What are the goals of sex education? And who should, as opposed to who does, set the goals for sex education? Should sex educators set goals? Should our students or clients set the goals? Should our governments, school systems, or religious institutions have a say?
In our general discomfort talking about sex we allow a lot to get taken for granted. For most of us it’s easier to assume that we’re on the same page than take a risk of exposing yourself as being not only on a different page, but also in a different book, in some other library, on a totally different planet. This is as true for sex educators as it is for the people we work with.
Ask most sex educators what their goals are for sex education and they’ll probably describe a world free of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), unwanted pregnancy, sexual coercion and sexual ignorance. In the language of sexual health policy these goals are referred to as reducing negative sexual health outcomes.
A smaller number of sex educators might include the goals of increasing positive sexual outcomes; feeling more sexual pleasure, experiencing greater sexual freedom. These are considered positive outcomes.
Whose Goals?
If you’re a sex educator these goals may be theoretically sound, but in practice they can be a problem if they aren’t the goals of the folks you’re working with. You might think it’s obvious that no one wants an STD or that no teenager wants to get pregnant. But what’s missing is how others define STDs. Even when you have science on your side, people may define things differently, and just saying it doesn’t make it so.
The same is true of teen pregnancy, another common target of sex education. Most teenagers don’t want to get pregnant. But for some teenagers being pregnant might seem like a good idea, or the best of all possible options, or just something that won’t be as bad as you think. Sex educators often work as if the only problem is that people don’t think enough about sex and safety. When in fact people often have thought a lot about these issues, but just in ways that are very different from the ways you think about them.
Goals as Frameworks
Sex educators need to stop thinking of goals as simply end points or measurable objectives. When we set goals we’re setting up a framework for individuals to evaluate the success or failure of their sexual lives. If, as a teenager, I’m told that the goal is to not get pregnant and not get an STD, how do I know I’ve succeeded? I succeed (win?) not when I get something I desire, I succeed when I achieve the absence of something (not getting pregnant, not getting a disease). Setting goals doesn’t just give us something to strive for; it establishes what’s important, what counts.
Understandably, most people aren’t that interested in making disease and pregnancy the focus of their sexual goals. Indeed, more and more research indicates that people want sex education which focuses on positive outcomes.
How differently motivated would someone be if the goals of sex education included having more frequent orgasms, or finding a sexual partner who loves you as much as you love them. These goals are not antithetical to talking about or practicing safer sex, they may even make the work of change to safer sex practices easier.
As sex educators we need to acknowledge the power dynamics that exist when we set the goals of sex education. These dynamics exist and they likely work against the very goals we set by keeping educators and students on opposite sides of the presenting problem.
So Who Sets the Goals?
I’m not proposing that sex educators shouldn’t set goals for their work. Sex educators have specific training and experience which provided needed information and context. The idea of the client being their own expert, if over-extended, can come to eclipse the value of sex education.
On the level of policy and curriculum it makes perfect sense for sex education goals to be established by educators. But sex educators involved in policy and curriculum development should be bringing individuals from target populations in to collaborate at the earliest stages of development.
And once you're working with individuals, even if you have goals that are dictated by your workplace, you can shift to a framework that allows for more input and participation from clients/students. Frame your goals generally, and involve individuals in the process of defining goals more narrowly. Respect them enough to let them set the agenda if not the actual goals. In this case the agenda may be thought of as not only the goals but also the prioritization of those goals.
The people you work with come to the work having had plenty of experience with other people setting both the goals and the agenda of their lives. Particularly if you work with youth or people living in institutional settings, you can bet that they already feel controlled by the parents and professionals around them.
If you don’t find a space to let the people you’re working with take control and responsibility for the work you’re doing, your work is simply less likely to succeed. If you're working from your own agenda and still presenting yourself as being client or student centered you need to accept that you’re being both disingenuous and at least a little counterproductive.
Finally, sex educators need to be aware of when their sex education goals conflict with their personal goals.
The example I give most often for this is anecdotal. Many times I have been in a room of sex educators and after establishing it as a safe space I’ll ask about their own personal safer sex practices. Usually a majority of sex educators will disclose that they don’t practice the kind of safer sex they preach, at least not as often as they want to or think they should. Many of them talk about making the same kinds of decisions they swear they can’t understand why their clients make.
I don’t believe this makes us hypocrites, I don’t believe we should be judged for this, but reminding ourselves that there’s a difference between how we wish we’d act and how we do act, can keep us tuned into the experience of the people we work with in a way that will actually make us better sex educators.
