I worry about what the government has in mind when it says it wants compulsory sex and relationship education in schools for all children, as young as five. It has nothing to do with children learning about their bodies, or about reproduction, or contraception. These are all facts. I do not want to stop or and I do not have a problem with teachers telling children the facts. And access to contraception at 13 has got to be better than being a mother at 14. Pragmatically, a certain and perhaps increasing number of young teenagers will have sex and it is better for our society, the teenagers and their parents to ensure that sex is safe from a pregnancy and disease.

The thing that I worry about is the relationship aspects to these plans, or rather the state’s definition of a relationship. Apparently, sex will be taught in the context of a loving and caring adult relationship. Laudable, I am sure. But, and there is always a but, 16 year olds in law are not adults. By all means, tell the teenagers that sex before the age of 16 is illegal. This is a fact. Don’t tell them that sex is “best” or “better” or any other opinion when it happens within an adult relationship. And why should it be loving, or caring? Why should one night stands be any less acceptable, from a factual basis, than a loving relationship? In telling children at school that sex is best when within an adult loving relationship, we are using the dogma and opinion of the establishment rather than fact to educate our children. And that worries me.

On a personal note, I happen to believe that sex within an adult and loving relationship is an ideal situation. From a pragmatic view, instilling this into our youth could reduce the teenage pregnancy and STD contraction, which has to be a good thing. And in a large number of parents, it is clear that they are either unable or unwilling to address sexual health and relationship issues successfully themselves. But what right does the state have to define a relationship? What right does the state have to indoctrinate our children with dogma? Why is it not the parents job, whether successfully or not, to teach their own children about the ways of the world?

For me, the breakdown of society as we knew it and the collapse of the church as a power in the community are inextricably linked. The sex education that the government is suggesting should happen in schools was indoctrinated in society by the church in years past. The question we must ask now, is that are we prepared for that void to be filled by the state or would we rather take our chances without it?