http://sexualities.sagepub.com
Sexualities
DOI: 10.1177/1363460708089425
2008; 11; 573Sexualities
Louisa Allen
Suggestions for Improving Sexuality Education Content
'They Think You Shouldn't be Having Sex Anyway': Young People's
http://sexualities.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/11/5/573
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Abstract It has been recognized that to be effective, sexuality
education must meet the needs and interests of young people
(Aggleton and Campbell, 2000). However, this
acknowledgement has often manifested in adults ultimately
determining what young people's needs and interests are. This
article focuses on what senior school students determine as
important and relevant programme content from focus group
and survey data. Participants' suggestions provide a critique
of current sexuality education provision that is clinical,
de-eroticized and didactic. Young people's calls for content
about emotions in relationships, teenage parenthood, abortion
and how to make sexual activity pleasurable offer insights into
how they understand themselves as sexual subjects. Student
responses position them as having the right to make their own
decisions about sexual activity and to access knowledge that will
enable their engagement in relationships that are physically and
emotionally pleasurable. This positioning sits in conflict with the
preferred non-sexual identity young people are offered by the
official culture of many schools (Allen, 2007). It is proposed that
this tension has implications for how programmes constitute
student sexuality and their effectiveness in empowering young
people to view their sexuality positively and make positive sexual
decisions.
Keywords curriculum content, sexual subjectivities,
heteronormativity, sexuality education, young people
Louisa Allen
University of Auckland, New Zealand
`They Think You Shouldn't be Having
Sex Anyway': Young People's
Suggestions for Improving Sexuality
Education Content
Since the inception of sex education in New Zealand schools,1 what
should constitute programme content has been a highly controversial
Article
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(London, Thousand Oaks, CA, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington DC)
Vol 11(5): 573­594 DOI: 10.1177/1363460708089425
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issue. Sexuality education2 is a site of competing political interests
comprising parents/caregivers, teachers, school management, educational
policy makers, civil liberties organizations, conservative and liberal groups.
This subject serves as a vehicle for addressing a plethora of social,
economic and moral issues, a role that shapes what is considered appropriate
curriculum content (Sears, 1992; Thomson, 1994). What is deemed
`suitable' for students to know is always a product of a particular historical
moment and the social and economic forces which frame this context.
Typically, it has been adults (at the level of policy and classroom
pedagogy) who have determined `acceptable' and `useful' content. This
phenomenon persists despite increased public discourse about how sexuality
education must meet young people's needs and interests to be effective
(Aggleton and Campbell, 2000). Often this is manifested as adults'
perceptions of young people's needs and interests rather than these being
determined by young people themselves. Launched from a student
centred perspective, this article examines what 16­19-year-olds deem
relevant for senior-level sexuality education drawing on questionnaire and
focus group data. From this analysis young people's critique of sexuality
education emerges in a way that positions them as sexual subjects who are
legitimately sexual, instead of preferably non-sexual.
There are several reasons why it might be important that young people
determine sexuality education content. Sexuality education that addresses
what young people define as relevant is more likely to engage students with
its messages. Programmes that fail to acknowledge young people's lived
realities are less likely to capture their attention. The notion that young
people are incapable of knowing what they need because they lack life
experience, may be an unhelpful justification for adult determined content.
This thinking positions young people as lacking the kind of agency and
decision-making power necessary to experience their sexuality positively. If
young people are never truly believed to possess these capacities, how can
sexuality education aimed at responsible sexual decision making be
expected to work? Recognizing young people as good judges of what
content they need, positions them with the agency necessary to make
positive sexual decisions.
This article proposes that there is a tension between some adultconceived
directives for sexuality education and young people's sense of
what constitutes important content. Participants critiqued what Sears
conceptualizes as the techno-rational approach to sexuality education.
This perspective prioritizes rational decision making and focuses on the
technical/physiological aspects of sexuality such as prevention of sexually
transmissible infections and unplanned pregnancy (Sears, 1992). Such
critique was evidenced in questionnaire responses that called for content
about emotions in relationships, teenage parenthood, abortion and how
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to make sexual activity pleasurable for both partners. Young people's
suggestions positioned them as sexual subjects with the right to sexual
knowledge that will support their engagement in relationships that are
physically and emotionally pleasurable. This positioning sits in conflict
with the preferred non-sexual identity offered to young people in much
sexuality education and by official school culture (Allen, 2007). Participants
also identified a deficit in programmes where the underpinning
philosophy is to prevent teenage parenthood, abortion and sexually transmissible
infections while ignoring how to support young people through
these. By asserting they want to know about such issues participants
indicate they are options they may actively choose, communicating a sense
of agency about their own life decisions. When participants render reproduction,
puberty and menstruation unnecessary topics at senior level they
are constituted as knowledgeable about sexuality's basics. The dismissal of
these topics, positions them as more sophisticated embodied sexual
subjects concerned with corporeal logistics (e.g. how to make sexual
activity pleasurable for both partners) and emotions in relationships (e.g.
dealing with relationship break ups).
These arguments are drawn out in discussion that commences with an
analysis of sexuality issues participants wanted programmes to include and
why these were identified as important. An examination of topics young
people specified as unnecessary at senior level and justifications for these
omissions is also undertaken.
The article treats young people's written and spoken narratives as
discourses which offer insights about how they understand themselves as
sexual beings. For feminist poststructuralists, discourses are `socially
organized frameworks of meaning that define categories and specify
domains of what can be said and done (Burman, 1994). Discourses not
only structure the ways we can think about things but they also constitute
our subjectivity, or our understanding of ourselves in relation to
others and the world (Weedon, 1987). As discourses are socially organized
frameworks of meaning they offer competing and often contradictory
possibilities for forming personal identity (Edley and Wetherell,
1997; Gavey, 1989). The discourses young people draw upon in response
to questions about sexuality education are analysed for the ways they
position young people as sexual subjects. When discourses are seen to
specify domains of what can be said and done they have ramifications
for what can be thought about student sexuality and how this is enacted.
It is this point that has implications for sexuality education's conceptualization
and delivery. If young people's sense of themselves as sexual
conflicts with schools' positioning of student sexuality, then programme
effectiveness may be affected.
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Details of the study
Analysis is based on 10 focus groups and 1180 completed surveys with
young people aged 16­19 in New Zealand.3 This age group captures a
diverse sector of the youth population who may either have left school
or be in the last two years of secondary education. The 78 focus group
participants were recruited from 5 schools in a major North Island city
and one community initiative to support gay, lesbian and bisexual youth.
Schools were drawn from a range of socio-economic and urban/rural
locations with two schools designated a decile 10 rating by the Ministry
of Education, two a decile 4 and one decile 1 school. Decile rankings
indicate the extent to which a school draws its students from low socioeconomic
communities with decile 1 schools containing the highest
proportion of these students and decile 10 the lowest (Ministry of
Education, 2003). Accessing gay, lesbian and bisexual students in school
settings can be problematic given these institutions are heteronormative
spaces (Hillier and Rosenthal, 2001). Warner (1993) describes heteronormativity
as an organizing principal of social life which presumes
desire, sexual practice and identity are universally heterosexual
(Warner, 1993: xxi­xxiv). Heteronormativity permeates schools through
structures and processes which normalize heterosexuality, while simultaneously
casting homosexuality as `abnormal other'. To ensure the
inclusion of gay, lesbian and bisexual students, two focus groups with
attendees at a community support group for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered
and Takataapui4 youth were conducted. All focus groups were
mixed gender (a composition chosen by participants), ranging from 3 to
14 volunteers who were often friends. The researcher facilitated all
sessions, which lasted between one and one and a half hours either in an
unused classroom or in a facility owned by the community group.
Focus groups were conducted in two parts with participants first
answering general questions about sexuality education. These involved
describing a `best sexuality lesson' or discussing the most useful things
learned. To draw out more detail about content preferences a continuum
activity was undertaken. Participants were asked to debate the placement
of 32 possible sexuality topics written on cards, into four piles headed:
Good Quality Coverage, Average Quality Coverage, Poor Coverage and
Not Taught. Topics were based on previous research findings concerning
young people and sexuality (Allen, 2005) and policy recommendations for
programme content (see Appendix). To determine content relevant to
their current experience, participants then sorted the same topics into the
categories `Should be Taught to Senior School Students' and `Not
Relevant for Senior School Students'. Discussion generated from these
activities forms the basis of data examined.
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As focus groups are more likely to produce group knowledge and
norms (Barbour and Kitzinger, 1999) an anonymous questionnaire was
employed to complement these data. This method enabled participants
to provide information individually and anonymously so issues or
perspectives they did not wish to air in a group could emerge. Fifteen
schools, located throughout New Zealand, participated in the questionnaire
distribution. As with focus group schools, these represented a range
of decile ratings and urban/rural locations. Two schools comprised
private fee-paying students while another two were faith-based. Three
schools were single sex (two girls' schools and one boys' school) with
initial contact made through health teachers who facilitated access to
pupils through the principal. In most cases the questionnaire was
distributed by the author, unless congested timetabling or geographical
location caused access difficulties (in such instances health teachers
undertook this role). The questionnaire was designed to ascertain what
participants felt sexuality education had done well, and how they would
like future programmes to address their needs and interests. Responses
to one closed ended question are analysed here with other elements of
the data explored in depth elsewhere (see Allen, 2006; 2007). This
question asked participants which topics from a possible 30 they wanted
to know more about. Issues closely resembled those provided in the focus
group activity (see Appendix).
Qualitative data were analysed by grouping emergent themes across
focus group discussions. Talk about frequently mentioned issues like
sexual diversity, emotions in relationships and abortion were then
categorized under appropriate headings. Narratives were subsequently
read for similarities and disparities in the framing of issues both across and
within focus groups. These narratives were further discursively analysed
for the way they positioned young people as sexual subjects (Willig,
1999). Extracts quoted throughout this article are indicative of trends in
focus group talk and are selected as examples of the clearest articulation
of a point made generally. Quantitative data were analysed using SPSS
with T-tests undertaken to establish gender differences. Significant gender
differences (p = 0.05) form the focus of another article about this research
(Allen, 2006). Survey responses were also treated as discursive texts which
when selected by participants positioned them as sexual subjects in
particular ways. For instance, ticking the option `how to make sexual
activity enjoyable for both partners', can discursively position a participant
as an `active sexual subject' who might legitimately engage in sexual
activity and expect to give and receive sexual pleasure. These discursive
positionings are drawn out as part of the ensuing data analysis and their
ramifications for sexuality education design and delivery discussed.
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Topics students wanted to know more about
How to make sexual activity more enjoyable for both partners
The above topic was selected by the greatest number of survey participants
(56%) as something they wanted to know more about. Focus group
participants identified talk about `pleasure' as missing in school sexuality
education. Young people demonstrated an awareness that official
discourses of sexuality education were dominated by a biological and risk
management approach which denied pleasure as important or mentionable.
The following discussion between young people in a community
focus group indicates this deficit and its consequences for young people's
experiences of sexuality.
Rosemary: . . . you do get a couple of teachers who say well, you know sex is
supposed to be fun but it's not always and you shouldn't be having
it anyway [all laugh].
Aleisha: It's supposed to be after you're married.
Rosemary: Yeah.
Louisa: So what would you have wanted to know about pleasure and
desire?
Paul: That it's an okay thing, that everyone experiences it.
Rosemary: Yeah.
Paul: And there are ways to get it.
Louisa: And you want to know the ways?
Paul: Well . . .
Rosemary: They should actually mention the word orgasm at least once.
David: Yeah.
Rosemary: Because they don't . . . I, this is weird, I don't actually, and this is
truthfully, I'd never heard of the word orgasm until I was like
fourteen . . .
Aleisha: Me neither.
Rosemary: . . . I didn't even know what one was. No one told me that there
was a pleasurable side to this that you could actually do this . . .
Aleisha: Yeah I heard about your boyfriend blah, blah, blah orgasm . . .
Rosemary: Or the internet, I found out on the internet on a, on a . . .
David: Oh yeah, I find out about everything on the internet . . . the
internet, what would we do without it.
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Rosemary: You know you never get told about it.
Paul: Yeah it's stating basic human wants and needs.
Louisa: And what do you want to know about pleasure?
Rosemary: It's not a bad thing, telling you that pleasure's not a bad thing.
Paul: Yeah, exactly.
(Community focus group, ages 16­19)
Participants indicated `pleasure' was an absence in their sexuality
education or only mentioned and subsequently legitimated with reference
to marriage. If acknowledged, pleasure was cast as `something bad' a
characterization dating back to early Christianity where sex was equated
with sin (Hawkes, 2004). For Rosemary this deficit resulted in not
knowing what an `orgasm' (a term she conflated with sexual pleasure) was
until she was fourteen. While a lack of positive references to `pleasure' were
reported across focus groups, their obscurity was intensified for this group
because they identified as gay and lesbian. When Aleisha did hear the word
orgasm it was with reference to `boyfriends' making this difficult to equate
with lesbian experience. Positive references to pleasure are scarcer at school
for same-sex attracted youth. Same-sex attracted students are already cast
as `deviant' and therefore invisible within schooling cultures, making the
possibility of their sexual pleasure even more unfathomable in this context
(Hillier et al., 2005).
The importance young people placed on knowing about sexual pleasure
is glimpsed in the above discussion. When this information was not
obtained at school or presented in a way that failed to reflect participants'
sense of lived reality, they were motivated to seek it elsewhere. In the
above case, Rosemary and David turned to the internet. According to
Hillier et al., (2001) this can be a valuable source of support for youth
who are denied information from more conventional avenues. Two-thirds
of same-sex attracted youth in Hillier et al.'s (2001) Australian study
specified the net as an `important' or `very important' source of sexuality
information. Similarly, research in New Zealand indicates that heterosexual
youth (particularly young men) are increasingly using the internet
to locate information about sex and sexuality (Allen, 2001). Seeking information
about sexual pleasure beyond school, reveals young people's sense
of its importance in their lives.
Details of what young people wanted to know about sexual activity and
pleasure emerged in focus groups. Not all focus groups talked about
pleasure candidly. Some references were more implicit or nuanced,
conveyed through humour or innuendo. These conversations may have
been difficult because of the social perception that young people should
preferably be non-sexual (Monk, 2001; Silin, 1995) and the fact that
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talking about pleasure can expose intimate details about the sexual self. As
these inhibitions were more apparent in the institutionalized setting of
schooling, the most candid and articulate discussions occurred in
community focus groups. These participants expressed a need for schools
to acknowledge that sexual activity could be pleasurable and indicate how
pleasure could be attained.
Louisa: Okay, pleasure and desire, what do you want to be taught about
in terms of pleasure and desire?
Rosemary: That it can be pleasurable . . .
David: Yeah.
Rosemary: . . . and that it's not just, you know, reproductive . . .
Aleisha: Like where everything is that you can get pleasure from.
Rosemary: Yeah.
Louisa: You mean like on your body?
Rosemary: Yeah, oh definitely.
Aleisha: Like the g zone stuff.
Paul: Yeah, and maybe if like someone talked about it like they've
actually done it, instead of talking about it like its some kind of
scientific thing that they . . .
Aleisha: Yeah.
Paul: You look at them and you wonder if they've ever done it you know
like but if you hear people talking about `I do this blah, blah, blah'
like you know, snap on a video like of just some normal person
talking about it that . . .
David: I mean who ever knew the neck could be so, such nice stuff.
Aleisha: And the ears . . .
David: Oh the ears [to Aleisha] I told you about that aye [pause] god [said
as if in raptures].
Aleisha: Yeah, ears.
(Community focus group, ages 16­19)
Participants criticize sexuality education which presents sexual activity
`like its some kind of scientific thing' for being de-eroticized and disembodied.
Their calls to include `real' experiences of pleasure seek to
embody sexuality education in a way that programmes which favour a
technical and risk management approach negate. These participants
assert that they desire knowledge about how bodies might engender
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pleasure as when Aleisha says she'd like to know, `where everything is
that you can get pleasure from'. David also infers his own experience of
embodied sexual pleasure when checking he told Aleisha how he'd
discovered `ears and necks' as highly pleasurable. This talk positions
young people as embodied sexual subjects. Desiring to know how sexual
pleasure is achieved invokes a sexual and embodied self that casts sexual
activity and a right to experience sexual pleasure as legitimate pursuits for
young people.
This positioning stands in stark contrast to how some teachers in the
research perceived young people's sexuality. As a means of reciprocating
information shared by participants with the researcher, reports of
research findings were individually prepared for schools. These comprised
analysis of data intended to help health teachers to design and deliver
future sexuality programmes. Teachers' reactions to the first place
ranking of `how to make sexual activity more enjoyable for both partners'
conveyed their perceptions of student sexuality. A common response was,
`I'm sure they do want to know more about that', in a tone implying this
request could not be taken seriously. Young people's interest in this information
was sometimes judged inappropriate (in some cases insolent) and
too controversial for proper consideration. These responses positioned
young people as preferably non-sexual, without entitlement to information
about how to make sexual activity pleasurable. Monk (2001)
explains that this attitude echoes a dominant social discourse which
`upholds the "impossibility" of child sexuality5. . . [that] reflects not so
much the needs of young people, but rather, the sensitivities and anxieties
of adults' (Monk, 2001: 279). The implication that interest in sexual
pleasure was mischievous and therefore inappropriate, positions young
people as unable to be taken seriously and not trustworthy to determine
their own needs and interests. This constitution of student sexual identity
sits in tension with participants' presentation of self as legitimately sexual
and interested in achieving positive sexual experiences.
Abortion and teenage parenthood
Two other issues, which appeared in the top five topics that participants
wanted to know more about were abortion (ranked second, with 54% of
participants ticking this option) and teenage parenthood (ranked fourth,
51% named this). When talking about abortion participants described this
topic as rarely mentioned in sexuality education. Some received information
in other subjects like biology or religious education but generally
there was dissatisfaction with this coverage. A main criticism was the
biased nature of material, where the prevailing message was that abortion
was morally wrong and should never have to be contemplated. As the
following young women reveal, the `evil' of abortion was often portrayed
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as an inevitable and direct outcome of sexual intercourse being `wrong'
for young people.
Louisa: What kinds of messages did you get around abortion?
Chelsea: It's bad and evil and don't do it.
Kylie: Yeah negatives, so don't get into the position where you have to
do something like that.
Ruth: Yeah, don't have sex so you don't have to have an abortion and
kill your baby and all the rest of it.
(Decile 10, private, co-educational school, ages 16­17)
A participant in another focus group indicated that her class had
watched an anti-abortion video showing this procedure. The film had left
such an impression that she could still recall its title, `The Silent Scream'.
Some resentment was detectable in participants' accounts of being
denied or given partial information about abortion. One-sided
approaches were sometimes interpreted as denying young people the
right to choose how they felt about this issue. Aleisha explained this
feeling when she said
It's bad. That's what we got told, abortion is bad. We don't get the [pause],
the only time I ever heard it was good was that teacher Miss Kelly that I told
you about who was really open, well she was telling us about when she was 20
and she got pregnant [pause] and she had an abortion and that was the only
time I ever heard about anyone having a choice and actually the choice being
there. (18 years, community focus group)
The importance of being recognized by school as able to make their own
decisions about abortion, appeared to underpin participants' suggestions
for how this subject might be incorporated in the curriculum.
This sentiment was succinctly captured by Cindy who explained sexuality
education should include, `what options you have if you like, if you
want to have an abortion and stuff like that, what you can do and how
to deal with it' (16 years, Decile 1, co-educational school). Another
participant indicated that, `we don't know any of the technical stuff we
just know like that it's bad, that's about it and they just tell you not to
do it' (Timara, 16 years, Decile 10, private, co-educational). Participants
also noted it would be helpful to receive information about where to go
for an abortion, details about the procedure like its length, `or even just
where to seek the information, where you start', (Chelsea, 16 years,
Decile 10, private, co-educational). Non-biased information and an
opportunity to hear a diversity of abortion perspectives was also
requested. This approach was deemed optimal because, `you can sit there
and think about your own [opinions] rather than just having this one
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opinion going blah, blah, blah' (Karen, 16 years, Decile 10, private, coeducational).
These suggestions communicate young people's desire for
more comprehensive coverage of this topic and acknowledgement that
they have a right to make their own decisions about abortion. This view
is supported by New Zealand law where a person under 16 does not need
parental consent for a legal abortion (section 25A the Guardianship Act
1968 ­ amended in 1977).
Young people wanted to know more about teenage parenthood for
similar reasons to seeking information about abortion. Sexuality education
was thought to lack support and information for those who become
teenage parents, instead giving priority to preventing this outcome. In the
following discussion, participants identify the underpinning philosophy of
much sexuality education, which is prevention of `negative' outcomes of
sexual activity.
Haley: . . . with teenage parenthood they say this is how to avoid it, but
once you're in the situation there's nothing. It's like, all right you
are a `no hoper' now.
Sandra: They don't even give you anywhere to go, like if you get into this
situation you can go here and talk to these people and . . .
Heidi: . . . people will help you and give you information like if you do
become pregnant then there's special schools that you can go to
where you can still get your education.
Haley: Yeah and abortion stuff.
(Decile 10, co-educational school, 16­17 years)
Haley detects what can be an underlying message of prevention-focused
programmes where those who fail to heed its warnings are cast as `nohopers'.
Recognition of this intimation surfaced in other focus groups
when Rosemary remarked that in sexuality education, `I reckon you get
told that teenage girls are bad and sluts, having their babies and stuff' (18
years, community focus group). This positioning can be disempowering
for those who become teenage parents, offering a negative sense of self.
These kinds of message, which render teen parents as `irresponsible' and
`problems', also contribute to the social stigmatization of this group.
Denying young people information about being a teenage parent and
what support is available fails to recognize the reality of their lives. This
reality is that some will become teenage parents and will engage in sexual
activity for this purpose. Examining the way in which teenage pregnancy
is discursively constituted in New Zealand, Cherrington and Breheny
explain how a sense of young people's agency and choice is missing from
such constructions:
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The absence of any recognition of the possibility of agency or choice in teenage
pregnancy, coupled with constructions of young people `at risk', bring a subtle
inflection of legitimized adult (parental) authority to any interventionist stance.
These young people are being positioned as needing (adult-authoritative)
protection, either from their own unconsidered actions or what is acting on
them. (Cherrington and Breheny, 2005: 97)
Sexuality education, as `an adult/authoritative, interventionist stance',
can perpetuate these dominant discourses of teenage pregnancy by only
offering negative portrayals of teenage parenthood. Highlighting the challenges
of this situation serves as a strategy to dissuade young people from
engaging in unprotected sex. Some participants recognized this negative
emphasis and endeavoured to counteract these messages. The conversation
relayed earlier between Haley and Heidi reveals that participants
wanted to know how to cope with teenage parenthood, what support is
available and that this situation holds more hope than an end to their lives.
Heidi alludes to this sense of hope and positive self-identity for pregnant
teens when she offers that, `there's special schools that you can go to
where you can still get your education'. Like their proposals for including
abortion in sexuality education, participants sought more positive information
about teenage parenthood which subsequently offered them a
measure of `choice'.
Through their assertions for more, and positive information about
abortion and teenage pregnancy, participants are constituted as subjects
with agency. This positioning implies a right to comprehensive information,
so they might be self-determining in these matters. This constitution
of self provides more agency than subject positions offered by
sexuality education, where prevailing discourses proclaim abortion
`wrong' and teenage pregnancy `a problem' to be solved. The protective
and risk management approach of such programmes offers young people
limited and negative understandings of themselves as sexual subjects,
which may not register with their own sense of self and entitlement. This
lack of congruence may contribute to young people's disengagement from
sexuality education. Limiting young people's choices through partial
information may also appear didactic rather than empowering. Being told
what to do and think about abortion and teenage pregnancy infantilizes
young people wishing to develop a sense of autonomous identity. Such
positioning may also be counterproductive to fostering young people's
ability to make positive sexual decisions and view themselves positively.
Emotions in relationships and breaking up
`Dealing with relationship break ups' (54% of participants named this) and
the issue of `emotions in relationships' (51%) were ranked third and fifth
as topics participants most wanted to know more about. Disparities
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existed between focus groups over whether relationships and emotions
had been covered in sexuality education. Some participants indicated these
elements had been addressed, while others described this content as
missing. Programme diversity may account for this situation where some
schools value emotional elements of student sexuality and others sideline
them for issues like sexually transmissible infections and unplanned pregnancy.
Since the 1970s, sexuality education has been criticized for
equating young people's sexual health with being disease free, rather than
taking a more holistic approach to this subject (David, 1978; Diorio,
1985). Despite this criticism, young Australian, New Zealand and English
research participants continue to complain about the lack of attention to
emotional issues in sexuality programmes (Allen, 2005; Forrest et al.,
2004; Gilbert, 2004; Measor et al., 2000)
Even when sexuality education included information on relationships
and emotions participants often appeared dissatisfied with this coverage.
Some felt emotions and relationships were addressed within a moral
discourse where sexual activity was permitted and fulfilling only when
`love' was part of a relationship. Participants viewed this linking of sexual
activity and emotions as offering the following prescription; `I think we
are almost taught that sex is love, like, `cause they always go on about do
it with a special person that you really love and all that sort of stuff' (Ruth,
16 years, private, co-educational school). In another focus group of
community participants this approach to student sexuality and emotions
in relationships was talked about in more depth.
Louisa: How come you placed relationships and emotions in the `poor
coverage' pile?
Claire: Oh they never went into it in our school, that's what I was
thinking they don't actually teach you like how to have a good
relationship and [pause] how to relate to people and stuff.
Jessica: But what we get told is that there are relationships and people get
married when they have them.
Andrew: Yeah [laugh] and emotions like . . . love is the ultimate thing and
you can only do that once you get married.
Jessica: Yeah and like the relations thing isn't really there for like straight
kids either like, they don't teach anyone how to relate to the
opposite sex at all or anything like that.
(Community focus group, ages 16­18)
This discussion demonstrates the diversity in young people's experience
of learning about emotions and relationships, with Claire missing out on
this information while Jessica and Andrew received it. Andrew and Jessica
critique this coverage for being narrowly confined to heterosexuality and
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marriage, and morally imbued with an insistence on love as a prerequisite
to sex. Within this discourse marriage is presented as the only sanctified
relationship (`we get told there are relationships and people get married')
in which love as `the ultimate thing' makes sex respectable. As marriage
is conventionally equated with heterosexuality, this message invisibilizes
gay and lesbian identity and an exploration of emotions in same-sex
relationships. Also implied is that if heterosexual marriage is where love
occurs, then this emotional experience (and the sexual union it legitimates)
are not possibilities for gay and lesbian students. These negative
messages may contribute to a sense of isolation which some gay and
lesbian youth report experiencing at school (Hillier et al., 2005).
What young people wanted to know about emotions and relationships
was as Claire suggests, `How to have a good relationship and how to relate
to people'. Other participants mentioned the importance of how to
handle specific emotional issues such as ending a relationship. In the
following discussion participants reveal how learning skills to manage this
situation were perceived as highly beneficial.
Timara: They don't really tell you that much about relationships; about like
how to deal with breaking up with someone or anything like that.
Sinita: Yeah I know.
Timara: The talk like you get with your friends and family and magazines
. . .
Chelsea: Yeah.
Louisa: Would that be useful information for senior school students?
Timara: Yeah.
Chelsea: Yeah it would.
Sinita: It affects so many people.
Cindy: They just go on and on in this relationship because they don't
know how like to dump the person . . .
Chelsea: And they are scared like if they break up `cause like quite often
you'll have a relationship where you still want to be friends with
them but like you don't know how to go about doing that.
(Private, co-educational school, 16­17 years)
In asserting an interest in knowing about emotions in relationships and
how to cope when one ends, young people appear to contradict some
common assumptions. These are beliefs that youth engage in relationships
simply to experiment sexually and that they are emotionally immature and
selfish. Instead, through their talk, participants are constituted as also
invested in the emotional aspects of relationships and how best to manage
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these. These findings corroborate other research indicating young
people's relationships are not uniformly fleeting and devoid of emotional
investment (Morris and Fuller, 1999; Allen, 2004).
Topics students did not want to know more about
Issues which ranked lowest in the list of those that participants wanted to
know more about cohered around the technical and clinical aspects of
sexuality, such as `reproduction', `periods' and `puberty'. Focus group
discussions implied these topics were considered redundant for senior
school students for whom puberty and first periods were a thing of the
past. Participants presented themselves as faced with a different set of
concerns such as, entering longer term relationships and engaging in
sexual activity which necessitated other skills and knowledge. Participants'
sense of the redundancy of these topics also related to this material having
already been comprehensively covered. Prior to electing what topics they
wanted to know more about, the survey asked them to rate how well each
of the same topics had been covered at school. The top five topics most
students noted as being `covered very well' were: sexually transmissible
infections, puberty, reproduction, condoms and contraception as well as
the effects of drugs and alcohol. As the following discussion demonstrates,
schools' thorough coverage of these issues was also mentioned in focus
groups.
Louisa: Uhm if you think about some of the things that sex education has
covered really well, what sorts of things do you think you've
learned really well from sex education so far?
Maya: STDs [sexually transmissible diseases].
Pita: Yep.
Maya: We get that hammered into us all the time.
Teresa: And drugs and don't smoke cigarettes and don't drink lots and all
of that sort of stuff that doesn't sort of relate . . . [trails off].
Tess: One of the messages like they've done like the safe thing really
well, I think like they always like say to have safe sex like all the
time.
Teresa: Yeah.
Maya: Always know like, where to get like contraception from.
(Decile 1, co-educational school, 17­18 years)
Maya's use of the phrase `we get that hammered into us all the time'
suggests students' perception of a topic being covered `very well' may
have been influenced by the frequency it was mentioned. Use of the word
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`hammered' suggests the message was excessive and Teresa's comment
that drugs, alcohol and cigarettes `don't sort of relate' may indicate her
feeling these were not necessarily relevant to sexuality education. Given
the prevention focus of much sexuality education it may not be surprising
that topics with a risk management focus were deemed no longer
necessary at senior level.
By suggesting they know about core sexuality education topics (e.g.
reproduction, puberty and STIs) participants are portrayed as sophisticated
sexual subjects who are beyond the basics. This perception is
reflected in research revealing that where schools offer comprehensive
sexuality education, student knowledge in these areas is generally high
(Allen, 2005). With these issues no longer deemed so important, they are
positioned as having more mature and complex educational needs. This
positioning sits in tension with schools that view students as requiring
skills to protect them from negative outcomes of sexual activity, such as
sexually transmissible infections (STIs). A struggle is apparent here over
how participants and their schools understand student sexuality. Young
people's requests for curriculum content position them legitimately as
sexual subjects with the right to knowledge that will enable them to make
autonomous sexual decisions and experience their sexuality in corporeally
and emotionally pleasurable ways. Schools that deny young people the
information they seek constitute them as preferably non-sexual, unable
to make positive sexual decisions and in need of protection (largely
from themselves).
Implications for the design of sexuality education
One way to read young people's suggestions is as a critique of current
sexuality education provision, which highlights issues perceived as inadequately
covered. From this perspective young people's calls for
information about how to make sexual activity more enjoyable imply
content is currently too clinical and de-eroticized. Similarly, interest in
knowing more about emotions and relationships suggests some
programmes offer a technical and emotionally remote education that
does not satisfy students' interests in these aspects of intimacy. Requests
for less morally steeped and more comprehensive coverage of issues like
abortion and teenage parenthood reveal that young people are critical of
partial and didactic information. Proposals to include these issues imply
that if schools are to support young people's sexual health as determined
by them, they will need to critically engage with public controversies
surrounding abortion and teenage parenthood.
The critique participants make of sexuality education and the issues they
identify as wanting to know more about, have implications for how
programmes constitute student sexuality. Programmes which concentrate
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on reducing sexually transmissible infections and unplanned pregnancy
often harbour a preference that students do not engage in sexual activity,
thereby constituting them as ideally non-sexual. However, young people's
recommendations for content position them as legitimately sexual subjects,
who have a right to experience and express their sexuality positively. In a
bid to curb teenage pregnancy and abortion sexuality programmes can fail
to represent these issues as options young people might rightfully choose.
The student subject of these moral discourses is one whose power is limited
to avoiding these `predicaments' despite the fact that the age of consent to
sexual intercourse in New Zealand is 16 years.6 Senior school students of
this age and over are therefore legally able to engage in this activity. The
Contraception, Sterilization and Abortion Act (1977) also allows for young
people under the age of 16 to be given contraceptive information, services
and prescriptions (Crockett et al., 2002).
Participants' comments asserting their right to make their own
decisions about sexuality issues imbues them with an agency that
sexuality education can deny. Young people's requests also position them
as mature enough to be given information about sexual pleasure.
Programmes in which this information is missing constitute young people
as preferably non-sexual, not entitled to pleasure and unready for this
knowledge. When participants indicate they want to know about emotions
and relationships they are constituted as subjects who are invested in more
than sexual activity. Sexuality education's underlying preference for
students to avoid sexual activity constitutes a student who is driven by
sexual desires that need curbing. Young people's suggestions about
programme content indicate they want to be understood differently from
how some sexuality education programmes currently view them.
There may be important ramifications for sexuality education that
dismisses content students deem important and persists in constituting
their sexuality in ways that contradict their own understandings. As focus
group discussion revealed, when participants did not receive the information
they required or found it unsatisfactory they sought it in other
places. While this may not necessarily lead to negative consequences, it
increases the possibility that some sources consulted may not be reliable,
positive or supportive. For example, while the internet can be an excellent
source of valuable information, it also contains much misinformation
and sites where young people's best interests are not a priority.
When sexuality education fails to take young people's content
suggestions and perceptions of their own sexuality seriously it risks their
disengagement from its messages. Content that does not address the
questions and issues young people deem important may be dismissed as
irrelevant and unhelpful. Ultimately this means that young people are
unlikely to act on the knowledge and messages offered by sexuality
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education. Such an approach can also encourage young people to feel their
needs are not important and that schools are predominately concerned
with securing their conformity, rather than empowering them to make
positive decisions. This treatment of student sexuality is disempowering
for those who feel they have a right to make their own decisions as young
adults. Programmes which position young people in accordance with their
own understandings of themselves as competent decision makers with a
right to comprehensive information that will engender positive and
pleasurable sexual experiences may be more likely to be effective. Constituting
student sexuality in this way offers a positive sense of agency that
is critical for making `good' decisions about sexual activity.
Acknowledgements
This research was made possible with funding from a New Zealand Foundation
for Research Science and Technology Post-Doctoral Fellowship. Thank you also
to all those young people who took part in this research and the schools and
community groups who allowed access to these participants.
Appendix: Sexuality Topics
In the questionnaire, topics were set out under the following headings.
During focus groups, topics were randomly ordered on cards without sub-
headings.
Puberty
* Physical changes at puberty
* Periods (menstruation)
Reproduction
* Conception (process of how egg and sperm meet)
* Teenage parenthood
* Abortion
* Sterilization (Preventing pregnancy permanently, e.g. vasectomy for
men)
Sex and risk
* Sexually transmitted infections
* Condom use and contraception
* Lower risk sexual activities (e.g. kissing)
* Effects of drugs and alcohol on sexual decision making
* Sexual harassment and abuse
Sex and society
* Homophobia (prejudice or discrimination against people who are gay
or takataapui)
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ˇ Sexual diversity (gay, lesbian, bisexual identities)
* Transgendered people (people whose gender crosses `traditional'
boundaries e.g. cross dressers, transsexuals)
* Gender roles (what it means to be a woman/man in society)
* Pornography
* Prostitution
* How the media presents sex and sexuality
* Sex and the internet (net safety, cyber sex)
* Different cultural and religious beliefs around sexuality
Sex and the body
* Positive body image (feeling good about your body)
* Sexuality and disability
* Masturbation (or wanking)
* What sexual activity is (i.e. what is sexual touch?)
* Technology and the body (i.e. fertility treatments like IVF, sex change
operations)
* How you can tell if a female is turned on
* How you can tell if a male is turned on
Sex and relationships
* Communicating with partners around sexual activity (e.g. saying
`yes'/saying `no')
* How to make sexual activity enjoyable for both partners
* Abstinence (choosing not to have sex for the time being e.g. before
marriage)
* Emotions in sexual relationships (e.g. love, lust, jealousy)
* Dealing with relationship break ups
Notes
1. Sex education has been provided in a variety of forms by some schools since
the late 1880s in New Zealand. Such education often comprised a lecture
from an external organization, the distribution of literature and parent­child
evenings (Smyth, 2000).
2. Sex education has undergone a formal name change to `sexuality education'
in New Zealand since the inception of the Health and Physical Education
Curriculum (1999). It is stated in this curriculum that `sex education,
generally refers only to the physical dimension of sexuality education' while
`sexuality education' is believed to be a more holistic and inclusive term
which covers all aspects of sexuality (Ministry of Education, 1999: 38).
3. The research received ethics approval from the University of Auckland
Human Subjects Committee before project commencement. This approval
stipulated that where schools were involved in the research the principals'
written consent be obtained in addition to the consent of any participant.
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4. In New Zealand the `Maori Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender
community have adopted this word to identify as being Maori and queer'
(definition from the New Zealand AIDS Foundation, Takataapui pamphlet).
5. The use of `child sexuality' here is not an exclusive reference to `young
children' but deliberately invokes the way all young people (regardless of
age) can be imbued with `childhood innocence'. This interpretation is drawn
from the context of the quotation, which proceeds to refer to `young people'
rather than `children'. The quotation is also located within a discussion of sex
and relationships education content as delivered to older students.
6. This ruling pertains to heterosexual couples. The 1986 Homosexual Law
Reform Act set the age of consent for male same-sex couples at 16 also.
There are no specific laws relating to the legal age for sexual relations
between women, however if one partner is over 21, and the other is under
16, the older partner can be charged with committing an indecent act
(verbatim, Crockett et al., 2002: 49).
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Biographical Note
Louisa Allen is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Education at the University
of Auckland. Her research interests include, sexuality education, masculinities,
sexualities, gender and theories of embodiment. Her latest book is Sexual
Subjects: Young People, Sexuality and Education (2005), published by Palgrave
Macmillan. Address: Faculty of Education, University of Auckland, Epsom
Campus, Private Bag 92601, Symonds Street, Auckland, New Zealand.
[email: le.allen@auckland.ac.nz]
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