Everything you ever wanted to know...

By Fatemah Farag
A friend of mine thought it might be time to have that birds and bees conversation with his nine-year-old son. He felt awkward and embarrassed as he attempted to broach the topic -- not that he got very far in enacting this age-old ritual of fatherhood. The son waved his blushing father's opening remarks aside with a nonchalant yet impatient reply: "Sex? But I already know all about that."
Accuracy aside, children have probably always known more about 'how babies are made" than their parents would like to believe. And today, the implicit and explicit sexual content of even the most innocent TV programmes, movies, Web sites and advertising must feed even more information into curious young minds. But do they really "know"? After all, no matter how much sexual innuendo popular sitcoms contain, or the amount of pornography available on-line, how much does that really tell you about sex and the gender relations that are part and parcel of coitus?
These questions are highly charged ones, not just because of the sensitivity of the topic they address, but because in a conservative society they are intertwined with a host of religious, moral and cultural issues. So when Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni stood before Parliament's Culture Committee last month and flatly stated that sex education should be a part of the Egyptian school curriculum, an orgy of opinions and counter-opinions broke loose.
The "specialists" had a field day in the press and the way the cards seemed to fall anyone remotely "enlightened" was for sexual education in schools and the ultra-conservatives were against. Or is it that simple?
Some of the opinions that took prominence in the debate were as follows: "Kids need to know about proper and legal sexual relationships and must be warned against abnormal sexual practices;" "sex should only be taught within the framework of religious classes because those who teach religion are specialised in Islamic ethics with regard to sex, have an excellent knowledge of the Arabic language and are thus qualified to impart such information without offending sensibilities;" and "we must present sex in a non-sensationalist manner and inform students of the diseases they must avoid in order to make sure they will have healthy children in future."
Then came the sobering statements of the Minister of Education, Dr Hussein Kamel Bahaaeddin, who informed the public that "the curriculum includes information about the family, the reproductive organs, the ovaries and insemination. The curriculum is serious, educational and suited to our society." The point the minister was making, in other words, was that the current curriculum is adequate.
Others beg to differ. According to Dr Mohamed Abul-Ghar, professor of gynaecology and obstetrics at Cairo University, "the current curriculum is an improvement on the previous one. Around five years ago it was upgraded; now sex education is included in classes on religion as well as society, and the section in biology has been increased. However, the current curriculum remains inadequate and requires the fine-tuning that only experts can provide."
The experience of those who have gone through the system, however, indicates that the mere improvement on text-book content may not be enough to upgrade sex education in Egyptian schools. "In our religion class, the teacher warned us over and over that if we masturbated we were going to Hell. He would then describe how bad it would be in Hell. It was terrible because as little boys there was a compelling physical force that drove us to masturbate, but what we were told in school constantly made us guilty and terrified of what we were doing to ourselves," confessed one young man who preferred to remain anonymous.
As for the science classes, a group of people interviewed by the Weekly including both graduates and current students indicated that teachers preferred not to teach the classes on reproduction and instead would ask their students to study "that chapter" at home.
"Everyone says it is vital that sex be a part of the curriculum and yet experience tells us that there is a fundamental shyness when dealing with the issue," noted Nadia Wassef, an independent researcher on gender issues. "So you will find that the reproduction section in biology classes are more often than not skipped by the teachers. Further, sex education has been called 'family culture.' If you can't say the word 'sex' then you have already doomed the curriculum before you even get started."
Abul-Ghar argues, however, that even in a very conservative society "everything related to physiology can be said and taught as long as we keep within the framework of biology. For youngsters, sex is simply a part of biology."
While the specialists argue about the importance, content and aim of sex education, students and teachers go about their daily routine. Bring up the debate with any of these parties, however, and a spark of interest is immediately generated.
"I think it would be very useful if they gave us those kinds of classes," said Amany between giggles. Amany is a high-school student in a middle-class high school in Heliopolis and she and her girlfriends, who giggled almost uncontrollably at the mere mention of the "s" word, agreed that they could use the information. "All women are bound to get married and so maybe it would come in handy," she added. Their male counterparts were less successful in formulating any kind of coherent opinion; they were too busy trying to look worldly and macho. But then men will be men and who needs a sex education class to tell them that?
Mohamed, a physical education teacher at the same school (which prefers to keep its name out of the press), believes that sex education is a dire necessity. "I know what it is like to be a teenager and how boys will get their information and relieve their needs. There is trading in pornographic photos and maybe in some cases movies. This is not healthy for young men. Actually, it is not healthy for older men who resort to the same methods because they cannot get married and have no other recourse to sex," he said sympathetically. Until better educational and other options open up, Mohamed says the only solution he can suggest is "to play lots of sports."
Running to catch her first class, Mona, who teaches science to high school students, opines: "I think that in general it is the proper thing to do, to teach children about sex in a positive and informative way. But I have classes that have over 40 students and I can just about keep control of them as it is. How am I supposed to control them if I am required to talk to them about something as sensitive as sex?" she asked adding before disappearing into a mass of blue-uniformed kids. "There are many problems with the educational system: gaps in other subjects and over-crowded classrooms. I think you need to deal with some of these first before you can undertake the introduction of proper sex education."
Parents are also divided regarding whether or not they want their children to be taught all there is to know about sex at school. The mother of one teenage girl said that in the age of the Internet, her daughter had access to everything and so it would be best if she were given proper sex education courses. The catch, however, was that she feared that the current education system could not offer the standard required. Hoda, an upper-middle-class mother of three daughters -- two of whom are teenagers -- was vehemently against the idea. "I think such topics should be dealt with at home. I don't want strangers talking to my daughters about sex," she stated firmly.
An inadequate sex education, we are warned, has ramifications one carries throughout life. Wassef undertook an extensive study of male sexuality, published in 1999, and found that "many men had no credible information on sex. What information they had came from jokes, pornography and in rural areas watching animals. Hence, their understanding of reality becomes severely altered and this is the way they walk into marriages," she explained. The problem is self-perpetuating. "We also discovered that these same men who have suffered the lack of sex education consciously repeat the mistake with their sons and deny them proper sex education."
One of the arguments used in support of expanding sex education in schools has been that the increase in divorce rates among Egypt's youth is directly related to the lack of sexual information. Abul-Ghar convincingly replies: "I do not think the increase in divorce rates has anything to do with the level of sex education. I mean 50 years ago there was no sex education and yet divorce rates were much lower. Divorce takes place because of socio-economic reasons." He goes on to elucidate, however, that marital happiness is another thing. "Many women have no information or at least very wrong information regarding sex. This is not conducive to marital happiness and in helping to rectify this situation, education is a very important tool -- not just in the classroom but for the ordinary adult Egyptian. We must think of special tactics, however, so that we can include all the necessary information in the most scientific of terms so as to avoid offending the conservatives."
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