It helped me, since I'm a really enclosed person and never really had too much friends. Later in my life, I was glad the topic got discussed in my school. And I'm quite sure that as long as it helps one person in 10, those three hours of sex education are worth it.

Well that's simple, schools should teach facts, so just getting their students to know how babies get born (with slightly more emphasis on it that's put in Biology), methods of birth control (that are not forced on students in any way) and warning of casual sex and STDs... Well, that's all it needs!

Around here our biggest problem seems to be too little sex ed and too much sex training.

I'm all for Sex Ed. I come from a very redneck, backwards area of Maryland and in high school, Sex Ed involved looking at pictures of STDs, showing us a video of babies born addicted to drugs, and a pregnancy video. That's all it was, one big scare tactics course to push abstinence.

A few years later, I got a girlfriend and when we went to have sex, I had no idea how to put on a condom since the whole course was about waiting until you were married. A friend of mine worked with a girl who asked my friend if it was possible to get pregnant if you give a guy a blow job. A lot of girls I went to high school with have one or two kids, and are now getting married. If better Sex Ed was being taught, I think it would help younger folks out immensely.

How come we exist? Out parents didn't have sex education, and yet, they seem to knew what to do.

I basically agree to what wpegg said - there's no purpose in sex education, it's only the matter of "wear the condom".

About birth control - it's a matter of belief, and as that, it's a difficult matter. I'm afraid that in some cases it may be close to indoctrination (one way or another)

Same thing here.

This here is precisely why abstinence only sex ed turned out to be such a complete mistake. I say turned out like this is some sort of surprise, but for those that aren't religious conservatives it's about as much of a surprise as spending all day sunbathing and getting a sun burn.

Yes, abstinence is best, but if you're assuming that all or a significant enough portion of teens are going to avoid sex until marriage, you've got another thing coming. For better or for worse teens have sex with each other, and sometimes teachers, they're not going to be able to reduce their risk if they're not informed about the range of options.
Up until relatively recently it was a foregone conclusion that by the time you married you'd have an STD unless both partners waited for marriage. These days it's relatively reasonable to expect that neither will have any significant infections.

Yeah, the lack of sex education is probably the reason a lot of us are here at all. :P

I doubt sexual education was ever meant as an instruction on how to do it, that idea is pretty ridiculous. And IMO it shouldn't stop at birth control either. Reducing sex ed to these two points means ignoring the complexity of the topic.

If you think that's all there is to sexuality, try thinking about it from a girl's perspective for once. And aren't you glad you didn't have to go through puberty as a girl without anyone telling you the truth about all the scary stuff happening to your body? It's all well and good if kids get a decent sexual education at home but what about those who don't?

Besides, sexuality is a significant part of a human's identity and has a great impact on your life apart from actual intercourse and reproduction. You can cause serious damage to kids during childhood and puberty, ruin their self esteem and give them all sorts of complexes by feeding them with prejudices or witholding appropriate information from them. I think it's good to give kids the opportunity to discuss sexuality outside of their homes.

But I agree that the reality of sex ed in school is often sub par and that its use is questionable if it's taught by unqualified and psychologically untrained teachers and only based on gross pictures and technical charts. And of course, it can never fully replace sexual education at home or repair the damage that is done by its absence. And it's also difficult to teach because kids that age are really hard to deal with, often prejudiced and embarrassed to talk about sexuality. But that's precisely why I think it's a good idea to at least offer them some different viewpoints and helpful information. It's up to them what they make of it.

You realize most adults use condoms wrong. It's not evident to a kid that there's a 3% failure rate for pregnancy, that you should throw it away if you touch it to the tip of your penis and realize you've got it backwards (instead of just flipping it over and putting it on), or that carrying it in a wallet can ruin it.

Also a kid won't realize that typical condoms feel like a kitchen rubber glove and that there are better ones out there (Trojans suck, buy Kimono) thus leading some to try and avoid using them when they can get away with it.

Also, encouraging kids to talk about weird stuff with a doctor can prevent the spread of STDs, rather than them being so embarrassed they don't bring it up. Your low teen pregnancy rate could have more to due with birth control usage than kids practicing safe sex.

Sex ed can be useful for a lot of things. The content typically works well in the standard health and wellness class, there's no reason for a separate course outside of university really. The content, of course, should vary on the age group.
You'd be surprised at the real number of people carrying one of the herpes simplex viruses. Just because they never show symptoms and rarely transmit it doesn't mean they don't have it. In the US, I believe the real number is believed to be upwards of 90%.

Honestly most health insurance pays for STD tests in the US, just get them all at your yearly checkup, even in a committed relationship you never know for certain if your partner is messing around on the side.

I guess it in part depends upon which one you're talking about. Admittedly I'm not as up on these things as I might be, but I suspect it depends which herpes you're talking about. Nearly 100% have had the chicken pox, but probably the oral one is most common. I'm not necessarily sure if I'd count that one.

HSV-1 (Herpes Simplex 1) is the cold sore one. It's able to cause sores in your nether bits, as well. HSV-2 can actually cause cold sores on your face. It's very expensive to test for one in particular, but there's a cheap test that will show positive for either one. This is the one used most often, even if a patient has sores in their groin. Doctors simply don't care which one it is because the treatment really is dependent on where one has issues not which specific type one has. At any rate, most people get some sort of HSV very early in life, kissing grandma or whatever. Most people will only ever exhibit an occasional cold sore.

Also, condoms don't protect from HSV, I bet no one ever told ya that:)

The really gross one is HPV, that's that one that causes cervical cancer in women (and the warts are gross as hell too). The vaccine is not approved for use in adult men, but I've been told by doctors that it works, you just have to pay out of pocket. This is the worst STD out there, imo, and it very often kills women.

I suspect the current crop of HIV treatments are essentially the real deal, it's really up to us to get them available and affordable.

Ah, the more you know, I suppose.

HPV, was also implicated in elevate risks for cancers of the throat and anus, depending upon the person. For some reason they've opted to just immunize girls, but I suspect that that won't last for too much longer given that it's hardly just a risk to women.

But then again, in the US at least, there's a definite premium placed on the well being of women.

I only had sex ed in high school and it basically amounted to a guidance counselor showing us all how to put a condom on, as if that was hard to figure out, and some videos and pictures of STD scare tactic stuff.

Honestly I am far from a prude, I actually think condoms should be free in the nurse's office, but I don't see a point to sex-ed outside of Biology class, where they could discuss the STD and pregnancy risks without making a drama queen thing out of it.

Did they really do that? Idiots. Then again, there are very good reasons why I've been basically ignoring Czech politics for a long time now.

Sex ed is of course very important. If the parents are too prude/lazy/disinterested to do it themselves, it's up to the school. It is absolutely unacceptable to have horny 15-year-olds running around who don't have a clue how sex is linked to pregnancies, STDs etc. The more clever ones will find the information on their own, sure. But the slower kids won't. And we definitely do not need dumb people breeding before they even grow up.

Does this make me an elitist prick? I suppose it does. Do I care? No.