Sex Therapist for Sex Education
You may be wondering, why would I need a sex therapist
for sex education? Most people are no stranger to the undeniable fact that we have a grotesque sex education system in place that is heavily influenced by heteronormativity, patriarchy, sexism, racism, and an incredible absence of separation of church and state. We can get into the latter point another time. For now, I would love to explore with you, excellent reader, why seeing a sex therapist is a great option to receive proper sex education.
What Our Sex Ed is Now
When we think about the Sex Ed system and curriculum, there is a lot of mixed messaging and absence of information at all. Most people go to school and experience a complete lack of sex education, or abstinence-pushing education. If they do have sex education, it’s usually the random PE or history teacher with no experience or credentialling as a sexuality educator, resulting in a very uncomfortable and harmful education. While these teachers are telling children and young adults all the harmful risks of unsafe, reckless sexual behavior that goes outside the procreative, cishet script, they fail to inform these students on how to protect themselves. How to make fully informed decisions about their intimate life, the diversity of all the different sexual and gender dynamics. In this failure to fully inform, students are left with sex being seen as this scary thing or are left to direct themselves to unethical porn sites that present sex in an incredibly harmful way.
Many think the people who are arguing for sex education are trying to influence people’s sexuality, which cannot be done, are predatory, or are looking to teach young children how to have sex. While this is far from the truth, the result in a common proposed solution of it being up to the parents what, how, and when their child learned about sex. The issue with this is it’s making the generous assumption that majority of parents have a sex-positive, healthily developed, open mindset about sex and sexuality to teach their children that is rid of all biases. Many of you readers may know from personal experience that these kinds of parents are rare. Most commonly, parents are either sex-negative or sex-neutral. This can look like directly telling their children that sex is bad unless under specific circumstances and shaming them for deviating, or there is a household “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, respectively.
The Current Curriculum
What if I told you that contrary to common belief, the current Sex Education Curriculum is inclusive, emphasizes education of consent, respect of bodily autonomy, education on the diverse family dynamics, resources for those being abused, resources and awareness of sex trafficking, education on safe sex practices for people who are heterosexual and queer. The curriculum teaches how to build healthy relationships and develop safe and positive views of sex and sexuality.
This means that through kindergarten through graduating high school, students are provided with developmentally, age-appropriate, evidence-based information relevant to their physical health, emotional health, safety, and sex positivity. This can look like kindergarteners learning bodily autonomy and when to tell an adult about a potential predator, to high school graduates knowing how to protect themselves sexually, know how to communicate with partners (sexual and romantic) and leave high school less likely to be holding onto learned sexual shame.
How a Sex Therapist can Help
Given the reality of the sex-ed system, the learned shame, misinformation about porn, absence of evidence-supported consent, and absence of regulation how it’s taught in the classroom. Until this changes, sex therapists can be an incredible resource to acquire the sex education you should’ve had throughout your entire grade school career. This can look like learning anatomy, learning all that consent encompasses, learning how to communicate sexually with your partner, the diverse sexual dynamics, and so much more. There is a lot of social messaging around therapy, and even sex therapy. Many believe there needs to be something wrong with you or going wrong in your life to seek outside help and care. What if that wasn’t the case? What if you went to the expert because you just wanted to get better at something or learn something? A sex therapist can be an incredible aid to help you learn proper and thorough sex education, unpack any harmful messaging or ideas about sex, and hopefully send you on your way to a happy, thriving, shame-free sex life!
Now, when you’re looking for your sex therapist sex ed teacher, make sure you connect with someone who is a certified sex therapist. Non-certified, self-proclaimed sex therapists do not have the same training to administer sex-positive care.
Meet the Author
Hi! My name is Hunter, I am an LMFT-C and Certified Sex Therapist with an emphasis on sexual education, kink/BDSM, trauma, ethical nonmonogamy, and more! As a therapist at Respark, we work very hard to bring sex-positive care both in and out of session. Happy reading!
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