Sex Ed Often Is A Lot Of Shame And Taboo; We Need To Change That

Death, Sex & Money is a podcast about things we don't discuss enough: love, relationships, illness, gender, identity, sex, and more. 

In this particular series, the podcast looks at our society's miseducations. When we get our sex ed from unrealiable sources, or those used to stoking fear or preventing us from asking the hard questions, we succumb to our lack of information and contribute to perpetuate stigma. 

The first episode, for example, delves into the effect of getting a sexual education from church. Andrea, who was raised in the "purity culture" of an Evangelical community in Texas, is still marked by the idea that the body is not to be explored. She was taught to abstain from sex altogether, and to try to keep herself sexually "pure", with practices that still have an impact in her adulthood.

But the need to unlearn our sexual prejudices and misconceptions is so widespread that the second episode is actually a supercut of failures in many different contexts.

The show also takes a look at how badly equipped we are at dealing with sexual health. "One in eight Americans has genital herpes. Forty percent of adults have HPV. And while the number of new HIV cases has remained steady in recent years, rates of gonorrhea, syphilis and chlamydia are all climbing". Now try asking any regular person what they know about how to reduce risk, effectively prevent STDs, and how to deal with the aftermath of a diagnosis, and you'll see the amount of stigma and misinformation on the issue.

In truth, we'd be healthier – in all respects – if we took better care of our sexual education.