What My Parents Told Me (How I learnt about sexuality) Essay

What My Parents Told Me (How I learnt about sexuality) - Essay Example That solely depends on one’s experiences. The experiences of one who has been sexually abused in the childhood or at the hands of a spouse can never be compared to those experienced by one who has always seen healthy romantic and sexual relationships. Love or hate about sex depends on how one perceives sex, and how one experiences sex in life. I have always been deprived of proper sexual education right from my adolescence into my adulthood, which led to my suffering from fear of sex, and HSSD later on in life. In this paper, I reflect upon how I learned about sex and sexuality when I was an adolescent, and how the lack of parental support and sex education led to my deteriorated concept of sex. I would also reflect upon why there is a need for a full fledge program regarding sexual education in schools. I would also describe what HSSD is, to explain what I was going through. To me, sex had always been a taboo. My parents had never spoken to me openly about sex and sexual issu es. When I stepped into adolescence, sex became a mystery thing for me. With no sexual education at home or in school, I thought about sex as a dangerous activity. Aunt Sally was there to guide me a bit. She had told me to go to her if a boy approached me or tried to lure me into sexual activities. She said, â€Å"When you start feeling like you want to be kissed by a boy come to me first, you and I will discuss birth control.† She wanted to tell me about birth control; however, her warning struck me in a negative sense, so I started fearing the word of sex and thought of it as a harmful activity. I was 12 at that time. My mother had told me her stories of horrible experiences about sex, and thus, I was unconsciously fearful about the whole thing. She was sexually abused at the hands of my step-father, and for her, sex was all about a dick and getting fucked. This story got validated when I was myself raped at the age of sixteen by my boyfriend. I had become pregnant, and I l ost my child five months later. This deteriorated the concept of sex and romantic love in my view. I had my first alive child when I was eighteen, in California. Even that did not improve my concept of sex. I was afraid to indulge in sexual activities or have a partner. I lost interest in sex, which proved that I was suffering from Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder (HSSD). My body stopped responding to physical stimuli regarding sex. I never felt like advancing to solicit sexual desires, and I cringed when the sun would set. I gained no sexual knowledge from the media. Actually, I loathed media for exposing my and many others innocent children to a wrong perception of sex. When I reflect upon my life experiences about sex, I become convinced that United States should have a national policy on sex education (Lindberg & Maddow Zimet, 2012). Many advocates are working in collaboration with individuals from health sector and sexuality education, to bring forward national sexuality educa tion standards. The main objective of these national standards and policies is to offer understandable, reliable and simple assistance on the sexual education, which is right for the age and developmental phase of students belonging to Grades K–12. There is need for such a national policy that addresses the issue of minimum core content. In other words, educators and parents need to decide what minimum level of sexuality should be taught to what age. Should a second grader be taught what AIDS means and how it is transmitted? Should a third grader be made familiar with the birth control programs? There is need to devise such a policy that fosters age-appropriate sex education. Without such a national policy, it is very likely that our children will keep on getting indulged in