As an educator, Dr. Mark Schoen saw a need for childhood sex education. Today, he produces sex therapy and education films on his site, SexSmartFilms.com, including adaptations of the children’s books Bellybuttons Are Navels and “What’s Gay’?’ Asked Mae”. This online resource has over 660 sexual health films and is available in 52 different countries.

Over the last 40 years, Dr. Schoen has produced 56 films focusing on sexual education, research, and therapy. His documentary “TRANS” was featured on the Oprah Winfrey show in 2010. Since its release, “TRANS” has won nine Best Documentary Awards and was the number one LGBT film on Amazon Prime.

Dr. Schoen joined us for our Sex Plus Symposium to share how the cultural norms in America inhibit adequate early childhood sex education and how these films provide age-appropriate sex education.

The American Discomfort with Sex Ed

As an educator, Dr. Schoen saw an issue when his students were taught sexuality by way of disease. This isn’t uncommon in American school systems and is generally a more negative approach. If sex education is offered at the school-age level, the focus is rarely on sexuality.

“Growing up, most families do not talk about sex.”

— Dr. Mark Schoen

This comes from a cultural perception of sex and sexuality. In 1896, it was illegal to even kiss in public. Today, we still have discomfort with sexuality — as late as 2010 a major corporation commercial was banned for alluding to nudity.

Traditionally, caretakers avoid conversations about sexuality with children because it can be uncomfortable or feel as though they’re being sexual with the child, but that’s a cultural factor that’s not the same in all countries.

Countries like Sweden and Denmark begin sexual education at the first grade level through national programs.

Another gap in sexual education, is safe sex products. Although there are American condom companies, these companies cannot show an actual condom in their commercials or advertisements. Therefore, these companies can’t even show how to properly use their products.

The Impact of Sex Ed Censorship

Using Norway as an example, Dr. Schoen explained how Scandinavian children are sheltered from violence, but sex education is perfectly acceptable.

This can impact the sexual health of people in those countries significantly. There are only 2.3 teen pregnancies per 1,000 women in Norway compared to 16.7 per 1,000 women in the United States. Additionally, HIV rates in American teenagers are higher than in a country like Norway.

Dr. Schoen says he’s “on a mission to create sex education for children” to improve those statistics.

The shame that comes from discussing healthy sexuality in the home or sexual education at the school level also perpetuates the use of words for “private parts” or their genitals, other than what those body parts are called.

It has been ingrained in our culture that there should be a certain age to teach our children about the names for genitals and sexuality that pass down discomfort through generations of parents.

Sharing information about sexuality at a young age decreases the shock value of certain things and allows for greater acceptance.

In the United States there's research that demonstrates the average American sees pornography by the time they're 10 or 11. These children are not looking for porn, but instead are looking for sexual information. The internet is serving up pornography sites when the term “sex” is searched.

This is one of the reasons sexual education should begin at a younger age.