by Andres Tuccillo, 2022
In this position paper I will show that a comprehensive sexual eduction program is necessary for the healthy sexual development of adolescents. Sexual development is often an overlooked and demonized aspect of adolescence. The aim of this paper is to rectify that assessment by explaining how the literature substantiates my claim above: sexual eduction program is necessary for the healthy sexual development of adolescents.
Sexual Education: A Necessary Aspect of Development
No person can deny that adolescence is a transformative stage in neurological and physical development. The skills and functions needed to live and interact successfully in society are perfected over this period. Evolutionarily, one of the most, if not the most, important of these developmental hallmarks is the development of sexuality. Sex and romantic relationships are some of thes most important aspects of adulthood. Not only is it, evolutionarily speaking, the major drive of life, but also it has important and undeniable social importance. To prepare for this inevitable aspect of adulthood, the human body goes under many changes during adolescence. However, there is so much sexual knowledge that one needs to know to participate in sexual activities healthily and effectively that are not innate. Many of the implications of sexual activity are not self-evident to adolescents. One needs to learn these implications from a secondary source. This is why a comprehensive sexual education program is necessary. Many people however do not agree with this. Many are proponents of “abstinence-only” sexual education programs. These programs do not teach adolescents the necessary skills that they will need to know to live in a sexually active society; they only try to convince adolescents to never have sex. But this is a fantasy. By nature, adolescents are more prone to risk-taking than any other age group. If they are not taught about sex correctly, they will make the wrong desisions and have to deal will devistating conciquences. Thus, it is my belief that sexual education should be based on guiding adolescents through the complexities of sexual encounters (STIs and HIV, birth control, sexual orientation, etc.), not attempting to prevent them form having any sexual encounters in the first place.
However, before one can make a judgement on what sexual education should entail and to what extent it should be implemented, one must first understand the neurological processes that occur which cause and influence an adolescent's sexual development. Firstly, one must understand that the development of sexuality started as early as conception and continues until death. However, self-awareness of one’s sexuality does not evolve until childhood (Kar et al. 2015). This increase in sexual awareness is a normative process that has many different factors associated with it. Biological, psychological, and social (or cultural) factors are all important in the development of sexuality in adolescents (Kar et al. 2015). Firstly, the major biological factor the stimulated of the reward system in adolescents. Sex is seen as a very rewarding expirience. When an adolecent comes of age and goes through the complex process of pubery, sex has been forgien to them. Therefore, when they are finally able to understand hormonally the essence of sexual action they want to be involved romantically with another person (Suleiman & Harden 2015). Brain imaging research has shown that romantic and sexual love or emotions are goal-oriented motivations and thus, activates dopamine-rich reward processing systems (Suleiman et al. 2015). This wish to become romantically involved is increased due to the fact that adolescents have a hypersensitivity to not only circumstances that would make them motivated, but the feeling of fulfilling a goal or gaining a reward.
The connection between the reward-system of the brain and sexual maturity is further shown through a number of neurotransmitters and hormones. Firstly, gonadal hormones, which are partly a cause of the onset of puberty (along with the hormone cortisol) (Kar et al. 2015), have been known to affect the reward processing system. Furthermore, testosterone levels have also been recorded to increase when reward-related brain activation has also become more prevalent (Suleiman et al. 2015). This connection between the hormones that signal and contribute to adolescents going into sexual maturity, and an increase in the activation of the dopamine pathways (mainly the Mesolimbic Dopamine Pathway) proves that sexual and romantic experiences hijack the dopamine pathway (Suleiman et al. 2015). Moreover, the body has a clever way of formulating and regulating the release of dopamine. When dopamine is released during a romantic or sexual encounter, oxytocin is released as well (from the Posterior Pituitary Gland). The co-release of oxytocin with dopamine prevents the development of tolerance to these neurochemicals. This co-release also over time leads to greater and more stable release of dopamine and thus fosters a long term bond between people (Suleiman et al. 2015). Thus, to form healthy relationships, adolescents need to experiment with relationships to be able to formulate this healthy co-release of dopamine and oxytocin. Therefore, after establishing that sexual experiences casue a realise of dopamine in the reward system, and knowing that adolecsents are more sensitive to reward-seeking, one can infer that sex (as well as drugs) is an expirience that adolecents will seek out. They will experiment with romance and sex, once their development has reach the stage to allow them to do so. Thus, because of the inevitability of this fact, it is imperative that adolescents are taught a comprehensive curriculum of sexual education to prepare them for this eventuality.
However, this experimentations has the possibility to be dangerous because of the involvement of peers. Peer development develops with sexual interest (Kar et al. 2015). This is not only because it is with peers that adolescents will look for potential sexual partners, but because peers will talk and compare sexual experiences. To gain admiration from one’s peers, that person wants to impress them with the level of sexual experiences they have had. Conversely, in most societies, the parents of adolescents do not want their adolescent children to have these experiences. A study conducted by Saxbe et al., explored the neural socioemotional processes attributed to who adolescent care most about pleasing; their parents or peers. The researchers began with the knowledge that social reorientation from parents to peers is normative in adolescents (Saxbe et al. 2015). However, the reachers wanted to know exactly what was happening in adolescent brains. The study was conducted with twenty-two adolescents (with the average age of 16.98) who underwent fMRI imaging while viewing brief video clips featuring thesleves, their parents or an unfamiliar peer. When viewing the peers compared to the parents, the adolescent brains were activated in the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), pecunious, and the ventral striatum (area associated with reward processing) (Saxbe et al. 2015). Activations in these regions, especially the PCC and pecunious, suggests that neural correlates of the adolescent social reorientation from parents to peers, may be associated with adolescents' risk-taking behaviors and social relationships (Saxbe et al. 2015). Therefore, when adolescents move their attentions to peers, the amount of times that they participate in risky behaviors (alcohol use, committing crimes, and sexual activity) increases. Thus, the move to sexual activity is a normative and inevitable motion that adolescents will take. Along with sexual activity however, alcohol use is increased as well. By the age of 18, 47% of Amerrican teens have had sexual intercorce; 41% of those do not use condoms, and 22% report substance abuse. (Ewing et al. 2016). The use of alcohol (or any substance) paired with sexual activity may lead to unintended health consequences such as STIs or unplanned pregnancies (Ewing et al. 2016). The response of schools and parents should not be to try to push students away from sexual activity then, but instead they could concentrate on teaching them the information that is stated above, and much more. The fact of the matter is (as is already established) that because of the biology of adolescence, they will have sex regardless of what their parents or other adults tell them. So, by not educating them about the dangers above, they are more likely to make those very same mistakes.
However, despite the neuroscience above, many parents and educators do not wish to implement a comprehensive sex-ed program. They have many misconceptions about sexual education and the neuroscience behind it. These misconceptions lead them to make misinform decisions about the nature of sexual education, which harm the adolescents that they attempt to protect. One common misconception is the belief that sexual activity outside of marriage has harmful psychological and physical effects. Since there is a lack of human research on this issue, one must look to animal literature. Neuroimaging of prairie voles show that the neural circuits involved in monogamous pair bonding (for voles don’t marry, but they do have strong mating pairs) are those related to the processing of rewards and social interactions. Also similarly to humans, dopamine and oxytocin has been found to be involved in establishing long-term pair bonds in voles (Suleiman et al. 2015). Thus, the neurocircuitry of those voles who pair bond is different than those who do not. Many proponents use this research to prove abstinence until marriage. However, there is a distinct distinction that must be made. Marriage is a social and legal construct. The literature described above may explain intriguing distinctions between romantic and other types of love, there have not been neural correlations uncovered which explains the distinction between married and unmarried love. It is important to note that marriage does not always lead to lifelong romantic bonding. People get divorced, marriages are arranged, and bad marriages can lead people to poor health (Suleiman et al. 2015). Simply, there is no biological difference between marital sex and marital sex.
Moreover, there is a misconception about what should be taught in sexual education programs. Abstinence-only education teaches about the emotional and physical harm that comes with casual sex. Ever since the outbreak of HIV/AIDS, sexual education has become more prevalent but has followed the model of “abstinence-only” (Galván 2017). Such programs concentrate only on the consequences of unprotected sexual intercource, such as STIs and unplanned pregnancies. Despite the importance of these health issues, they are missing large portions of necessary sexual education. Comprehensive programs aim to delay the participation of sexual intercouce, helping individuals avoid STIs and unplained pregancies, improve sexual decision making (not using alcohol or substances before having sex), and increase the use of contreceptives (i.e. condoms) (Suleiman & Brindis 2014). Sexual education can also focus on the positive and pleasurable aspects of sex. Sexual experiences are an important part of development, and adolescents should know that it can be a pleasurable action when done correctly. However, the majority of sexual education programs are missing aspects that relate indirectly to sexual activity. To be truly comprehensive, a program need to incorporate these topics: neuroscience of sexual development, interpersonal relationships, body image, intimacy, and gender roles (Suleiman & Brindis 2014). It is also impotant to note that adoelcents should not be told that sex is risky. Although risky behaviors may be motivated by sexual contexts, sex itself is not a risky action (Suleiman & Harden 2015). When given adequate access to contraceptives and sexual education, most teenagers are able to have sex with limited negative concequences (Suleiman & Harden 2015). Many of the negative consequences can surely be negated by more comprehensive sexual education. Sexual violence and abouse (also including coercion) is a biproduct of a lack of sexual knowledge (Suleiman & Harden 2015). Media, expecially pornography, depicts sex as an action of domination which promotes this trend of sexual violence. However, when proper sexual education is introduced, this fantasy is pulled away and adolescence begin to understand the real social implications of sex (Kar et al. 2015). This trend can also be seen in alcohol use during sex. When taught about the dangers of mixing alcohol and sexual intercourse, adolescents have been shown to decrease such actions (Ewing et al. 2016). What is infact dangerous is that sexual violence, substance use diring sex, the lack of contreceptives, etc., are increased when adolescents are not exposed to comprehensive sexual education programs.
Despite all of the literature that is currently scattered all over the internet and many neuroscientific journals, comprehensive sexual education programs are not the accepted norm. Only twenty-two (out of fifty) states and DC mandate sexual education (Galván 2017). Also, 8 of those states require the program to be inclusive of all cultures and not be biased, while 2 states prohibit religion to be stressed. Therefore, 48 states concentrate on a topic that has no connection to sexual experiences while only 12 states are mandated to include sexual orientation (a topic which has great implications to sexual experiences) in their education programs (Galván 2017). These statistics show exactly why adolescents are the only segment of the population for whom acquisition of STIs/HIV is not decreasing (Ewing et al. 2016). Adolescents are not being taught sexual education properly. If this trend of “abstinence-only” sexual education is not giving adolescence the ability to experiment with romantic and sexual relationships in a healthy way. Our society needs a universal comprehensive sexual education program. The literature and research is out there but many in our government and society do not want to change the way sexual education is approached because of misguided stubbornness. Sex is an inevatible, healthy, and important part of life. It should not be hidden away. It should not be misrepresented. It needs to be taught with a great deal of transparency. Only then will adolescents have the skills to live a healthy sexual life.
Work Cited
Ewing, S. W., Ryman, S. G., Gillman, A. S., Weiland, B. J., Thayer, R. E., & Bryan, A. D. (2016,
January 20). Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience of Adolescent Sexual Risk and Alcohol Use. Retrieved April 28, 2018, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5858879/
Galván, A. (2017). The Neuroscience of Adolescence. New York, NY: Cambridge University
Press.
Kar, S. K., Choudhury, A., & Singh, A. P. (2015, April 8). Understanding normal development of adolescent sexuality: A bumpy ride. Retrieved April 28, 2019, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4477452/
Saxbe, D., Del Piero, L., Immordino-Yang, M. H., Kaplan, J., & Margolin, G. (2015, December
10). Neural correlates of adolescents’ viewing of parents’ and peers’ emotions: Associations with risk-taking behavior and risky peer affiliations(Rep.). Retrieved April 28, 2019, from HHS Public Access website, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4607542/
Suleiman, A. B., & Brindis, C. D. (2014). Adolescent School-Based Sex Education: Using
Developmental Neuroscience to Guide New Directions for Policy and Practice. Springer Science & Business Media. Retrieved April 28, 2019, from http://www.schoolhealthcenters.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Adolescent-Decisions-Suleiman-Brindis-2014.pdf
Suleiman, A. B., & Harden, K. P. (2015). The Importance of Sexual and Romantic Development
in Understanding the Developmental Neuroscience of Adolescence. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience. Retrieved April 28, 2019, from https://labs.la.utexas.edu/harden/files/2013/05/Suleiman-Harden-DCN.pdf
Suleiman, A. B., Johnson, M., Shirtcliff, E. A., & Galván, A. (2015, July 7). School‐Based Sex
Education and Neuroscience: What We Know About Sex, Romance, Marriage, and Adolescent Brain Development. Retrieved April 28, 2019, from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/josh.12285
Relevant Images:
Mesolimbic Dopamine Pathway & Ventral Striatum:
Posterior Pituitary Gland (produces oxytocin):
Posterior Cingulate Cortex (PCC) & Pecunious:
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