Lessons in homosexuality that should be taught in schools
With a dearth of teaching about LGBT issues in schools, Attitude columnist Joe Stone offers a few suggestions for the basics – LGBT education 101, if you like.You can sink your teeth into Joe’s latest column by grabbing our latest issue at Pocketmags.com/Attitude (digital).
As regular readers of Attitude may already be aware, gay people exist. So it seems curious that this undeniable fact is in no way acknowledged in our education system. With rates of HIV infections doubling among 15 to 24-year-olds in the last ten years, and 44% of young LGBT people admitting to having considered suicide, schools have decided to tackle these problems by doing, well, nothing actually. In a National AIDS Trust survey, 85 percent of gay and bisexual men said they received no information about same-sex relationships at school, which is helpful isn’t it? Grab the bull by its horns and all that.
Thanks in part to the #SameSexSRE campaign, progress does seem to be being made. A recent report saw Members of Parliament recommend that all children in English state schools receive gay sex education (unfortunately, if you’re one of the 58,000 kids attending private school, or are the child of a parent who chooses to opt out of these lessons, you’re still fucked.) The government’s responses may not come until after the May general election, with the Conservative party’s position on same sex education still unclear at the time of going to press. But in the meantime, here are some things that it might be good to teach:
The facts about staying safe
There are still young people in this country who learn about sexual health for the first time once they’re diagnosed with an infection they can’t even pronounce. Yes, scare tactic AIDs awareness campaigns created unnecessary stigma for previous generations, but now there seems to be whole swathes of teenagers who think that HIV is something that happens to other people. Can we please find a middle-ground? Besides, who doesn’t enjoy putting a condom on a banana?
Porn and sex aren’t one and the same
I’m stating the obvious, but if young gay kids aren’t learning about sex in the classroom, where do you think their sex education comes from? And while the idea of having Jake Bass or Paddy O’Brian as your form tutor may be undeniably appealing, trying to do as they do is liable to give kids a serious inferiority complex and possibly do themselves a mischief. In purely practical terms, a virgin attempting the kind of acrobatics witnessed on YouPorn is akin to me seeing Louis Smith on the TV and trying to replicate his routine using my sofa as a pommel horse. One way or another, it’s going to end in tears. Let’s all manage our expectations, yeah?
The truth about homophobia
Starting the conversation about gay stuff in a class of adolescents risks exposing school kids to homophobia. As a solution, why not begin by teaching the numerous studies linking homophobia with gay arousal – including the University of Georgia’s findings that homophobic straight men are more likely to get hard-ons when shown gay porn. Hopefully any #lads considering a spot of gay bashing will be put off once their peers realise that it’s basically just an elaborate form of foreplay.
Consent
Not talking about same sex attraction doesn’t make it go away, it just risks meaning that young gay people don’t have the necessary resources, self-esteem and language to navigate sometimes tricky formative sexual experiences. Maybe that’s why I know so many gay guys who had sex with the first person that asked. All young people should be taught how to have sex on their own terms. Also, never to do it with anyone who thinks Louis Tomlinson is the best One Direction.
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