Julie Wray on RU Thinking

Following on from last weeks blog on the ‘frisky fifties’ and the survey that found a lack of sexual health knowledge in this group of people, I (Julie Wray) have been reminded about how many adult people who are under 50 years of age fall into this category of uninformed sex education. Over the past few years working with Contraception Education I have noted that when talking to people they are happy to share their experiences of sex education, or lack of it, quite freely. This usually revolves around their experiences of sex education at school and then of course with their parents (or not). All too often their examples of good information and knowledge acquisition are poor. Mostly this whole process has been in an ‘ad hoc’ form during their adolescence and adulthood. This in my mind is worrying as ignorance or lack of information creates situations that could be avoided such as coerced sexual relationships, unplanned pregnancy and unexpected sexually transmitted infection to name just a few. I am baffled at times as to why open, frank and healthy sex education in our schools is something to fear. Of course some schools do a great job in this area and Contraception Education has over the past 5 years or so played a key role in some cases. But there is much more to do within our schools so that it is the case that the majority are informed and educated.

With the advent of the world wide web, children and young people can access some amazing and informative web sites for information. Contributions by young people to many of these sites are encouraged and valued. More often than not when I visit one of these web sites I learn something new. One striking observation from my perspective is the discourse used and the way in which information is presented. One that I find very useful is RU Thinking see: http://www.ruthinking.co.uk/. This site with its ‘Lad Pad’ and ‘Lady Lounge’ sections is young person friendly but actually could be useful for parents, teachers, youth workers etc. Even, dare I say, a good site for the frisky fifties!!
Contraception Education aims to facilitate sex education and related information to anyone. We provide an excellent links page that promotes other organisations and their web sites so that people can access a range of sources and contacts. We are keen to promote safe and positive sex education, so if you know of a good web site or organisation that fits into our ethos please let us know.