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We have appalling rape statistics. Prominent politicians are victim blamers and slut shamers. Homophobia is rife.
There is little, if any, acknowledgement of trans* or intersexed persons. We have one of the highest incidences of HIV/Aids in the world.
If Life Orientation has taught me anything, it’s that education is the key solution to nearly every problem. This, of course, is ironic, because Life Orientation manages to note nearly all of the problems South Africa has without tackling any of them. Take, for instance, sex.
Sex education in our country is appalling. I recently wrote up a blog post in which I asserted that the way schools teach children about sex is one of the main reasons why rape culture exists.
However, the more I think about it, the more I realise that rape culture is not the only sex-related problem South Africa has, and it’s certainly not the only problem our sex education is responsible for.
I have 99 problems with the Department of Basic Education. Angie Motshegka is one. But for ease of reading, I’ve compiled a list of five problems I’ve had with the sex education I’ve received throughout my school career.
I’m aware that my schooling is not the same as that of all South Africans, so if you have anything to add drop me a line.
1) It’s pretty freakin’ sexist.
I don’t know about you, but those case studies in Life Orientation always got on my last nerve. For some reason, I always had to give Thandi advice when her boyfriend, Sipho, was pressuring her into having sex. Firstly, none of those couples ever seem to be interracial. I’d like to discuss Priya and Josh for a second, please.
Secondly, they’re always heterosexual – but more on that later. Thirdly, Life Orientation always seems to characterise the man or boy in the relationship as the one who wants to have sex while the girl, who wants to hold out, is desperate to keep her boyfriend.
The problems we learn to deal with are always a regurgitation of the same old gender stereotypes. The boy always wants ‘one thing’, and the girl is emotionally fragile and sensitive to his manipulation because she loves him. This kind of stereotyping enforces the patriarchal expectations of either gender in heterosexual relationships.
Also, by only teaching us how to deal with the stereotypical teenage problems, we aren’t equipped to deal with the less-spoken about issues.
What if Thandi wants to have sex but Sipho wants to wait until they’re married? It’s perfectly feasible. Thandi has desires. Instead, all the real sex-loving Thandis and commitment-seeking Siphos out there are made to feel abnormal and ashamed, and are ultimately silenced.
2) It’s always heteronormative.
I don’t remember learning all that much about homosexuality, bisexuality, pansexuality, asexuality etc. when I was at school. In fact, I think I initially learnt about differences in sexual orientation from Oprah and my sister’s collection of Cosmopolitan magazines.
When you learn about sexuality from those sources – a TV episode marked as only suitable for persons 13-years-old or older, a magazine intended to be for young adults – you get the idea that it’s something ‘naughty’ or shameful.
When I, as a 12-year-old, asked my teacher how two women have sex (a pretty valid question, I rated) I was told it’s not something I need to think about at my age.
Why? We’re taught about how men and women have sex. Why is homosexuality so different? Homosexual sex is presented as irrelevant to a 12-year-old, but what if that 12-year-old is homosexual? Surely then it is more relevant than heterosexual sex?
If we’re uncomfortable with talking about sexual orientation in, excuse me, sex ed class, where exactly should we learn about it? Theoretically, schools provide the perfect place to educate people about acceptance and tolerance.
If people are afraid of the unknown, surely we should use our most basic means of educating our citizens – our schools – to spread knowledge about sexual orientation. But we don’t. Homosexuality is seen as irrelevant to the curriculum, and bi-, pan- or asexuality is barely acknowledged. As a result, ‘queer’ sexual orientations are stigmatised.
A teacher dodges a question about homosexuality in class, a textbook defines sex as something that happens between a man and a woman, and we sit around and wonder why corrective rape is so common in South Africa.
3) It’s always cisnormative.
You might want to sit down for this next mind-blowing piece of information: girls don’t always have vaginas. Boys don’t always have penises. Our system needs to teach children how to differentiate between gender and sex, and that both are not binary. Pause – our system needs to learn the differences between sex and gender itself.
When we learn about anatomy in Biology and Life Orientation, certain sexual characteristics are associated with ‘men’ or ‘boys’ and ‘women’ or ‘girls’, as opposed to their real labels: male or female. Additionally, we are not taught about the varying levels between female women and male men.
Intersexuality or trans* persons was never spoken about. Gender and sex are taught as a binary, as opposed to a continuum.
4) It has elements of slut-shaming.
In a previous blog post I spoke of how slut shaming is often permeated by the way school-going persons are educated about sex. Slut shaming occurs when a person, usually female, is insulted or ostracised for expressing or acknowledging her sexuality, demonstrating behaviour that could be considered ‘sexual’, having sexual partners, taking control of her reproductive functions, acknowledging sex and her sexual feelings and/or acting on these feelings.
By slut shaming individuals, society sends the message that sex is disgusting and shameful, particularly for women.
Often, the way children are educated about sex contains elements of slut-shaming: for example, often abstinence is taught to be the best approach to sex. While elements of this might be practical – it is one of the most effective ways to avoid pregnancy and STI’s – a large reason for advocating abstinence is slut-shaming.
We are not taught to abstain just for practical, medical reasons, but also because our virginity is often thought to give us value.
Women are particularly told that their sexual purity and innocence is important as, as my former teacher put it, “nobody wants to chew gum someone else spat out.”
Forever ingrained into my mind is the image of seven girls standing in front of our grade in the school hall, twisting or standing on a Fizzer before passing it onto the next person.
At the end, we were left with a yucky-looking, damaged Fizzer – a metaphor for ourselves after we ‘let’ people (men, of course, because homosexuality wasn’t an appropriate topic) have sex with us.
The implication here is that when a man has sex with a woman (note that the woman is the subject in that sentence), that woman’s soul or value is damaged – therefore it perpetuates the idea that sex is something dirty, scary or degrading to women.
Also, it implies that no man would want a woman that has already had sex with someone else, which is not only a very sexist look at men, but degrading to women as it equates them to gum or a Fizzer, instead of a person with feelings, aspirations and, yes, sexual desires.
5) It’s impractical.
Instruction and information on contraception is frequently repeated and contains little substance. By the time my classmates and I got to Grade 10, we could tell you the average effectiveness of oral contraception and a step-by-step narrative of how it prevents ovulation. We had no idea that we could access it for free.
We could explain the importance of a Pap smear, but we didn’t know how to get one. I could tell you how the HI-virus attacks the immune system, but I had no clue where I could get tested.
I knew exactly how a condom worked and that I shouldn’t use Vaseline as a lubricant, but I didn’t know where to get a condom.
Our government provides a range of sexual health services to the public, but this is pointless unless the public – particularly those who need it, the youth – are told about these services.
Teaching children why they should use contraception is pointless unless we tell them how to do so.
Let’s fix this shit, South Africa.
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