have exciting and gratifying sex lives, so an open-minded, constructive dialogue is the best way to make sure they’re able to make meaningful decisions.”
While most in conservative countries would agree to the idea of sex education in schools, something like showing porn in classroom is probably never going to happen in a country like India. Besides, a major focus of sex education in India is to help young students (especially girls) differentiate between good and bad touch, its more about how not to get ‘raped’, instead of how to have a better sex life.
Denmark was also the first country in the world to lift the ban on pornography in the year 1967.
