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  • Abstinence lessons for girls?

    Monday 9 May 2011

    Categories: Education, Growing up, Sexual Relationships, Teenagers

    Nadine Dorries, the Conservative MP for Mid Bedfordshire, has suggested that schoolgirls between the ages of 13 and 16 should be given lessons in ‘how to say no’ as part of the sex and relationships curriculum.

    I know I am not alone in asking why this message should be targeted at girls, rather than at both boys and girls. To me it suggests the disturbing and dangerous idea that girls indulge in or withhold sex as a way of managing and manipulating their relationships with boys. It implies that sex is something boys want, and girls ‘give it up’ to the boy they want to impress or hold on to. It certainly doesn’t suggest that both boys and girls may find sex an enjoyable and positive experience in the right context.

    I do feel strongly that no one should feel pressured into a sexual relationship if they are unwilling or just not ready. I also feel we should enforce the message that sex as part of a caring relationship is far preferable to casual sex with a relative stranger. But this is a message which needs to be communicated clearly to both girls AND boys, as I believe it already is in most schools’ sex and relationships lessons. This may be why the most recent data from the Office for National Statistics show that teenage pregnancies are falling and are currently at their lowest rate since the 1980s. Our current programmes seem to be working.

    And recommending complete abstinence is a very difficult message to get across to young people. From time to time, as the Head of a girls’ school, I used to hold a Sixth Form assembly on the subject of teenage drinking. I wouldn’t have dreamed of trying to say to these girls: ‘Don’t drink.’ It would have been a waste of time. But talking to them about risk, about being aware of the consequences of their actions and of the crucial importance of being safe, making responsible choices and looking after one another was far more productive. I would suggest we need the same messages (for both boys and girls) where sex is concerned.

    Posted by Jill Berry

Your comments

It absolutely does need to be communicated to both girls and boys. Times change and what was an acceptable level of education on this matter years ago may not be suitable now. I do still believe that safe sex should be top of the agenda, and much more could be done to help prevent some of the horrific STI’s which are prevalent in today’s society. As a Health Professional working in a mixed environment I see social deprivation and borderline poverty daily and often having a baby as a teenager is absolutely the best thing a girl can do, as it offers a helping hand to reach out and access health support and education. Obviously, I would not recommend teenage pregnancy, but on occasion it is probably the best outcome!

By helsweld on Saturday 13 August 2011

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