Sex Education: Its Problems and Possible Solutions
1. Introduction
Sex education’s first appearance in Japan was in the 1880s, when hygiene began to improve there. With the development of hygiene, according to Fruhstuck, venereal disease mainly among soldiers and “infantile sexuality” among children were discovered accordingly. The concept of “infantile sexuality” represented as masturbation was considered harmful and the cause of other symptoms that made urban children suffer at that time. These problems led to the announcement of the necessity of sex education and this educational program became nationwide until 1908. After World War II, “Purity Education”, or abstinence-only sex education was carried out and continued until about the 1960s (26, 35-36, 55-58, 180). As Yamamoto, N explains, this education emphasized abstinence from sexual activities before marriage, especially for girls and sexual moral was really stressed. However, in the 1980s, this system shifted to “Student-guidance Model Education” by outbreaks of AIDS according to Oya. Since then, sex education in Japan has become like “AIDS prevention education”. And today’s sex education has been in the situation that cannot deal with current issues related to sexual activities or sex. In this paper, the problems of sex education in Japan will be considered. First, it will explore its current situation and analyze what problems exactly exist. Second, it will focus on basic problems by searching what elements have made current situation. Finally, it will suggest possible solutions based on the points discussed above. It is argued that although attitudes towards sex are corrupted in today’s Japan because of the influence of informal sex information and the lack of formal sex education, this situation can be solved by teaching children the importance of morality and their active communication with the adults.
2.Current Situation
It seems that attitudes towards sex have been corrupted in today’s Japan. These corruptions can be mainly seen from the two facts: change of sex experience rate and the lost of sexual health. Since the 1990s, sex experience rate has arisen suddenly, especially teenagers one as the survey from Kihara’s work shows clearly. While the third year high school students’ sex experience rate was about 20% in 1984, it went up to about 40% in 2002. Moreover, more teenagers experience sexual activities and sex experience rate has become lower nowadays. Compared to today’s fifties whose first sex experience rate in their teens was 20% or so, today’s 70% teenagers have already experienced sexual intercourse in their teens (2-10). Widmer, Treas and Newcomb’s article also describes the fact that premarital sexual activity has been naturally accepted. At the same time, there has been “the lost of sexual health” as the increasing number of HIV/AIDS or other sexually transmitted disease represents recently. According to Pearson, the number of HIV/AIDS has been increasing especially among junior high and high school students and its infection rates are even close to developing countries. As Kihara mentions, sexually transmitted disease such as Chlamydia infection and gonorrhea also shows sudden increase in the 1990s (38-40). In addition, a lot of teenagers do not care about the contraception. Although Yamamoto, K’s study shows people in Japan still use more condom than other countries, they use less condom compared to 10 years ago as Kihara’s survey explains 74% condom use rate in 1995 fell to 50% in 2000. Alternatively, more people have had an abortion since the late 1990s. Abortion rate became 12% nationwide in 2003 compared to 7% in 1992 (35-38, 47-49).
3.Problems
The main reason why these situations are now happening in Japan can be said that the influence of informal sex information and the lack of formal sex education. These days, as Akamatsu, Kishimoto, and Tokunaga explain, the influence of the media in Japan such as magazines, videos and TV has been stronger and at the same time it deals with mature content, or sexual content excessively (42). A lot of comics contains sex scene and even girl’s manga (shoujo manga) which aims at teenage girls includes excessive sexual content according to Kihara. Moreover, the Internet including cell phones use has been expanding nowadays and mature content has become easily accessible even to the children. Since any person can send information to the general public by using the Internet, sex information there is “much more, more excessive and more easily accessible”. In addition, this kind of information is not controlled at all in Japan compared to other countries. In the USA, for example, pornographic magazines or images are taken under control so that they can be seen only by specific people and cannot mistakenly be seen by children. In Japan, however, these kinds of magazines can be easily taken and read by anyone from the shelves in the convenience store (20, 58-63). Children therefore easily absorb plenty of sex information from the media. As Kihara’s survey for the second year high school students represents, 82% of boys and 74% girls have already experienced at least once comic which includes mature content, 82% of boys and 54% have experienced pornographic magazine, 75% of boys and 34% of girls have experienced pornographic film and 32% of boys and 11% of girls have experienced web site which has mature content (20). These informal data tend to implant incorrect information about sex into them. The only opportunity that children can get correct sex information is from the adults who surround them such as teachers and parents. However, there is no power of formal sex education in Japan in present. As Hatano and Shimazaki explain, sexuality education course is not officially required of schools because Ministry of Education believes that contents related to sex are to be taught in various subjects. Therefore, sex education is entrusted to each school and some foundations like Japanese Association for Sex Education give sex education guidelines as promoter of sex education instead of government. Today’s sex education also tends to focus on physiological aspects and thus it has become “cognitive-oriented rather than attitudinal-behavior-oriented” as Medical News Today article states “sex education classes are to teach third- and fourth-grade primary students about menstruation and ejaculation, middle school students about conception and pregnancy, and high school students about contraception”. The result of this “incomplete vision and unrealistic attitude” of the Ministry of Education is clearly seen in Akamatsu, Kishimoto, and Tokunaga’s survey that ask children a question what have influenced their behavior and attitudes toward sex. 50% of them answer comics and friends while 2-25% answer education in school and only 4-12% answer their parents (42).
4. Possible solutions
These situations can be solved by teaching children the importance of morality and their active communication with the adults.
5. Conclusion
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WRITER:Marina
PEER EDITOR:Mari
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Student information top left? No
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Body text normal size? Yes
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Title and Student Information
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Introduction
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10) Is the thesis the final sentence of the introduction? Yes
11) Does the thesis clearly state the topic and controlling ideas(s)? Yes
12) Is the thesis clear and easy to understand? Yes
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Body Paragraphs
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Conclusion
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