Sex education in school is supposed to be where kids learn everything they need for a healthy, safe sex life down the road. But that's not always the case.
In Ontario, Canada, the new government has just thrown out an updated sex ed curriculum that provided an overdue overhaul of the previous curriculum, which was developed 20 years ago.
The 1998 curriculum predates social media and legal same-sex marriage in Canada. Unlike the old lessons, the new curriculum discussed body image, gender identity and cyberbullying, and was inclusive of LGBT students. It was also the first sex ed curriculum in the province to include lessons on consent.
But social conservatives were particularly concerned with lessons that addressed subjects like LGBT identities and masturbation.
That conservative base helped elect the current Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario, which made good on a campaign promise and announced this week that the old curriculum would be brought back for this fall.
The move has a lot of people worried that the old curriculum won't prepare kids for the reality of living in 2018.
And with that in mind, people are sharing the worst things they were taught under the old curriculum using #SexEdFail.
Like not providing accurate — or any — information about abortion.
Our grade 8 gym teacher (a woman) was against abortion so in the contraception section, she left that to the very end and basically was like “that’s a last resort” and that was the sum total of discussion about abortion. Good thing I had pro choice parents #SexEDFail
Or omitting LGBT people altogether.
When I was in high school in the 90s, teacher were forbidden to mention homosexuality or abortion. In a school with an arts program and a high concentration of queers (hi!) #SexEdFail #onpoli #SexEd
Or promoting the idea that periods are somehow "dirty."
When you have your period, you need to shower twice a day because you are extra dirty. #SexEDFail #OnPoli https://t.co/cHB6XcLYqQ
Which was apparently a common theme.
In grade 8 sex-ed my teacher (a classmates father) spent an entire class lamenting about how disgusting sex during menstruation is because “menstrual blood is dirty”. #sexedfail
Others learned what pads and tampons are but nothing about what's actually happening in the body.
I remember being separated by [assumed] #gender and talking a LOOOOT about pads and tampons, without explaining what's going on in a uterus during the menstrual cycle. And being totally in the dark about what the other half of the class learned. #SexEdFail #SexEdin1998 https://t.co/h8mtfxniIK
Although people learned about condoms, they didn't learn about the emotional and social realities of sex and consent.
I learned how to put a condom on a banana. The only thing is, a banana can’t pressure you into having sex without a condom, or try to coerce you into sex that’s not on your terms. How to deal with that would have been helpful. #sexedfail #SexEdin1998 #sexedsaveslives
And even that part didn't always go well.
The only thing I remember from #SexEd in HS was my Gym teacher putting a condom on over her fist to demonstrate how they stretch and it ripped #SexEdfail
Or they learned what STDs were but not how to prevent them or to have safer sex.
I learned all about stds and their horrible affects. Never learned about aids at all, never learned how to avoid them #SexEDFail
There are also many stories of fearmongering around things like porn.
#SexEdFail I was told in an assembly that Ted Bundy watched porn and that's why he was a murderer and also why we shouldn't watch porn. https://t.co/wEOTG76G7z
Others were shamed for daring to ask questions.
when my grade 10 teacher mindlessly repeated "abstinence is the only 100% effective form of contraception" a (bold) student asked "what do we do if we've already had unprotected sex?" to which the teacher fumbled nervously and implicitly shamed the student for asking. #sexEDFail https://t.co/DVpp7Zy4ca
Or the teachers themselves were too embarrassed to teach anything.
@feministtwins @EverydayGirlDad @anne_theriault @Baileymariereid @NadineThornhill @FaeJohnstone My gym teacher would go beat red while trying to talk about it, then follow up with "I can't say this shit, here watch the damn video!" #SexEDFail
The new government says an updated curriculum will come later, but in the meantime, the now-scrapped version can still be found online.
HEY HI. Download the current Ontario sex ed before the dumb dumbs delete them. And then share them. Grades 1-8: https://t.co/cAArgwMOv7 Grades 9-12: https://t.co/Qwk6pzh4gC