Time to get sex education right - Kunio Kitamura

Time to get sex education right
Mainichi Daily News August 13, 2006

Dr. Kunio Kitamura is head of the Japan Family Planning Association. He specializes in dealing with issues such as sex, birth control, abortion, puberty worries, sexually transmitted diseases, child-raising (he is a father of five), general gynecology and domestic violence. If he cannot handle directly a problem he has been presented with, he will draw on a wide variety of specialists to provide assistance.

It took everything in my power not to scream out at Miss Y: "You're a college student. What the hell do you think you're doing?" "Stop doing this all the time. All the tests you did last week are going to go to waste."

Miss Y is in her second year at university. She went through an all-girls secondary education combining junior high and high school. Not that there's any meaning in mentioning this. The way she gets along with guys is awkward, and she constantly complains about how horrible guys are. She's going out with a guy who won't use condoms properly, but at the same time is doing little to protect herself and she gets filled with anxiety after every time she has sex. Complaining of vaginal discharges, she wanted a check-up to see if she had contracted a sexually transmitted disease, so she came to my clinic. I suppose it is better than her not coming to see me at all, but she's wasting her money.

"He told me he would use a condom this time, but he did it again!" Miss Y said. "Why are guys all such liars?"

I recommended that she start taking the Pill, but she wasn't keen.

"It makes you fat, doesn't it?" was her reply.

I resisted the urge to scream out at her to stop being such a twit, but that was the easy way out and doing so would rob Miss Y of her safe haven, so I held my feelings under control and practiced a bit of patience.

Miss Y had spent most of her childhood studying to pass entrance exams, but she'd studied so much she hadn't had the opportunity to learn about life. Schools want as many of their students to go through to prestigious universities as possible, so Miss Y's parents were happy to see her studying so hard. Her parents saw only the daughter who brought home good grades and never caused trouble, so they had nothing but pride for her. Worry didn't even come into it. What Miss Y's parents didn't know, though, is that she maintained physical relationships with several different men and she was spending nearly all the money she made from her part-time job having check-ups or treatment for STDs.

During a Diet session not too long ago, a female Diet member thrust up before Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi a copy of "Seimei wa do yatte dekiruka (How Does Life Come About?)," a third grade sex education reader that explains with pictures how life is created in a wide variety of mammal and marine life.

"Oh, that's disgusting. It's a problem," the prime minister said, creating a news story.

Koizumi did not say exactly what was disgusting or a problem, but it was a bit difficult for me. I grew up in the country, where, among other things, I spent my youth watching cats mate on the roof, dogs going at it under trees and stag beetles or grasshoppers working away in their insect boxes. Having seen these things at close hand, I could only laugh at such a comical exchange going on in the Diet. I can still remember once forcing some stag beetles to mate so that I could get some eggs. Some may say this misspent youth may go a long way to explaining why I am like I am now, but I don't think that I'm leading a wrong lifestyle.

It's hard to permit the recent moves by a minority that constantly criticizes all types of sex education, good and bad, and has forced some frightened schools to withdraw the book from their curriculums, thus depriving citizens of an opportunity to learn, which is one of their fundamental rights. I concede that there may be some problems with the way sex education is instructed. But in a world where the Internet and videos are rampant with sexual information and all sorts of sexual lifestyles are recognized, we are neglecting to provide information in a detailed and scientific manner. There's a lot more needed for a happy life than simply a good education.

Another problem with sex education can be seen in the United States, where the Bush Administration is a strong advocate of celibacy education. According to the June 20 edition of the New York Post, 13 percent of teenage girls living in the Bronx -- the same children taught that sex education is taboo and that they should abstain from sex until marriage -- have been pregnant. A group of 10 teenage girls in public schools in the Bronx reacted to this tragic reality by starting a petition to have sex education in schools, with the result that they now receive six lessons.

Incidentally, the Japan Family Planning Association carried out a survey for the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare in which we asked the 3,000 respondents to tell us what they considered an appropriate age for people to learn about things related to sex, such as intercourse, contraception and the correct manner to use condoms. Despite this survey, there is clearly a gap between what people think and what's happening in Japan's schools. I'd really like the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, as the body responsible for administering education in this country, to listen to what citizens have to say. (By Dr. Kunio Kitamura, special to the Mainichi)