I agree,some what. Am 17 and i started having sex at 14 now, i have a 5 month old son. Thank god for my parents support me! But that wasn't always like that when my parents give me the talk all they told me was not to have sex. So i sorry but parents should not choose what I learn at least not sex.

elvia, elmhurst, untied states

I agree but not at the tender age of 7 (which will be next year my school tells me) when most still believe in fairies and father christmas. It removes parents rights, doesn't take into account the dif rate of mental and physical development & I don't want my child seeing videos of adult genitalia.

H White, Suffolk, UK

"Does anybody sensibly believe that juveniles don't know that having sex leads to pregnancy?". Yes I do. There are still even adults that believe that you can't get pregnant 'the first time'. As for kids using sex as recreation - many towns have little else for them to do (..drugs etc)

Corrina, Cardiff, UK

The answer is that it is not just children that need sex education. Who can say that parents are any better than teachers if teachers everywhere are saying they haven't had the 'training'. Who has? Everyone is too scared to talk to about sex, when most people have it at least once in their lives.

Corrina, Cardiff, UK

Today, huge numbers of parents and huge numbers of teachers are utterly clueless about pretty much everything. So a debate on which of them should teach children about sex is almost futile. Those poor kids don't have a chance.

Tony, London, UK

Imagine being free from artificial hormones and devices in the womb and rubber and latex? Imagine having self control and a relationship being about love and friendship. Imagine cuddling someone without being groped, imagine rape and child rape being rare.. Imagine no sex outside of marriage.

Ushi, Llanelli, UK

Imagine a friendlier world with better friendship warmth adn love. Imagine no more abducted children! The battle against wholeness and love and human dignity is happening through the wholesale abuse of sex. The struggle for celibacy is worth it. Will Love be reinvented to the image in my heart?

Ushi, Llanelli, UK

Sex education needs to focus on the emotional and relationship ramifications and not just the How To stuff. In the absence of a clear moral universe, sex can easily become another recreational activity for children, and the results are - as we are seeing - horrendous.

Morag, Maidstone,

This is a really insightful article.

Mark, Camberley, UK

Surely the first thing to decide is - what is sex ed for? Is it to; reduce STDs, encourage abstinence, encourage sex in caring, committed relationships, enable kids to deal with the world or protect them from it? Until there is consensus, it's just a faith argument.

Dean Hallett, Basingstoke, UK

So how do we stop this?

David, Bromley,

This is about a vacuum in parenting and we need to demand more . Libertarians and the Left have just said "OK then" and we will pick up the pieces.Why should we. No child should be allowed to have sex young or carry a knife.Carol if they don't know where the kids are they are inadequate parents

Lucy, Cambridge, UK

carol "Most parents have no idea their teenage children are having sex anyway" - surely that validates the necessity of sex ed. then.
M Lewis - re. the above, it's a cultural thing. if uk kids don't want to talk to their parents about sex, they should talk to sex ed. professionals...

Marco, Kraków, Poland

It isn't about sex ed at all.It is about children wandering about when they should be in school ,or studying ,or at home with family and/ or friends.Going out on a school night has become the norm and it is dangerous rubbish.No wonder our school results are bad and teen behaviour worse.

George, Bridlington, UK

... the gov't should step in to pick up the baton where families fail our children. surely as with all education, the best people to educate are specialists.

Marco, Kraków, Poland

I find it hard to take you seriously when you start with flawed facts. Yes, the abortion rate has risen but the number of pregnancies has fallen since the plan was rolled out. Success one. Of these, more girls are choosing to have a termination rather than bring the baby to term. Success two.

Kate, London, UK

I am a doctor who has worked in GU medicine in central london including a young persons clinic. It is true that certain children are more likely to have multiple partners earlier and pick up or transmit multiple STIs. I agree targeted education and parental cooperation would help.

lisa, london, uk

Why not look towards countries whose sex education is considerably more successful, such as Holland or Sweden? It is plain stupidity not to learn from those who have done better than us in this area

Merseymike, LIVERPOOL,

Many families do not discuss it in the home, which is part of the problem. Education is the only way to change attitudes. Just because a parent is embarassed about talking about sex does not mean that it should not be addressed.

spencer, london, uk

All those words about sex - and my computer couldn't find the word "emotion" anywhere.

John Orford, Balingasag, Philippines

Which parents are content that their kids are having sex at 13? Surely some mistake? They might "tolerate" it, at a distance, out of sight, perhaps; but they can't be happy about it. Parents are not helped by so many factors; TV; the porn industry; even some rock/pop/RnB music. Parents need support.

John Pownall, Bridport,

What is SexEd? If it is about 'How to' I imagine the teachers could learn a lot from the kids (esp. the teens). If it is about Why or 'Why Not' or 'When' or 'When Not' then it's probably a valid discussion. In either case it's not about telling it's about challenging ideas & decision making

Andrew Pierce, Carrigallen, Co. Leitrim, Ireland

The correlation of STD increase among young people in with the availability of sex education does not indicate causation. Indeed, it correlates with three other factors- growth in access to the internet among teenagers, the availability of porn, and parents too busy working to teach their kids.

P. Thompson, Auckland, NZ

Teach my 6 year old about sex using a badly written comic? Over my dead body.
Sex education is a ongoing process, answering questions sensitively as they crop up and needs careful parental guidance and handling.
Most parents have no idea their teenage children are having sex anyway.

carol, canterbury, uk

Most of Europe has more sex education in school than Britain, yet fewer teenage pregnancies and STDs. That would imply we need more sex education, or we need to do it better.

And we don't leave Maths, English, History to parents. Why sex education?

Alex, Tunbridge Wells,

Marco, I agree - that's exactly the point I was trying to make - that sex is best talked about in the home. Surely that's what family life is for - ie preparation for adulthood. In NL there is more 'family togetherness' plus their lifestyle means they can spend more time communicating at home.

M Lewis, Salisbury, UK

If, "some parents find it acceptable that children have sex at the age of 13" then, the children of those parents will, probably, have sex at the age of 13. The obvious remains the obvious and as Philip Larkin said, "They **** you up, your mum and dad".

Marc, Paris, France

agree w/ S Goodfellow "The point of having a state education system is that parents are not relied on to teach their children", Marina "Problems always begin at home". "Parents must take responsibility" Tom Daly - must? 'must' means nothing:some will,some won't. The solution is genuine professionals

Marco, Kraków, Poland

This article is an embarrassingly naive middle-class view, and angered me completely. Once again blaming schools and teachers for societies problems. How ridiculous! It is not the fault of education, but the lack of it in many schools together with poor parenting, social deprivation and the media

sally whaley, sheffield, s.yorks

Certainly children should learn to ask and talk about sex without embarrassment, but not by having special lessons for it. Put the new drawings in a book where they also draw lines to "arm", "buttock" and "big toe". Once the familiarity is there you can safely wait until they ask questions.

Rosemary, Liverpool,

In the secondary schools in which I taught towards the end of my teaching career in England, the responsibility for sex education was added to the role of the form teacher. Little or no training was given. How can someone who is trained to teach French, history, IT or maths suddenly adapt to this?

Geoffrey Walker, Bordeaux, France

Many countries start sexed early and don't have the problem we do.

Richard, Leicester, UK

How about just saying NO to children. No don't talk at the top of your voice in a restaurant. Don't "go out" to do God knows what. We need middle class in your face parenting and good parents say no and take the heat sometimes. Sex ed is only an issue because there is a vacuum in parenting.

Colin, Bristol, UK

"You might well be tempted to argue that sex education causes sexual delinquency." or that Minette Marrin's career causes global warming, or that the Labour government has caused the explosion in knife-crime,... though, on balance, the first two sound completely implausible.

Marco, Kraków, Poland

the only lesson on sex education i had of my father when i was 16 year old was to remind me of the following point We all make mistakes thats why they put a rubber on the end of a pencil

m rees, aberdare, mid glam

What is the agenda of those people who push sex at our infants?

Their backgrounds need to be examined.. and they need to be kept well away from any dealings with children.

UK indiginous citizens are already low on the priority list of our own systems. Does sexualising of infants push us lower?

Charlotte Peters Rock, Knutsford, England

I see that problems of teenage pregnancy and std's are reported in your article as greater in Britain than elsewhere in Europe. May we assume that this is because only Britain has sex-education in schools? I so, yes indeed, let's abolish it and see the rates come down.

Malcolm Hornsby, Swadlincote, Derby

What is sex ed? Is it distributing info, instilling values, preventing unwanted pregnancies? There is no either or. Should be both school and parents in cooperation; not only in sex ed but in all ed. I trusted Blair's ed ed ed doctrine when he came to power - all sorts of ed. How naive can you get

Mike , Copenhagen,

The law should let a pregnant woman claim an automatic £2000 from the impregnator (up to 6 months post-pregnancy/ termination). In stable relationships there will be no reason to claim. In other cases, responsibility for no or safe sex will become much more important to the man than it is currently.

Saul, Barcelona, Spain

The whole point about childhood is the sublimation of sexual energy into learning and development. If you short-circuit this, there will inevitably be problems. On the other hand, you generate lots of customers for state services.

Ged, Paris, France

M Lewis, i think the point about the Netherlands is that the quiet, conservative families you refer to are quite open within their own families to talking about relationships and sex.

Marco, Kraków, Poland

I was a teacher of languages. Every Wednesday afternoon I had to take a class for PSE-Personal, Social Education. This was a badly-behaved class of 13-14 year olds. At one time the topic for several weeks was STDs. I neither wanted the information about these in my own head, nor did I feel equipped.

Vivienne Rendall, Haltwhistle, UK

This shows how schools can fail miserably to 'do' sex education. I resented being made to do it, I did not feel it was my job.

Vivienne Rendall, Haltwhistle, UK

I teach Brickwork in a Further Education college. Most students can barely read, write or count. They are leaving school at 16 almost completely illiterate and innumerate. Their knowledge of sex is phenomenal.

Jamie B, Northampton, UK

If sex education is so bad how do you explain the Netherlands? Lowers rates of stis & fewer unwanted pregancies among young people, who start having sex later than their British peers, despite much more sex education from an earlier age and a much lower age of consent.

Alan, Glasgow,

Young people are given the tools to have sexual relationships with puberty, not with education!
The point of having a state education system is that parents are not relied on to teach their children. Concerned parents, will, and do, top-up anything children learn at school.

S Goodfellow, St Andrews,

It's a lie to say that sex education = more teen pregnancy and STD's. That simply has not been found to be the case in European countries such as the Netherlands (or, from the opposite direction, in America). It is equally false to claim we have more sexually active teens than in Europe.

Bruno, London,

Children are taught to wash their hands before eating and after toileting but most of them and adults don't do it. Early sex education will give the same results. It is better to encourage respect for self and others and teach the 3Rs properly.

Carolyn, Surbiton,

Teachers pick up the problems that parents create. The idea that teaching sex ed in schools makes kids more sexually active at a young age is rubbish! Teenage parents are usually the product of teenage parents. Problems always begin at home..and you can't blame the government or teachers for that

Marina, London,

I agree that the state cannot properly address sex education. It is critical to address this yet I cannot imagine any government properly addressing such a delicate issue; the talent isn't there. Parents must take responsibility and do the best they can as they know their children the best.

Tom Daly, Highlands NJ, USA

Imagine if we took six year olds out to the parking lot, showed them which key opens the car door, which starts it, how to do so, how to put it in drive and release the emergency brake, and how to steer. Then after the lesson tell them not to do this until they are 16. Would that be wise?

Kevin Finnerty, Atlanta, USA

The earlier children are exposed to detailed information about sex, the earlier they become sexually active; the destruction of innocence comes at a price, and we are paying it in Britain, with a generation sexualised before it's teens. There are evil forces at work here.

Robert Douglas, Princes Risborough, UK

In the US, schools which have no sex education or abstinence-only sex education have much higher rates of pregnancy and STIs than schools which have comprehensive sex education. Too many parents either teach their children nothing or give them ineffective advice - improve school sex education!

E. Carpenter, new york, usa

We have a generation of the worst educated, most morally lax, teachers ever in Britain. They are the children of the great treachery practiced by educators in the seventies, who decided, for pc reasons, to withold education from children. Many teachers are uneducated, and amoral, if not immoral.

Robert Douglas, Princes Risborough, UK

Does anybody sensibly believe that juveniles don't know that having sex leads to pregnancy?

Jo Morris, Grays, uk

you talk about the pervasive assumption of equality, well sorry to tell you but its not just sex ed where kids are treated equally. in most schools the idea of setting and streaming for maths and science is a big leap, so why on earth would you expect them to comprehend the need for it in sex ed?

will, grimsby, uk

I really feel that teaching children as young as you like to respect themselves and each other is far more important than teaching them about sex. Being taught not to do it and why is surely far more important.

tiny, Birmingham, England

we should stop looking to other countries for clues as to how sex education 'should' be done, especially if they've no experience of actually living there. eg people describe the Netherlands (low teenage pregnancy rate) as liberal & open about sex. I found it family orientated/quiet/conservative.

M Lewis, Salisbury, UK

This is another failed product of Labour government, it's insane to force such method of 'education' on children in their early learning age. What on earth is going on? So called fpa is imposing toxic information while ignoring the reality that Britain has the worst records for under age pregnancy.

Marph, London,

The mass media for 40 years or more have been steeped to saturation point in erotic sensationalism. Loving long term human relationships and the steady upbringing of offspring are under-emphasised. The varying abilities of teachers and their impact on classroom sex education is a good point.

Gabriel Bonnar, Milan, Italy