Heart to Heart… and other body parts

Sex, consent and silence among Kenyan adolescents and youth.

Hello and welcome back!

I know, I know… It’s been a minute; life has its way of kicking you off balance, but I am back now. In August, I will dive into a topic that introduced me to my career as a public health professional, Adolescent & Youth Health and Reproductive Rights.

Let’s be honest, the typical biology lesson you had in school taught us more about how flowers reproduce than how humans do. We memorized the pollination processes, self-pollination and cross-pollination. But not about what to do when your period is here and it gets too much, how to set boundaries, what to do when a teacher/family member gets too friendly and how the word NO is a complete sentence.

Well, sex education in Kenyan schools has been a hot topic with many people saying it promotes Western culture and undermines traditional African practices (I disagree btw). And at home, well, it’s a hush-hush conversation. For many of us, “sex ed” came in the form of dormitory whispers, scary visuals on HIV and STIs, while the real, valid and personal questions were always left unanswered.

So where did we go for answers? Facebook, Google and I want to say, “experienced friends”. Well, what did that lead to? A lot of misinformation. As the years have passed, we’ve been dealing with consequences in the form of STIs, unplanned pregnancies, confusion around consent, identity and sexual trauma.

It’s time we talked about what we should have learned!

It was biology….

Let’s call it what it is: the Kenyan education system has never prepared us for the emotional, physical or social realities of sexuality. I sat through that film on STIs. The form of sex education being taught was on how a man and woman reproduce to have children, or the loud fear of insertion into abstinence. And that’s the problem.

In Kenya, recent data indicated that the average age of sexual debut is 16.0 years for females and 15.4 years for males. Another study noted that early sexual debut was higher in males (67.9%) compared to females (39.6%) in selected secondary schools. In some studies, a significant proportion of adolescents report early sexual debut, with some even initiating sex before age 15.

Unprotected sex among young people remains widespread, and when abstinence is the only message offered, our young people have no tools for real-life situations- especially when they choose otherwise.

Parents, where are you?

While we like and should continue calling out the education system, I think parents are equally to blame.

Many Kenyan parents treat ‘sex ed’ as a taboo, something shameful, something you only learn when you are older. This has encouraged a lot of perpetrators, as it promotes silence and secrecy for many people who have already experienced sexual violence. Many parents avoid the conversation because their parents avoided it. Others think a stern warning that girls and boys shouldn’t be hanging out together is enough. It’s not. Children need continuous age-appropriate and non-judgmental conversations, not lectures or threats.

It’s never too early to talk to your children about sex education. The kids will go searching when they are silenced, and many boundaries will be crossed if they don’t know.

And the boys….

When I was teaching sex education, my job was primarily directed to girls, with minor conversations with boys. A lot of education is focused on pregnancy, periods and protection.

Boys are rarely taught about emotional responsibility and consent. Instead, it’s about the pressure to ‘perform’, to dominate, to avoid seeming soft. Vulnerability becomes weakness. Consent becomes unclear. Silence becomes violence. Where is the conversation about peer pressure, consent, anxiety and protection?

Let’s talk about it!

We can’t undo the silence we grew up in, but we can change it for the next generation. It all starts with meaningful conversation.

I would love to hear from you. What do you wish you had been taught earlier about sex, consent, your body, and relationships? Maybe it’s a myth you believed. Perhaps it’s something you had to learn the hard way. Share your thoughts anonymously here https://forms.gle/6bRKV2Nrsq1HmtMo7.

Sex is not dirty. Bodies are not shameful. And silence has never protected anyone. We must change the narrative.

Stay tuned for part 2, where we will dive into myths we believed, the truth we needed and the conversation that we need to have.

References.

Sing’oei V, Owuoth JK, Otieno J, Yates A, Andagalu B, Smith HJ, Copeland NK, Polyak CS, Crowell TA; RV393 Study Team. Early sexual debut is associated with drug use and decreased educational attainment among males and females in Kisumu County, Kenya. Reprod Health. 2023 Jul 27;20(1):111. Doi: 10.1186/s12978-023-01639-3. PMID: 37501066; PMCID: PMC10375697.

Ondieki, D.K., Omia, D.O., Gichuhi, W. and Otieno, C.M.A. (2021) ‘Economic determinants of sexual debut among in-school adolescents in rural Kenya’, Advances in Applied Sociology, 11(5), pp. 193–205. doi: 10.4236/aasoci.2021.115020.