Breathe
By Luisa Cantú Ríos
I have never discussed my first sexual relationship with anyone, have you?
It was a frightening experience. I was basically clueless and did what X told me to do. He, of course, had already had sex before. In our country, the percentage of men who start their sex life before the age of 19 is higher than that of women and, to no one's surprise, our experiences are commonly different. To give an example: only 14% of men did not use protection in their first time, while for us the figure is 33%.
In addition, X claimed to know everything about it, but over time I learned that, as for many teenagers, his school had been the internet, with all the distortions to reality that this implies. Mexico was the world's fifth largest consumer of pornography in 2022, according to a report by the site PornHub, and most of the clicks came from the younger age groups.
I had not seen pornography so my references were Hollywood movies, school and the little I had talked to my mom about it. According to the first source someone had to throw me against a wall and at some point I had to scream; according to the school sex was an act in which I could get pregnant or I could get a disease and die and although for my mom the subject was not taboo, the last thing I wanted was to go into detail with her.
So when push came to shove, I found myself at the mercy of what some teenager had sneaked a peek at on a computer much more explicitly than I had at the movies.
It took me many years - and bad experiences - to discover pleasure, consent, care and masturbation. Where do you learn that? At what age? Who should teach it?
The new SEP textbooks have caused a stir for, among other things, including as an activity a model of the reproductive organs and simulating the process of menstruation and ejaculation. The host of the news program where I saw the news said "this lends itself to jokes, to jokes".
Why is it that it does not bother us that children learn from the first grades about wars and slaughter, but about the natural and inevitable functioning of their bodies?
Doesn't it make sense that it should be someone with pedagogical training and professionally designed materials who deals with these issues and not each mother, father or caregiver with their moral, religious and general contextual biases?
I am still unaware of the New Mexican School's complete approach to sex education, the model that will operate in the classroom starting next August 28, but I am glad that the little we have seen at least forces us to discuss whether our prohibitions and denials have helped or harmed our children and teenagers.
This deserves a serious, broad and gender-focused discussion, free of politicking.
Personally, I believe that if the idea is to take care that girls and boys start their sexual life until adulthood and that they do it in a healthy and responsible way, the best thing we can do is to take the reins of their education and provide them with as much information as possible. Otherwise, someone else will fill the gap, as has been the case until now.
The opinions expressed are the responsibility of the authors and are absolutely independent of the position and editorial line of Opinion 51.
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