Sex education strategy should discuss pleasure
Neil Puffett
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Influential government advisers are calling for frank discussions on sexual pleasure to form a central part of a new teenage pregnancy strategy.
The current strategy, launched in 1999, expires next year but ministersare yet to announce what will replace it.
Gill Frances, chair of the Teenage Pregnancy Independent Advisory Group(TPIAG), told CYP Now discussions on sexual pleasure help childrenrealise sex should be enjoyed, allowing them to take responsibility fordecisions and recognise issues around coercive sex.
She is also calling for closer monitoring of primary care trusts andstrategic health authorities to ensure money handed to them forcontraception services is spent as intended.
Simon Blake, chief executive at sex advice charity Brook and also amember of TPIAG, said sexual pleasure is one of three areas thegovernment must focus on.
"We need a grown-up conversation with young people," he said. "We needto make sure they are having sex when they are ready and for the rightreasons, are able to enjoy it and take responsibility for it."
Blake added that sex education must start to be delivered based ongender as boys and girls have different perceptions and pressures inrelation to sex as they develop.
In July, an NHS Sheffield guidance booklet that encouraged professionalsto talk about sexual pleasure to young people provoked a debate betweenhealth and faith groups.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Health said it had no update on theteenage pregnancy strategy.
