As Yahoo Life reports, experts say that Sex Education in America is “failing,” with its patchwork approach falling short in most districts when it comes to offering honest, inclusive, medically accurate information that goes beyond teaching abstinence-only. And that’s despite a majority of parents — 59% — wanting their kids to learn about birth control methods beyond abstinence, according to new findings by Pew Research.
It’s no wonder young people are turning to online sources. “Social media is where most of us spend a lot of time — especially young people — so I knew I could use it as a platform for education and empowerment,” says Dr. Jennifer Lincoln, an ob-gyn with a massive following on social media, where she’s a source for many young Americans who are grasping at straws when it comes to sex education — something the doctor knows plenty about. “If I had access to TikTok or Instagram as a teen, I can guarantee I would have understood much more about my body and felt more confident in seeking care,” she says.
Students often complain that sex education is barely taught in their schools anymore. According to a report by sex ed advocacy organization SIECUS (Sex Ed for Social Change), abstinence is all that’s being taught in 16 states and is required to be emphasized in the sex ed curricula of 30. Only 29 states and the District of Columbia require any sex education at all, while 13 don’t require it to be medically accurate. And only nine states have queer-inclusive sex ed policies, while six states require that sex ed lessons are anti-LGBTQ.
Luckily there are sources like Lincoln, and many other qualified people just like her, sharing their wealth of knowledge on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. On the other hand, not all content creators teaching sex ed online have Lincoln’s credentials.
“You have some people who are unfortunately contributing to either misinformation or are unknowingly contributing to stigmatizing language or stigmatizing programs or beliefs that actually harm people,” Monica Edwards, the federal policy manager for Unite for Reproductive & Gender Equity (URGE), tells Yahoo Life. “It’s important for young people to be in community with each other, and to learn from each other’s experiences, but at the same time, there’s always that danger of not getting accurate information.”
That’s why Nora Gelperin’s organization Advocates for Youth tries to counter misinformation by getting involved and creating some expert-led lessons of their own — all informed by youth advocates, who range in age from 10 to 16.
Then there are the restrictions placed on how much information is legally allowed to be given on social media. Dr. Staci Tanouye, an ob-gyn who began sharing sex education information on TikTok when she noticed a need there, explains that medical professionals, specifically, are limited in their communication on the platform. “I cannot form a patient-doctor relationship over social media, that’s just legally not appropriate. It makes it hard and it blurs the lines and it’s hard to answer the way we want to answer.”
Despite these setbacks, doctors like Tanouye believe that it is their duty to combat the spread of misinformation that they know exists on social media platforms by putting reliable content in the mix. “You can’t monitor your kids all the time, but you can point them in the right directions,” she says, explaining that she knows of parents who send her TikTok page to their children in an effort to do just that.
According to Yahoo Life, social media platforms allow for more candid conversation around difficult topics, offering the chance for young people to ask questions that they might otherwise be too embarrassed to bring up — especially in class, but even during a doctor’s appointment.
The bottom line, say experts, is that sex education needs to be fixed — but in the absence of that, many are happy to see young people doing their due diligence to get the information elsewhere. “I am all for sex education anywhere people are, and anywhere that puts legit information in their hands,” Lincoln says. “And if that means watching one of my TikToks or YouTube videos, I am all for it.”
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