How early is too early for sex education? Aussie stars tackle controversial question
By Lucia Hawley|
Sex education is a topic that has been at the forefront of many public conversations recently.
As discussions around the issues like consent and sexuality have become more prevalent, questions surrounding education have arisen. One question in particular has become central จC how early is too early for sex education?
On this week's segment of Talking Honey, the 9Honey panel, consisting of Shelly Horton, Maria Thattil, John Aiken and Ben Fordham, addressed the 'birds and the bees' chat and discussed the right time to have the conversation.
You can watch the discussion in the clip above.
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"It's time to talk about the birds and the bees... How young is too young to start talking to kids about it?" Horton said. "It used to be a school sex ed talk but now we've got gender studies [classes] that are being taught in primary schools or even childcare centres."
Horton panned the question to Fordham, who had previously addressed ?the topic during a segment on his 2GB breakfast show.
Fordham gave backstory to the segment, explaining a father of a five-year-old phoned in and revealed his child had received sex education during after-school care.
?"[The father] was making the point that when those topics are discussed with his five-year-old, he would want it discussed จC first and foremost จC in a home environment," Fordham said.
"I agreed that it's all about age appropriate discussions, and five, for me and most parents, it's just way too young to be discussing any type of sexuality issues," the radio host added.?
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Horton played devils advocate and shifted the conversation to Thattil, asking, "When we're [talking about] gender, it's not actually about sex ed. So is it the earlier we start, the better?"
Thattil said that whilst she believed it was all about "age appropriate conversations" she also wishes she had been taught sex education earlier.
"When I was growing up, sex and talking about sexuality was very taboo, beyond [the age of] five, it was well into my teens?," Thattil said. "I remember being super young and not even really feeling comfortable using the correct terminology for genitals and parts of your body and things like that."
The former Miss Universe Australia explained that as questions around sex eventually started to come up in her teen years, she didn't feel safe asking her parents questions.
"I wasn't getting the education that I needed on it and it did lead me to looking in the wrong places to get those answers because kids are curious," Thattil explained.
"If you're not having those conversations at home, you're going to look at unsafe sites, you're going to look to even less informed peers who are the same age... I've been in situations that were unsafe as a result."
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Aiken weighed in on the discussion, reverting back to the segment on the 2GB breakfast show, saying, "What stood out about this situation to me is that the father was totally blindsided. He had no idea this was happening."
"As a dad of a 12-year-old boy and a nine-year-old girl, I would say, 'Well, I would like to know what's going on before just opening a door and being blindsided like that.'"
Watch the rest of the clip to see how the conversation played out.
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