Huge misinformation exists amongst young people regarding HIV transmission, and it’s because of the dearth and quality of sex education in Ireland. It’s time to ACT UP in schools, says Ralph Hurley O’Dwyer.

When I was nine, I thought I was an expert at sex. Thanks to the well-thumbed pages of our Dorling Kindersley encyclopaedias, I had just discovered the secret of life: the recipe for a new human being. Men produced sperm, women produced eggs and when these two ingredients came together, a shiny new being would result. Bingo!

Unfortunately, my encyclopaedia didn’t explain how this lucky sperm and egg came to meet each other, and so I developed my own theory. When a married couple were fast asleep in bed, a sperm from the man would swim across the treacherous terrain of the bed before finding its way up the woman’s vagina to embrace the egg. A quest of Odyssean proportions.

Thankfully my knowledge of sex has improved in the meantime, despite the presence of one of the most nefarious of all childhood experiences – a Catholic sex education. Perhaps the most striking aspect of sex education in Ireland is the homeopathic ethos which underpins it: the less time spent on the topic, the more potent the deterrent effect. Clearly my tutorials on exorcism methods and the fruits of the Holy Spirit were of greater necessity to my future wellbeing as an adult than learning how to put on a condom.

On a serious note, the dearth and poor quality of sex education in Ireland have profound implications for our society. Despite having greatly emancipated ourselves from the claws of the Church, the imprint of its suffocating corset remains on our skin. Sex is still taught as an issue of contagion, of disease, and in the case of HIV, of death. Facts are skewed to avoid the mention of pleasure. For example, even though wet dreams are relatively rare occurrences and that many or even most males never experience them, boys still learn in school that they represent the essential rite of passage into male puberty.

The word ‘masturbation’ meanwhile doesn’t feature once in the curriculum. This is despite the fact that most boys experience their first ejaculation through masturbation, and that most girls masturbate also.

One of our biggest failings is how we address HIV in schools. Sadly, huge misinformation exists amongst young people regarding HIV transmission. HIV is still viewed as the peak of ‘unclean’ diseases – a malady for the undesirables, the untouchables of our world. Young people living with HIV often face enormous prejudice from their peers. HIV is still viewed as a disease which leads to a hastened, traumatic, undignified death. The thought of having a sexual relationship with a HIV-positive person is for many young people unthinkable.

How do we change this? We need to update our sexual health curriculum to fit the scientific knowledge of 2017. We need to teach young people that when a person follows their HIV treatment properly, they can suppress the virus to the point that they cannot pass HIV to a sexual partner. We need to teach about PEP, about PrEP, about how HIV is as much of a social as a scientific problem.

Our young people deserve to learn about sex in a healthy, positive and open atmosphere. The work of organisations such as ShoutOut in opening a dialogue in schools about gender and sexual orientation is vital. But we also need to change our curriculum, to uncouple our education system from the Church, to teach that sex is about pleasure and wellbeing, not about disease. Like my nine year-old self, we need to first become aware of our ignorance, before we can really learn.

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To get educated about HIV and other STIs, visit man2man.ie

In a post-marriage referendum Ireland, headed by an openly gay Taoiseach, why is the wellbeing of LGBT young people at school still such an issue?

Going into a school as a facilitator for a ShoutOut workshop to tackle homophobic and transphobic bullying, you get to enter the mysterious Narnia of the staff room. Often a teacher gives you the rundown of which students might be cheeky and you realise how much they care, and how little you appreciated that when you were a student.

ShoutOut workshops are done in pairs, so it’s you and your co-facilitator and together you are about to change the dynamic of this class. It starts with a declaration: “My name is X, and I’m gay/bi/trans/an ally/pan/ace etc,” and continues with a message to be more mindful, more considerate and to make less assumptions. You are playing out scenarios: “A friend comes out to you”, “a classmate transitions…” and you are demonstrating that being an ally requires action.

Being LGBT+ in school is difficult. Why is it difficult? In a post-marriage referendum Ireland, headed by an openly gay Taoiseach, why do we see such worrying statistics around the wellbeing of LGBT+ young people? Well, there are a few reasons. The legal equality we enjoy via landmark bills such as gender recognition and marriage equality have not yet percolated into social acceptance in every part of the island; not yet anyway. It’s still taboo in many places to be LGBT+. Young people can’t come out to their parents, or be themselves in school and some don’t make it to adulthood.

Many people might make the mistake of assuming that the general acceptance experienced by some gay people is also being experienced by the rest of the community. To be clear, when I’m talking about LGBT+ I’m going full-alphabet: trans, asexual, pansexual, intersex (although I respect that not every intersex person wants to be included in the LGBT+ umbrella). Gender roles remain firm. You might have an easier time as a masculine, gay male student, or as a femme gay female student, but if you don’t adhere to gender norms you can be in for a really tough time in school, even as a cis and straight student.

In ShoutOut, we want to help make schools a more welcoming place for LGBT+ students. LGBT+ students are more likely to drop out of school, and often this is due to bullying. It’s a matter of human rights. If schools are not a safe space for LGBT+ young people, then they are being denied their right to an education.

Find out more about ShoutOut or volunteer to be a workshop facilitator at shoutout.ie