Ideas | Our kids can’t just learn about sex from a Squeamish gym teacher

Almost two years ago, when my daughter was in seventh grade, I took her to see the movie adaptation of Judy Blume’s classic novel, “God Are You There? It’s me, Margaret.”

In one scene, Margaret sits in her New Jersey school classroom while the girls in her class watch a video called “What Every Girl Should Know.” A woman with a singing voice talks about menstruation. She said: “Once a month, a layer of blood and cells form in her womb to make a warm and nurturing place for a baby. “If the child is not conceived, the covering is not needed, so the blood comes out.” Margaret and her classmates were very angry, and the older women in the theater laughed loudly. “Oh, how far we’ve come since the 70s!” I thought. But my daughter did not laugh. Instead, he leaned down and whispered in my ear, “This is more than we can handle!”

As it turns out, my daughter didn’t just get it Less sex in 2023 than Margaret created in 1970; he got nothing. At the beginning of my daughter’s eighth grade year at her school in New Jersey, I went to the vice principal to ask why they weren’t teaching about sex. The answer he came back with: The health class at the school is taught by the PE teacher. And gym teachers aren’t known for being comfortable talking about sex with school kids.

This discomfort, in part, comes from a lack of training. Many gym teachers do not receive the professional development necessary to confidently and accurately teach sex. And many of them prefer to teach gym.

Gym teachers don’t get to decide if students learn about sex, at least not in New Jersey. Sex education is a government mandate here. Therefore, even if parents can remove their children from sex, the school should not stop teaching it.

In the list of subjects considered that there must be consent. It wasn’t until I was 40 that I fully understood the concept of consent. The sex ed I grew up in Connecticut was comprehensive, but I only had one word for inappropriate behavior: rape. I used to think of rape as a special kind of assault: violently obvious, with a victim saying no.

For many people, the #MeToo movement was an eye-opener. It expanded my vocabulary and led me to redefine some key experiences from my childhood. I realized that relationships that started when I was a teenager were not only “messy”, but emotionally abusive. Meeting shortly after graduation was not a “mistake”; it is sexual abuse. These statements were upsetting but validating. I suddenly understood why I spent so much time hiding in my room the summer after graduation. I understand that emotional abuse can be hard to spot because it can seem like infatuation or love, especially for vulnerable teenagers who are just starting to date.

I wonder though, if I had had a better education as a child, would I have seen the red flags earlier? Could I have broken up with my boyfriend on one of our first dates when he threw dog poop at me? May I understand that when he was jealous of another man, he was self-controlled and not Roman? What if my friend got better approval? Did one of them pick me up and ask if I felt safe?

I also sometimes wonder if the guys who hurt me would have behaved differently THEY ARE better approved ed.

My daughter’s generation came of age after #MeToo. They heard words like “sexual abuse”, “sexual assault” and “emotional abuse”. They watched the predators face the consequences of their actions. But Gen Z has also watched sex offenders rise to power, holding some of the most important jobs in the world.

At the same time, when young men think about consent, many of them are undoubtedly concerned first and foremost with protecting themselves – with not “getting out.” Most of the criminals in this age group do not intentionally break the law, but without a clear understanding of the form of consent, they do not necessarily know how to avoid doing things that could invalidate them.

Across the country, there is no clear guidance for young people on how to have healthy relationships and relationships, no shared understanding of what consent means. They need it, especially now, with a president who has been found guilty of sexually abusing a woman and has bragged about other assaults.

This essential instruction cannot be obtained from a squeamish gym teacher. One idea is to put more of this work in the hands of young people. There is no precedent for this. In 1973 a group called the Student Committee for Fair Sex Education conducted workshops in a dozen public schools in New York City. The peer educators ran a learning center they called a “rap room,” where students could hang out during free time. Unlike their adult counterparts, the young educators made sex fun and playful, encouraging their friends to voluntarily seek answers to their questions or watch a demonstration of contraceptives.

After about two years, this experiment ended due to bureaucratic obstacles. Similar programs that focus on acceptance are currently active in middle schools and high schools across the country through an organization called SafeBAE, which stands for Safe Before. Anyone Else. According to research by SafeBAE, teenagers are far more receptive to texting from other teens than from adults, whose language and mannerisms feel outdated.

For student-led programs to thrive, children obviously need the support of caring adults. They need teachers and administrators who are receptive to student advocacy and familiar with Title IX, the federal law that requires public schools to have policies and procedures in place to deal with complaints of sexual assault and harassment. SafeBAE encourages schools not to introduce sex in health classes but to include it in discussions of literature and history – for example, when studying books such as “The Scarlet Letter” or global conflicts where rape is used as a weapon. This concept seems promising but if teachers only receive professional development around sexuality and acceptance, perhaps the learning that we rarely had as teenagers.

My daughter is a freshman in high school. And at the end he had a little sex. In eighth grade, after I spoke with the vice principal, the health teacher spoke to the class about the basic reproductive system and gave a presentation about consent to a counselor. This year, her teacher spent time covering consent laws. All of this is better than nothing.

However, the system feels inadequate in giving children the skills they need to build healthy relationships. Educators do not meaningfully teach them how to recognize abusive behavior or how to approach intimacy through acceptance.

My daughter’s senior year of high school was Donald Trump’s last year in office. I hope that by then, watching “Are You There God?” again, he’ll be able to lean back during the sex scene and say, “Thankfully, we got more than that!“

Hillary Frank is an author and podcaster. He re-released “The Longest Shortest Time” and is the author of the upcoming audiobook “Vedlocked.”

The Times is committed to publishing various letters to the editor. We want to hear what you think about this or our article. Here are some RECOMMENDATION. And here is our email: letters@nytimes.com.

Follow the New York Times Opinion section at Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp, X SY thread.