Sexuality and Social Control (Sex education in schools and its role in violence prevention)

Running Head: Sexuality and Social Control
Sexuality and Social
Control
Essay
System04104
2/15/2020

Sexuality and Social Control
1
Sexuality and Social Control
(Sex education in schools and its role in violence prevention)
Education about sex is not common in every school and it is also not generally practised by
schools for educating the children. Sexual violence is a crime and it cannot be ignored by any
government, country, or nation because it does not only affect the mentality of community
rather it also force a nation to bear heavy economic costs, effects our criminal justice system,
effect public healthcare system, and also impact the education system as well. There are large
numbers of organisation all around the world including United Kingdom (UK) are committed
to prevent sexual violence by various sex education programs and initiatives. However, sex
education plays an important role in prevention of violence at school level. Sex education
helps the students to understand the need of sex and shows how it positively influences them
to see sexuality. Sex education in school not only helpful in preventing the sexual behaviour
of students rather it teaches them how to value their own bodily autonomy, ask for consent,
and identify the unhealthy relationship behaviour (Krebbekx, 2019). The essay analyse the
benefits of sex education in schools and discusses that how it can prevent the violence in the
society. The essay also focuses on the importance of sex education and perception of people
about it. It describes how sex education can help the society to control the sexual and
criminal offenses and educate children to control their immature sexual behaviour.
It has been found that one in every three girl or women report sexual abuse and it mostly
happens with intimate partner. Apart from this, these types of cases can be easily seen in the
schools where boys and girls involve in intimate relationship or they want to involve in a
sexual relationship with their partner. School is a place where large numbers of violence
recorded every day but it is also a place that can prevent violence and can help in changing
social norms (Scully, 2013). Sexual education can also help in eliminating violence and help
the society to change social norms about sexual activities. Sexual abuse, exploitation, and
rape are some common criminal violence that can be easily seen in everyday newspaper and a
large number of cases recorded every year all around the world about this sexual violent
behaviour (Ybarra, Strasburger, and Mitchell, 2014). In such a scenario, sex education in
schools can help the students to understand the reality of their bodily function and also help
the student to prevent any type of violence that they can face in their life in future. In most of
the countries sex education is considered as a part of pop culture and a classroom of teens

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generally feel shy when they asked about condom or sexual knowledge. They even do not
like to talk about their physically changes and this issue and shyness of student prevent them
to get the sex education that can help them to avoid future cases of sexual abuse and
exploitation in their life. The sex education not only helps to get some insight about how sex
works rather it also help to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections and
diseases such as HIV-AIDS (Rowlands and Walker, 2019). Most of the scholars think that
providing sex education to the young and teen generation shift their views on critical issues
related to critical issues like consent, abuse, and sexual assault. It is really a difficult situation
for the teachers to convey the sex education to children and if children cannot talk openly on
the matter of sex then it is really difficult to aware them about the future concern of sexual
molestation and sexual abuse (Ybarra, Strasburger, and Mitchell, 2014). The major thing that
is crucial to know in sex education in schools is to convinced society and students that how
sex education can help them to encounter sexual issues and help the children to learn the
difference between sexual assault and respectful physical touch. However, some of the adults
or even parents of children understand that children can learn these things by their own and
they do not need such kind of explicit help, but it is not true. Sex education not only helps
education to prevent sexual valance rather it also help them to decide what is good or bad for
them, knowing their right to give consent, and avoid abusive or physical relationship (Heise,
2010). However, the illiteracy about sex in schoolchildren forces them to unwanted
pregnancy and increase the number of cases of physical and sexual abuse and molestation.
There is still large number of steps and initiative required to provide sexual education to
school students to stop social violence that occur because of involvement of children in
sexual activities and sexual offences (Janks, 2014). It has been noticed that large number of
sexual violence cases registered in which teenagers involves and they even do not have any
knowledge about the sexuality. The large number of sexual offences recorded at school level
and it is the responsibility of teacher to educate children to face the sexual offence in their life
and make them ready that how they can avoid and prevent any kind of sexual offence in their
life or prevent people from sexually molest them. Comprehensive sexuality education in
schools is an important means of fighting with sexual violence and brings social changes in
which sexual violence can easily be prevented (Alemansour, et. al., 2019). It is really
challenging for a school to choose an effective teaching method that can effectively sexual
violence. However, it will be good if teacher find a method that has no effect on means such
as waste of time, waste of money or effort. However, it can be said that still researcher and

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scholars are trying to find such type of teaching method that can be effective and cannot
affect the productivity of teachers (Bradford, et. al., 2019).
School can be place for changing social norms by providing education to the students about
nature of the violence and also educates student that how they can face the tough situation in
life. The major challenge for a teacher in providing sex education in school is to ensure a safe
learning environment, which should be free from stigma, discrimination, and violence
(Sheppard, 2020). Providing such type of environment in a school is really a challenge for
management and teachers in an educational institution and without this type of environment,
one cannot provide a better sex education to the children. Educating children about sexuality
not only enables them to face the sexual problems in their life rather it can also help them to
get aware about various sex related infection and sexual transmission diseases (STD)
(Santelli, et. al., 2016). Educating young boys and children is the only way to prevent gender-
based violence. As per an estimate, more than 246 million children are subject to some form
of sexual harassment, sexual abuse, bullying or gender-based violence in the way to school.
More than 25% children face physical sexual violence, while 36% of children face emotional
violence (Schneider and Hirsch, 2018). Educating children about sexual offenses and
providing awareness in the class about good touch and bad touch definitely help these
children to prevent such type of cases.
Sexual violation cannot always be considered under the legal definition of sexual assault or
sexual offence in the courts. There are wide range of sexual issues that happens because of
aggressive sex behaviour and violent behaviour of male of female partner. However, many of
these kinds of situation raises when one person is not ready to involve in physical relationship
while other is aggressively want to involve in a physical relationship with sex partners or
even with wife (Banerjee, Ferrara, and Orozco, 2019). Women are the major victims in house
of sexual violence and they even do not want to talk about this because they are dominated by
their male partner. In such a situation, sex education in schools helps the teenagers to
understand the importance of consent of their life partner or their lovers. Selection of perfect
timing for involvement in a sexual relationship can also help to minimise the cases of sexual
assault and help the women to stay safe and secure even in their own house and with their
own people (Reynolds, 2019). It has been seen that in most of the sexual violence, the
relatives or friend of a girl or women involved who involve in sexually harass or rape. Sex
education in schools can help the teenagers to identify such kind of people and their