How Should Sex Education Curriculums Introduce Asexuality?

Details: Category: Cake Recipes; Published on Wednesday, 04 January 2012 17:52; Written by Lara Landis; Hits: 434

Asexuality is not mentioned in sex education classes. (Note: It was not mentioned in any of the classes the author took because she never took sex education classes in Junior High school. Many of the same topics were covered later in her High School health classes). People identifying as Asexual individuals is a fairly new phenomenon. People have identified as Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual individuals long before the Haven for the Human Amoeba and AVEN were founded at the turn of the twenty-first century.

There are sex educators working to change this, but the progress has been slow. Posters who partcipate on Asexual message boards excitedly bring up the topic when any mention of Asexuality occurs in a textbook. Dallas Bryson's website, the Asexual Sexologist offers a far more disappointing tale about the textbooks she has used as she pursued her Doctorate in human sexuality.

While sex education, particularly in the United States, often focuses on religious and moral aspects that are only peripherally related to the act of intercourse, the classes make the assumption that everyone in the class falls into the Gay, Lesbian or Bisexual category. The curriculums should be updated to include Asexuals. An astute observer of the contributions made by sex experts in the past may suggest that these updated courses should be offered to prominent experts on human sexuality first.

The question that Asexuals should ask, and should ask of sexologists, is how should education be expanded to include basic knowledge of Asexuality? The American curriculum can keep its focus on abstinence, but it should not focus on the abstinence only curriculum.