Sex education is part of growing up

A friend of mine who went to a Catholic school was recently reminiscing about her sex education as a teenager: it involved a video of two dogs … mating. As a young woman she was terrified, and who can blame her? I'm sure her school wasn't the only one to resort to such methods. Sex education for young people will probably always involve some discomfort. And this is England; we remain famous for our prudishness. Last year Sheffield NHS trust tried something new and published a booklet called Pleasure. Its aim was to make sex education more approachable. The authors took a holistic view, so sex and sexual pleasure is described as forming part of our general wellbeing, like exercise and eating apples. Pleasure tries to go beyond the normal formula of embarrassed exposures of the nuts and bolts of physical reproduction. Masturbation is encouraged, and – shock horror – the clitoris is mentioned. A multi-denominational Christian group, the Maranatha Community, has recently derided the booklet , claiming that it is "a form of child abuse." In their eyes the leaflet promotes promiscuity and they even claim that NHS Sheffield has been "morally irresponsible." These are strong criticisms, but they are not surprising. Christians are obsessed with sex. Is it because we are afraid of it? Or is it that we feel that sex should be undertaken out of a sense of duty? Finding comfort and joy in our bodies makes many uncomfortable and yet it is a key aspect of the Christian faith. Faith should enrich our enjoyment, not diminish it. Sex can or even should be fun. Like life itself our bodies are gifts from God, not embarrassing burdens. Sex ought to be a celebration of our bodies and a testament to the power of love. What a terrible impact the misunderstanding of the events in the Garden of Eden has had. The Roman Catholic stance still stands: sex is for married people only and its end is mainly procreation. Try telling that to a 16-year-old boy on the Old Kent Road. It might even be fair to guess that those who make a decision to only have sex within marriage is as rare – in some communities at least – as the vocation to celibacy. Some form of sex education is necessary. There were 55,000 teenage pregnancies in the UK last year, far outstripping all other European countries. The abortion rate here is higher than anywhere else in Europe too. So something isn't working. In a survey of 20,000 teenagers more than half of those questioned felt that their sex education was inadequate. Maybe flashing the mating dogs as a last resort is still going on in some places. The children, schools and families bill will for the first time make sex education compulsory in primary schools. Unfortunately faith schools will be able to opt out (though Ed Balls has denied this ). They will be able to disparage homosexuality and condone female submission to men. Hopefully the bill, currently at its third reading in the House of Commons, will be changed and a stop put to this. Faith schools should not exist to indoctrinate. Education should be about widening children's view of the world, not narrowing it. There are other ways to teach children about sex and relationships, such as developing art projects or creating safe and encouraging spaces where young people can ask questions and learn from each other. Another option maybe to ask children to write their own sex education booklet. That way we can see what they don't know or understand by what is missing. Whilst it is important to encourage children to feel comfortable about their sexuality, we should never be blase about it in this age of sexual emancipation. Sex is not a right. Neither is having good, safe sex the same as having a new mobile phone. Within faith communities people should be encouraged to think carefully and creatively about their bodies, relationships and future. Why can't the church lead the way and provide balanced sex education opportunities for young people? Instead of pointing the finger at those who have made brave attempts, we should be embracing new methods of approaching this tricky subject.