Ok, I know the title is cheezy (they couldn't all be deep. I have to show off my goofy side, it's part of my charm ;)), but go with me on this one. Remember back during Frosh week (which seems like a lifetime ago to me... God I feel old some days) when all you did was get free condoms left, right, and center? They were obviously sending the message that I eloquently (haha) put in my title. I have read a lot of studies in my time of university, and some that has been consistently stated is that, if people have convenient access to something, they are more likely to use it. So this got me thinking, what other factors might influence someone to use something? Relationships Between Recall of Sex Education and College Students' Sexual Attitudes and Behaviour by Walcott, Chenneville, and Tarquini will provide us with an answer... eventually.
I am pleased to say, that throughout these articles, we have found consistent evidence in favour of comprehensive sex education programs, and this article joins the rest in supporting this well-rounded approach. However, it looks at a unique aspect of the sex education debate: examining the relationship between the perception of previous education and current knowledge, attitudes, and sexual behaviours. They asked roughly 2 000 college students from two different universities. These students had to classify their previous sexual education, and answer a variety of survey items that were coded for things like HIV knowledge, attitudes about safe sex behaviour and the like. They then crossed compared these answers with the type of sexual education that the student had received prior to enrollment.
They did not really find much of a difference in terms of HIV knowledge or attitudes toward safer sex between the two types of sex education. There was an extremely small effect size in favour of comprehensive programs, but it's not really a big enough effect to be considered significant. There could be a number of reasons for this: 1) the students had to self-classify their previous education programs, and it could be that some students may have miss-classified their program as comprehensive, when it was actually an abstinence-only program. 2) as has been mentioned before, self-report studies should always be taken with a grain of salt, answers could be reflection social desirability.
They also found a gender difference, with females demonstrating significantly more positive attitudes toward safer sex than males. This is not really surprising, as it has been well-documented that men are more impulsive by nature. Not to mention that they do not have to worry about getting pregnant if they do not use protection. They may have less to lose by being careless than females do.
What was found in this study that was really quite insightful, not to mention something we haven't yet talked about, was the following: "Those who perceived sex education as more helpful, and those who were explicitly taught peer negotiation skills, were more likely to use condoms with a nonsteady partner than those who did not report such elements" (Walcott et. al., 2011, p.839). This is such an important finding, as it shows us that talking about using protection, and STD's is not enough to ensure that students are going to be safe in their sexual practices. They need to feel some connection to the problem, and to be taught practical skills, so that they can relate to the problem. Allow me to explain.
In our class, we talked a lot about the idea of agency; empowering the students to be active in their learning, to feel like they have control over their education and what they do with it, to help the students feel like they can make a difference in their environments. Agency is also applicable here to sexual education: students should be able to realize that they can control how they act, that they have power over their own sexuality. Teaching peer negotiation skills gives them that power. You can lecture on and on about how important it is to use a condom, but what good is it when they are faced with the pressure to have unprotected sex? What happens then? By teaching them how to deal with these situations, and giving them the verbal tools to ensure that they stay safe, we are giving them the most valuable tool of all: agency. We often forget how important external factors are, and teaching them about this kind of pressure, and how to deal with it effectively empowers our youth to actively make good choices, and gives them a sense of agency in their sexual lives.
As Walcott et. al. (2011) put it: "simply providing information about STI's and safer sex choices is not enough; practitioners delivering safer sex messages must also battle negative attitudes, and low expectations or self-efficacy for safer sex behaviours" (p.840). There is clearly a need to redefine sex education programs as they are currently to foster agency in the youth of today. I definitely wish that someone had warned me about the kinds of obstacles there are to performing safe sex, and how to deal with them. Feeling powerless breads apathy, and this is a dangerous attitude to tacitly foster in teenagers. Mitchell et. al. (2004), in their studies of AIDS education, found that the teenagers felt that HIV/AIDS was inevitable, and those who had it felt an invincibility, that they could do whatever they wanted because they were going to die anyways. It's clear that these teenagers lack agency in their lives, and it would likely improve their attitudes if they felt like they had some.
An important part of agency, I think, is to feel like your voice is heard. And as we saw with Eisenberg et. al. (2008), youth are rarely asked what they think is important in sex education. So, I want to hear it: what do you wish you had known? what should sex education be all about? what is important to include in a sex education program? We'll talk about this next time, so stay tuned. And don't forget: don't be silly, wrap your willy (oh common, you know it's funny).
References
Walcott, C.M, Chennewille, T., Tarquini, S. (2011). Relationship Between Recall of Sex Education and College Students' Sexual Attitudes and Behaviour, Psychology in Schools 48(8), p.828-842.
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