I’ll never forget my sixth grade initiation into the world of sex education. Our guidance counsellor, Mrs. Hughes, played us a video that must have been produced in the 1960s. It featured cartoon animals, and whimsical drawings of the female reproductive system. The video ended with the following sage words of advice: “Abstinence is the best way to avoid pregnancy.” Mrs. Hughes (ironically about seven months pregnant herself) proceeded to rewind the video, and replay that particular comment five or six times. Enough said.

When I was in the ninth grade, our gym class ground to a halt for two weeks of health education. It all seems like a blur now, except for the day when we got to practice putting the condom on the wooden penis. I distinctly remember that homosexuality and abortion were still taboo topics, but the teacher managed to spook us into understanding that sex sans condom would lead to imminent death and destruction. After two weeks of discussion, we knew where our ovaries were, but the clitoris remained a mystery.

The National Survey of Adolescents and Young Adults reveals that teenagers are certainly not practicing Mrs. Hughes’ favourite form of birth control. In fact, almost two-thirds of high school seniors reported having had sexual relations. The survey also reports that a third of all adolescents and three-quarters of sexually active youth have engaged in oral sex and perceive it a “safer” sex than intercourse. In fact, 20 per cent of those surveyed who had engaged in oral sex did not know that sexually transmitted diseases — STDs — could be transmitted during the act. One-fifth of young people also reported that they would “just know” if someone had an STD even if that person were not tested.

This is scary considering that a recent Health Canada report indicates that the median age of HIV infection has dropped from age 32 to age 23. Considering that it can take 10 years for the disease to incubate, this indicates that teenage years are when many people are exposed to the virus.

The experts agree that the best form of sex education comes from peer educators. Young people are more likely to listen to people who look and sound like them. That’s why Head & Hands, an organization that works with youth aged 12-25 in Montreal, sends Becky Van Tassel into the schools. At 21 years old, Van Tassel looks like a high school student herself, but often makes the students giggle with her up-front, no-holds-barred approach to sex education — an approach which might make parents cringe, but ensures that teenagers know the basics about how to protect themselves from sexually transmitted infections.

She’s learned not to blink when students approach her at the end of her presentation with graphic questions about their own sexual practices. Still, she recognizes that organizations like Head & Hands cannot fill the gaps created by school boards that aren’t allocating funding to peer-based sex education.

The Gazette in Montreal recently reported that when Quebec’s reform of the school system comes into full effect in 2005, students will no longer be required to take a health class which includes a unit on sex education. Instead, French teachers will be encouraged to “work in” discussions about sex into their existing lesson plans. This doesn’t bode well for future generations of young people, who might be exposed to sex education lessons reminiscent of Mrs. Hughes and her archaic video.