UK vs Holland pregnancy and STD rates

[The Atheist]

Excellent article on the differences between UK and Dutch rates of unwanted pregnancy, STDs and sex education.

Holland, which has sex education from day 1, has very low rates of youth STD infection and teenage pregnancy, while the UK's numbers are - like USA's and NZ's - truly awful.

It seems to me to make perfect sense that education is the difference - at school age in UK, USA and NZ, most people are very reluctant to talk sex with their kids. Against that trend, my kids are quite happy (at ages 6 & 9) to discuss sex, sexuality and genitals at the drop of a hat. We had a great discussion on penises - circumcised and uncircumcised - the other day.

I don't know why it's so hard for people to talk sex with their kids, but it seems people need to start doing just that.

From the Times, UK:

(no prize for guessing which country this was in)

Next year, 12-year-old Sasha explains to me, they will learn how to put a condom on a broomstick (she says this without a trace of embarrassment, just a polite smile). Across the city, nine-year-old Marcus, who lives in a beautiful 18th-century house on a canal, has been watching a cartoon showing him how to masturbate. His sister, 11, has been writing an essay on reproduction and knows that it is legal for two consenting 12-year-olds to make love. Her favourite magazine, Girls, gives advice on techniques in bed, and her parents sometimes allow her to stay up to see a baby being born on the birthing channel.

Then there is Yuri, 16, who explains to me that “anal sex hurts at the beginning but if you persevere it can be very pleasurable”. When I ask whether he is gay, he says “no” but he has watched a documentary on the subject with his parents.

 

[gtc]

The Birthing Channel?

That's quite specific.

 

[quixotecoyote]

It's funny, I consider myself fairly liberal sexually, in theory if not in practice, but some of the Dutch approaches still shocked my sensibilities.

It was one of those moments where it's obvious we're hooked into our own culture in ways we underestimate or take for granted.

 

[learner]

I knew we could beat those hollanders at something. Just took a little effort

 

[Mark6]

It's funny, I consider myself fairly liberal sexually, in theory if not in practice, but some of the Dutch approaches still shocked my sensibilities.

It was one of those moments where it's obvious we're hooked into our own culture in ways we underestimate or take for granted.

Here is what I think is a good way to find out whether or not you are "hooked into your own culture";

If you are a parent with children (if you have no children, or if they are already adults, the point is moot), can you HONESTLY say "I want my child to have a happy and satisfying sex life"?

Notice that places like Holland and Switzerland, where adolescent sex is regarded as something natural and joyful, have less STD's and unwanted pregnancies than places where it is regarded as "risky behaviour".

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Makes me proud to be 1/4 Dutch!

 

[The Atheist]

If you are a parent with children (if you have no children, or if they are already adults, the point is moot), can you HONESTLY say "I want my child to have a happy and satisfying sex life"?

Yes. I do just that and we discuss the subject with our kids at any time they choose - which, being kids, is fairly frequent.

You should see the looks I got a couple of weeks ago when one of them asked why there were different types of tampons in the supermarket and I stopped to explain that while some are inserted by finger, others have applicators.

I think two mums had heart attacks.

While that's not sex, as such, we certainly discuss all manner of sexual topics as well - from prostitutes to STDs to enjoyment to consent.

 

[Euromutt]

Speaking as a Dutch national, I didn't recognize half this stuff. In my day (and I'm 38, fer chrissakes), we got sex ed in the first two years of secondary education, with a lot less explicitness in the media, and I don't think our teenage pregnancy and STD rates were any higher back then. Mind you, I came into sexual maturity around the time herpes and AIDS were rearing their ugly heads (and effective antivirals had not yet been developed), so perhaps a fair amount of it had to do with kids my age just being too damn terrified to get it on until we were extremely sure of what we were doing.

 

[IchabodPlain]

deleted

 

[EeneyMinnieMoe]

Holy...!

...for real?!

...well!

I'm American and I certainly had sex-ed in middle school and high school (and even a little in elementary) and, I have to tell you, it was a bit of a joke in middle school.

It wasn't that the kids objected to it at all, it's that they saw it as very "dorky". One boy sitting at my table periodically laughingly exclaimed "Son, I already know this!" and the instructor, a man I suspect was openly gay, was mercilessly mocked.

When we had that excercise they always do, writing anonymous questions on slips of paper and handing them up, about half of them were "Are you gay?".

Do you ever watch "South Park"? Do you remember some of the episodes that show a sex-ed class taking place? That's kinda exactly what it was like.

There was one episode where a very serious question posed by one of the few students in the class who actually could benefit from instruction was lost amid the disruption, howls of laughter and jokes. And wasn't answered at all and was not given the attention it deserved because of the teacher's ignorance and cluelessness.

That was exactly what it was like.

 

[The Atheist]

I'm American and I certainly had sex-ed in middle school and high school (and even a little in elementary) and, I have to tell you, it was a bit of a joke in middle school.

Spot the difference?

The Dutch kids see it as natural.

I think you'll find USA's stats on early pregnancy and STD infections aren't all that flash, either, so maybe quite a few places could learn from the tulip-growers.

 

[Euromutt]

At the risk of coming off as a snooty mainland "we-know-everything-better" Euro type, I do find it striking that in the rich industrialized world, English-speaking countries seem to have a stronger tendency than most towards a rather uptight attitude towards sex, by which I mean that while it's accepted that people do it, "authority figures" are reluctant to talk about the nuts and bolts, and particularly how to avoid getting pregnant and catching STDs. Any discussion of sex seems to be very much on a laddish, "round the back of the bike sheds" level, if you will.

Feel free to correct me if my impression is an unreasonable one; I do say "seem" because I don't want to assert that this is the case. It's just an impression I get, and again, this is at a macro level. I've known British, Americans and Canadians who can be perfectly mature about this sort of thing, but they seem to be in a minority.

 

[EeneyMinnieMoe]

Spot the difference?

The Dutch kids see it as natural.

I think you'll find USA's stats on early pregnancy and STD infections aren't all that flash, either, so maybe quite a few places could learn from the tulip-growers.

It's not that the kids were shy or uncomfortable with sex- it was the exact opposite, that they didn't take it at all seriously. They treated it like a joke and laughed at it but they weren't in the least embarrassed by the material itself.

Plus, they used sex being in the classroom as an excuse to misbehave.

It came to the point that the sex-ed teacher exploded at the whole class; she screamed at us that if we didn't listen to her, we'd fall to prey to the thousands of sexual myths on the street and end up pregnant or with HIV.

 

[The Atheist]

At the risk of coming off as a snooty mainland "we-know-everything-better" Euro type, I do find it striking that in the rich industrialized world, English-speaking countries seem to have a stronger tendency than most towards a rather uptight attitude towards sex, by which I mean that while it's accepted that people do it, "authority figures" are reluctant to talk about the nuts and bolts, and particularly how to avoid getting pregnant and catching STDs. Any discussion of sex seems to be very much on a laddish, "round the back of the bike sheds" level, if you will.

Couldn't agree more.

Mind you, I don't recall Europe always being at the centre of good taste and common sense.

It's not that the kids were shy or uncomfortable with sex- it was the exact opposite, that they didn't take it at all seriously. They treated it like a joke and laughed at it but they weren't in the least embarrassed by the material itself.

Maybe it's the way it was presented?

If, as I'm guessing, the sex ed was a "this is how you have babies" kind, then I'm not surprised it fails - and it clearly does.

The Dutch system seems to be more about sex ed being a place where sexuality is explored rather than just the mechanics of sex.

 

[EeneyMinnieMoe]

Actually, I think the curriculum was pretty much ok. It was about the science and biology of sex- what the parts of the male and female reproductive organs look like, why girls get periods, how you can get HIV, etc.

More importantly, it was about contraceptives. It's where I first learned of the existence of diaphrams and pills. The teacher demonstrated how different methods of contraception are put on by miming in the air and by putting them onto models.

We also heavily covered HIV/AIDS. As a matter of fact, the whole class might have been called "HIV/AIDS prevention" cause that was the number one theme of it.

We also learned about abstinence in addition to all that- the teacher's message was that it's the only foolproof method of preventing pregnancy and HIV or both.

Edit: So I don't blame the teacher. I blame the kids for being immature and badly behaved cretins.

Twelve/thirteen is a terrible age, anyway. I pesonally believe that all kids of that age should be rounded up and locked in cages until they are fit to rejoin society.

 

[NewtonTrino]

I love the dutch people. I hope they don't fall back into conservatism as seems to be the trend though. I would love to live there for a while...

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

Why would children need a cartoon to show them how to masturbate?

Most kids learn very quickly what feels 'nice'. All that is required after that is some gentle instruction to do it in private rather than in the supermarket.