Sophie's Column: Flaw in teaching system needs addressed

Earlier this week at uni, my group of friends and I delved into a subject that probably would've raised a lot of eyebrows if people had overheard us.

Rewind a few years and I would’ve done exactly the same – especially as it was boys and girls who were taking part in the discussion.

During the week the issue of contraception was brought up, more specifically the different types of contraception available to men and women now.

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One of my friends, Jack, raised an issue which we all concluded is a substantial problem in our age group and is something I feel needs to be addressed.

During our chat, Jack made the point that a lot of guys get stick for not understanding the different methods of contraception, other than the combined pill and condoms.

He also highlighted – and the rest of the boys agreed – that they didn’t know much about the female anatomy at all, how we deal with periods or how different types of tablets can affect our hormones.

Guys get a lot of stick from girls for not understanding how these work. But we quickly realised that it works in reverse, too, and girls our age are completely dumbfounded over men’s health and hygiene.

We decided, as a group, that’s really not acceptable.

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From a young age, we’ve been taught that learning about the intimate routines of the opposite sex is completely taboo and even embarrassing, to an extent.

In primary school we were segregated to learn our own methods of keeping ourselves clean and safe.

Now, as young adults, we’re starting to a realise a real flaw in this system.

We need to teach kids that sex, safety and hygiene is important and certainly not embarrassing.