An excellent and analogous commentary on the importance of source, and channel in educating youth about sexuality and sexual health, though the title could even be broader: Youth across the globe hear different messages about sex. While there is no universal road that leads to the ideal method for teaching young people about sex, your analogy would suggest there is universal information we want to communicate, and outcomes we wish to achieve. This fits well with the Social Determinants of Health, and viewing health and health promotion from a health equity lens. Population-level impacts can indeed be achieved, when we are responsive to the specific social needs of our communities- providing comprehensive sexual health education that is relevant in the context of the community we are hoping to impact. Many successful health promotion programs are designed with excellent pre and post evaluations, and a thorough review of the market research (intrinsic, and explicit market research) so that the interventions are addressing the barriers to behaviour change within the target population. In addressing sexual health as an international community it is imperative that we design common messages about sex, and a vision or outcome from the sexual education programs offered in diverse communities across the globe. Thank-you very much for your insightful post and engaging us in a dialogue about this topic.

Unfortunately such a personal issue becomes a public concern when it goes out of hand and starts affecting populations across geographies and regions. We in India are still at a nascent stage of introducing our children to the these subjects both at the family level and in educational institutes. If I am allowed to respond as a mother I have great confusions of whether I follow the international framework and introduce these themes to my young child or locate in the practical realities of my country and follow some of the traditional rules for this. We human beings are often good at making commitments on intellectual insights but when it comes to practicing our day to day realities and conflicts unfold the complexity of the situtaion often forcing us to loose sight of our intellect and follow the herd.

A young mind of 4 yrs has so many queries, dreams, imagination and the posisbility of getting it all affected by parents that sometimes I alos find myslef ill equipped to address some of these. What i mean some of us who are also cued in to this whole debate of opening channels of discussions for our kids on such issues our own preparation throws up many challenges.

Perhaps many of us are dreaming of making our child grow up well informed, sensitive and well capacitated to deal with and thats where these discussions also help. I am afraid that you cant compare traffic knowldege with love and sex. Its much more complex in settings like India where an average individual is less bothered about breaking a traffic rule but highly concerned about the sexual or love associations, explorations.

I am not well exposed to other cultures but what comes to my mind is also the fact that what else apart from knowledge affects these areas…because despite knowing many of the myths we do want to try it out, we find ourselves difficult to resist….or its fun to do it and learn…Sex and love also has an element of passion and somehow keeping it mysterious also helps us to hand over this to our kids. Sharing everything ???wont it disturb this ….

I think that sex education should be of public concern. In uganda the rate at which teenages are getting pregnant is too high and this also increases the chances of maternal mortality since they are usually not fully developed to give birth. Most of these girls, when asked, they say they were never talked about sex. In my opinon if they had been talked to early enough and they were aware of the consequences and at the same time knew they had a option not to engage in early sex, then this trend would be really low (1 in 10).
There is need for the sex education so that these young people can know their rights when it comes to sexual matters.

you are wrong i belive that learning sex ed in school prepares them for whats ahead and most teenagers dont feel comfortable talk to their parents about sex. And i was one of those teengers im sure if u where a teenager u wouldnt feel comfortable talking to your parents aboout sex and how to put on a condom now would you. exactly and in the minds of teenagers are thinking about mostly young guys . i feel as though you are trying to illuminate the teaching of sex for yung teens . Like teenagers need to know what bithcontrol is and how it works the need to know about all the harmful STI’s that are out there and that if they do recive an STI what to do and how to deal with it .i am sorry but i very highly disagree with your statment

alexis, what you are saying then is that we ignore these young boys and girls until they turn up with bigger problems like STDs especially HIV/AIDS or a pregnant teen then we teach them to be safe next time since we would now know that they have been having sex?…..You could have educated your child that premarital sex is wrong but if he/she stupidly went ahead to have it then better safe that sorry.
Let us face it, the world has changed we can’t go back to the days when premarital sex was unheard of, when parents found husbands to be for their virgin girls! Today even the youngest of them all could know more about sex that an adult. The information is readily available these days: internet, magazines, movies etc