Goals and Recommendations: Education  An Enriched Sex Education Program

It is vital that young women understand what and why they are injecting Gardasil into their bodies. As mentioned previously, young women are being taught what they are injecting into their bodies (vaccine preventing HPV), but are not given a full understanding as to why (Why are they preventing HPV? What exactly is HPV?) Our goal is to inform sex educators the importance of teaching the facts of HPV towards young men and women. It is vital that an enriched sex education program exist in order to focus not only on HPV, but on ALL sexually transmitted infections. There is a high incidence rate of STI contraction during adolescence, and sex educators need to inform both male and female students about their consequences. HPV is not the most lethal STI, and other diseases such as HIV need to be emphasized immensely. Moreover, similar to family doctors, we recommend that sex educators stress the importance of yearly pap tests and its connection to HPV and other STIs. It is common among adolescent girls to switch to a female doctor in order to increase their comfort levels during this time period. Sex educators should provide information as to where to receive a pap test and provide several contacts (including female family doctors), if they have trouble searching for a family doctor.

Presently, our society is more open-minded towards sexual practices compared to several decades ago. We cannot ignore the fact that young adolescents engage in pre-marital sex. We want sex educators to refrain from abstinence education, and enforce the use of condoms for practicing safer sex. Condoms should be available at all times within the school. Finally, we want sex educators to be honest with adolescents. We do not want sex educators to say, “sex is bad, because you can contract and transmit STI’s and/or get pregnant.” Sex educators should address why the media portrays sex as positive, and admit the pleasures associated to sex. An enriched sex education program such as this, will give adolescents the true facts regarding safe sex, benefits of sex, consequences of sex (HPV, other STI’s) and finally methods of prevention, and pap tests. Finally and most importantly, it will give parents and young women the proper education to make an informed decision towards Gardasil.