What is the Line Between Education and Indoctrination in Sexual Education?

By ANDREW BOOVA ‘26 and NATHI LOMAX ‘26

As a school, Exeter has a duty to equip students with knowledge through which they can navigate life. The Health and Human Development courses teach students about making informed choices on and off campus around matters such as personal health, psychotropics, narcotics, and sex. The original purpose of Sexual Education specifically was to promote healthy relationships and prevent unplanned pregnancies and the spread of STIs. By providing necessary information to help students make informed decisions throughout their lives, Sex-Ed plays a crucial role in fostering the overall well-being of students. It is the duty of educators to provide age-appropriate content for students but not prescribe morality nor go overboard by providing content that is pornographic.

What are some issues that may arise from the lessons?

Exeter has a student population of roughly 1100 students, hailing from 37 different countries and 45 states. The natural outcome of these demographics are vastly different views about the morality and ethics of sex as well as conceptions of gender and other related topics. Many religions, including the majority of practicing Christians, Jews, and Muslims, believe sex outside of marriage is immoral. These common views don’t seem to have been accounted for when formulating the general curriculum of the Sex-Ed component of Exeter’s overall health curriculum. The instructors who craft the lessons seem to make multiple important moral assumptions that we believe they shouldn’t make in order to have an informed and useful health class without violating deeply held beliefs among significant parts of the Exeter student body.

Starting in prep year, we were educated on all kinds of contraception. Among others, we were shown condoms, IUDs, and Plan B. The instructors taught that these were all safe, healthy, and morally acceptable. A significant number of Christians consider them all to be sins. Especially with Plan B, it is reprehensible to gloss over it as a viable form of “birth control,” when many Christians consider it a form of murder. Safe and healthy, yes. But they are not considered morally acceptable by the entire Exeter student body. 

All of these options imply a second moral assumption: premarital sex is acceptable. When the two of us attended Christian middle schools, we were taught  that abstinence is the most effective form of birth control and that sex shouldn’t be devalued as a means of obtaining pleasure. It is a gift from God to be able to procreate and raise children. The assumption that sex is acceptable as long as it’s done safely demonstrates no respect for religious students or their families at Exeter.

A few days ago, we were taught a new term: Ethical Non-Monogamy, a.k.a. ENM. Once again, this type of consensual, multi-partner sexual relationship is immoral behavior among most practicing Christians and Jews, and in more traditional cultures. Adding the word “ethical” to the front is a mere euphemism. If you call stealing “ethical theft,” it isn’t more ethical than just “theft.”

Many religious students don’t feel comfortable expressing their views, since disagreeing would get you unfairly labeled as various terms ending in -phobic. As one Jewish student said, “I personally felt uncomfortable voicing my opinions on abortion, gender, or any other social issue because of the political dynamic at Exeter.”

“Is sex too taboo?” we were asked. By phrasing the question in that way, there are two possible answers: “No, it isn’t too taboo,” or “Yes, it is too taboo.” There is no third option: “Maybe it isn’t taboo enough.” Openness about sex and the sexualization of so many parts of our everyday lives has likely gone too far in modern times. Does anyone think sex is too taboo after listening to the sexually explicit lyrics in much of modern music or watching sexually explicit content in most movies or the flood of sexually explicit material on social media? Sex is an act that shouldn’t be taken lightly. The morality of sex should be discussed within the family, within one’s faith tradition, and by those in a relationship, not by friends discussing different forms of birth control, as we were told to do. The biology of sex must be taught, but we shouldn’t normalize sex by talking about it as frequently as one’s favorite sports team. Doing so devalues sex and promotes a damaging hook-up culture.

The Exeter sexual education curriculum too frequently disregards the different beliefs of students or is outright offensive to those who are more religious. We can’t please all 1,000 students, but an effort should be made to account for the wide array of beliefs, not only the typically atheistic views of the department.

What is the line between education and desensitization?

On the matters of intimacy and the education thereof, there must be a line which divides education and desensitization. The definitions of education and desensitization are very clear. According to Dictionary.com, education is the act or process of imparting or acquiring general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgment, and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life. Desensitization is to extinguish an emotional response (as of fear, anxiety, or guilt) to stimuli that formerly induced it. The line between education and desensitization is crossed when the materials and discussions are moved beyond factual and age-appropriate information regarding human biology and procreation. Unnecessary graphic and explicit content should be avoided as it undeniably and inappropriately desensitizes students. To normalize sexual behaviors outside of a relationship, is to desensitize students to the devaluation of sex.

How do we better approach sexual education?

With such a diverse student body, it is important to find the commonalities to form the basis of the sex-ed curriculum. Many of the issues mentioned circled back to Christians teachings. One useful set of guidelines, even for Exeter’s diverse community, is the Catholic Church’s recommendations on sexual education. In 1983, the Sacred Congregation for Catholic Education wrote an entire guide on how sexual education must be taught. The central and relevant point here is that school was where biology was discussed, and home was where morals were discussed. At a bare minimum, Exeter sex-ed class should explicitly teach that there are different faith traditions and cultures that have differing views regarding the morality of birth control, abortion and sexual intercourse outside of marriage. Exeter should remain silent on the merit of any of these views, while also teaching the biology of sex and sexual health. The modern Exeter classroom is for learning, not teaching sexual morality or worse, teaching that the the closely held beliefs of any student are wrong. Because of the uniqueness of Exeter’s teaching style, teachers are given far too much control over the health curriculum. A standard curriculum would be a good solution. The students would get the necessary biological knowledge, the parents would feel comfortable, and the teachers would have a rigid guide to follow, possibly making their jobs easier. The most important change to be made is giving parents a choice for their children. Each parent should be sent a copy of the curriculum, and if they agree that it suits their child’s needs, they can sign off on it.

When we and fellow students entered Exeter, we had a shared belief that sex is a means to procreate. To reduce sex to simply the means by which we derive pleasure is immoral. Too often, sex is presented to us directly and indirectly as fashionable and in vogue with no moral consideration necessary. This belittles sex to merely a trend and inadvertently promotes unsafe sex through casual hook-ups, exactly what sex-ed was created to eradicate.