Sex Education
Despite the opposition of the influential Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, the Department of Education (DepEd) is standing pat on its decision to implement sex education in the basic education curriculum of elementary and high school students this year. It seems that DepEd has found an ally in the findings from a study of Mr. Jay Mathias Arellano from the College of Education of the University of the Philippines Diliman. Through a 50-item true or false questionnaire administered to seven hundred fifty-five (755) junior and senior high school students from three public high schools, the 10 most common sexual misconceptions of students were revealed:
1. Girls should use feminine wash everyday.
2. Coitus or sexual contact for a newly married woman is always a painful experience.
3. Condoms are used every time by all men as a means of safe sex.
4. Most teens talk about sex, analyzing its negative consequences before doing it.
5. An intact hymen is a proof of an unmarried woman’s purity.
6. About one in ten girls in the Philippines becomes pregnant at least once before she reaches the age of 20, married or not.
7. Sexual harassment does not include making jokes and telling stories with sexual meaning.
8. Inserting tampons in the vagina during menstruation will destroy a girl’s hymen.
9. Wearing condoms is a guaranteed protection from sexually transmitted infections.
10. AIDS or Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome can only be transferred through unsafe sex.
The study also showed that there is still a continuous proliferation of sexual misconceptions and superstitions among high school students in the country. The majority of the high school respondents have moderate awareness about the common sexual misconceptions and superstitions based on a pre-designed scheme that classifies the student’s awareness according to his test score (0-10 – not aware at all, 11-20 – poorly aware, 21-30 – moderately aware, 31-40 – fairly aware, 41-50 – very aware).
1. Girls should use feminine wash everyday.
2. Coitus or sexual contact for a newly married woman is always a painful experience.
3. Condoms are used every time by all men as a means of safe sex.
4. Most teens talk about sex, analyzing its negative consequences before doing it.
5. An intact hymen is a proof of an unmarried woman’s purity.
6. About one in ten girls in the Philippines becomes pregnant at least once before she reaches the age of 20, married or not.
7. Sexual harassment does not include making jokes and telling stories with sexual meaning.
8. Inserting tampons in the vagina during menstruation will destroy a girl’s hymen.
9. Wearing condoms is a guaranteed protection from sexually transmitted infections.
10. AIDS or Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome can only be transferred through unsafe sex.
The study also showed that there is still a continuous proliferation of sexual misconceptions and superstitions among high school students in the country. The majority of the high school respondents have moderate awareness about the common sexual misconceptions and superstitions based on a pre-designed scheme that classifies the student’s awareness according to his test score (0-10 – not aware at all, 11-20 – poorly aware, 21-30 – moderately aware, 31-40 – fairly aware, 41-50 – very aware).