A lot of work has been done in recent years to develop the sexual health curriculum in Tasmanian schools. There are Australian curriculum requirements and there is a much greater focus on teaching consent and respectful relationships than in the past.
But there are gaps in what is provided. Teachers and schools can interpret curriculum in different ways depending on their skills, values and religious beliefs, and all schools have the discretion to decide whether or not they use their budgets to employ specialist organisations like Family Planning Tasmania.
Who should provide sex education? Should it be school teachers, who know the young people and hopefully have trusted relationships with them, or specialists from sexual health service providers who are experts on the topic? What does quality sex education look like? And is anyone asking young people?
Whatever the different views are, and wherever the gaps are, we hear lots of complaints from young women that their sex education has not helped them navigate the world they find themselves in.
Listen for yourself. We went out on the streets and asked young folk what they remember from sex ed in Tasmanian schools.
- I went to an all-girls school, faith-based. We learned abstinence is the only safe thing and that birth control goes against religion because you’re denying the birth of a child. They also talked to us about porn...they talked about how it’s quite graphic, and boys watch it and have expectations. They were like, ‘you don’t have to do this, these aren’t norms’. (20 years old, she/her)
- The PE teacher took our sex ed classes, a bloke. He was so awkward and embarrassed. He giggled every time he said ‘vagina’ and that set all the boys off. It was terrible. We didn’t learn anything about consent, or pleasure. We did have to put a condom on a banana though. (23 years old, she/her)
- Our sex ed teacher, who was a man, just chucked on this video from the late 90s and was like, ‘watch this’, and for the next two periods we just watched and then ... that was it. No questions, no discussion, nothing! It was all heterosexual, all like, ‘you will get an STD and don’t have sex, and if you are going to have sex, use a condom’. Then we were just awkwardly passed a banana and a condom. (18 years old, she/her)
- Our sex education was male-centric, focussed on preventing pregnancy. Nothing about respectful relationships. Nothing about STIs. The boys taken off to talk about masturbation while the girls were told about periods. Girls don’t masturbate apparently! We put a condom on a banana and then the teacher, a male PE teacher, made the girls do it again blindfolded ‘because one day you’ll be drop dead drunk and you’ll have to do it in the dark.” [Health Worker (weakly): OMG. Was there any conversation about alcohol and consent? Person: No. No conversation about consent.] (28 years old, she/her)
- I wanted to complain about the lack of queer sex education, which is really disappointing because my high school was really big on queer rights and activism, and they had a queer group, but there was no queer sex education. (21 years old, she/her).
- All of the consent talks were not queer focused at all, they were all about men and women. But other than that... we did have specialised organisations [like the Sexual Assault Support Service] come in and talk to us, so that was really helpful and important. (22 years old, she/her)
- I will slap anyone who tries to have 'the cup of tea consent conversation' with me! It’s such an inadequate way to talk about consent. We had that, and all the male teachers were like, ‘oh! that was really informative!’ (20 years old, she/her)
Women’s Health Tasmania is part of a dynamic coalition called the Sexual and Reproductive Health Collaborative Group (SRCHG). We want to see Tasmanians have access to comprehensive respectful relationships and sexuality education across their lifespan. This would mean comprehensive education in schools, colleges and tertiary institutions and opportunities for folk to keep learning in their post-education years.
At the moment the SRCHG is surveying how sex education is delivered in Tasmanian schools.
The 'Slightly Mad Skirt map of Tasmania' is by SHALL designs.