Opinion: Why we need to normalise sex education for all ages

African parents have always made it weird to talk about sex in fact they cringe at the sound of it.

Traditionally in the african culture a girl was supposed to get married while she was still a virgin othewise she would be considered damaged goods.

In situations like this nothing was explained to you, you are just told to abstain from having sex and that is the end of that.

I feel that that culture has somewhat been passed along into our current generation; nobody is talking about sex but everybody is having it.

Sex is sweet and its so weird that we enjoy something but we can’t be able to talk about it.

A few generations before us, getting pregnant before marriage was a taboo. You were seen as an outlaw who refused to respect the ways of the society.

A young pregnant girl was forced to live on her own as no man was willing to marry her let alone raise another man’s baby.

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All this stigma sometimes forced girls to abort and we all know how hard it was at that time to terminate a pregnancy.

They had to do it traditionally and it brought alot of complications, sometimes death to the young mother.

Sex is more than just smashing, there are consequences, stds, precautions, feelings are involved but all most people care about is climaxing.

When you are talking to your kid, brother, sister, friend or anybody you are trying to advice, stop telling them that sex is bad.

How can it be bad and yet you are having it all the time? And this is what confuses kids, they are taught in school that sex is a way of procreating but at home you keep telling them its bad.

Our parents put a dark cloud on sex so much that they forward errotic scenes when you are watching a movie together.

And if its just a program on TV they will pretend to be on their phones or suddenly send you to the kitchen, all this just to avoid watching that part with you.

They should use moments like this to talk to their kids about sex and stop all these weirdness.
Kids should be introduced to sex education as early as possible.

You go to some schools and ‘boy and girl’ is what they are selling as sex education.

This is so shallow considering that in this age and time technology is so advanced, kids have phones and trust me they google about sex all the time.

It shouldn’t be like this though, you should provide an environment where you are all free to speak about anything without feeling embarrased.

Your children should feel free to ask anything that pricks their curiosity, be ready and willing to answer them.

When you are a teenager, adolescence is in full throttle and all your hotblooded self can think of is releasing that sexual pressure.

You look for a willing partner to feed your urges, considering you are horny all caution is thrown to the wind.

At this time you have no prior knowledge of contraceptives or any form of protection, its just you and your raging hormones pinned up against a wall.

When I was young all I know about sex is that it should be done at night, I am all grown up now and I realised that when it comes to sex time is not a factor.

Nobody told me that other than making kids, sex can be done for fun; recreational sex.

All the things that I know about sex right now either I figured it out myself or lifted it from the internet.

The conservative nature at our home didn’t allow us to freely talk about sex and I know this was the case in many families.

A friend of mine (lets keep her anonymous) got pregnant at 17, she knew she was pregnant after 3 months.

Lets pause for a minute, at 17 years you are young and full of life, you are excited by anything sexual; its like you just discovered the horny feeling.

Your emotions are not mature enough to handle something like this so confusion and panic sets in. Her parents were the strict type so she knew so little about sex.

She used to live a full life, parties and everything so she always thought that her periods delayed due to her lifestyle.

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When she finally took a pregnancy test, she had to do it like 7 times so that she could believe she was really knocked up. Tell me, what if her knowledge on sex was abit deeper?

She knew nothing about contraceptives or having protected sex. Maybe things could have been different if she had even the faintest idea of what she was doing.

Men, who taught you how to wear a condom? How to have sex? We all learnt most of the things we know on the internet.

These are the kind of conversations parents should be having as soon as kids start having a grasp of things.

We need to make it normal to talk about sex, stop putting a code on it. As young as they are, kids should be taught everything from stds to pregnancies.

Sex education is not neccessarily for kids only, it cuts across all ages; we all should make it our responsibility to educate ourselves on everything about sex.