Sex doesn’t have to be as scary as parents think

“Don’t look yet,” a boy shouts as he squeezes his feet into a pair of black boots with dizzyingly high heels. His brother is on the other side of the rack with dress-up clothes in the Education Museum in Dordrecht. Dresses, leather gloves, blazers hang on the rack. Next to it is a bed with notes above it on which visitors can write down love secrets. Soft love songs sound through the room. It’s all part of the exhibition Aahhh…! about body, sexuality, gender and consent.

Lieneke Bouwer watches her eight- and ten-year-old sons stomp around the room on their heels. “Be careful, you’ll soon sprain your ankles,” she laughs. “The eldest will only receive his first sex education at school next year, in group eight,” says Bouwer, as she helps him into a dress. Quite late, Bouwer thinks. She has already talked about sex with her children.

If there is attention to sex in the classroom, teachers will have a great need for help, notes Janneke Pierhagen of the museum. Schools registered for the educational program immediately after the opening of the exhibition. “That doesn’t happen at other exhibitions.”

This week it became clear that a large proportion of young people find sex education at school to be mediocre. Young people give the information an average of 5.6, a slightly lower score than in 2017. This was evident from the large-scale quantitative study ‘Sex under the age of 25’, about sexual health among young people. Expertise Center Rutgers and Soa Aids Nederland surveyed around ten thousand young people between the ages of 13 and 25 about their experiences with sex. The last time the study was conducted was in 2017, previously in 2012. The research also shows that young people start having sex later, are more accepting of sex without love and are less likely to take the pill.

Sex without falling in love

“On the one hand, our young people are doing well, but we are concerned about some points,” says Hanneke de Graaf. She has been leading the ‘Sex under 25’ project at Rutgers for years. “Young people give their sex life a high score of seven, we thought that was good. But you can also think: why not eight?”

A striking conclusion from the research: young people are starting to have sex later and later. In 2012, half of young people had their first experience with jerking off or fingering together at the age of sixteen, in 2017 this was at the age of seventeen, and in 2023 this was a year later. Half of young people have had their first vaginal sex when they are 18.7 years old, compared to a year and a half earlier in 2012. Compared to previous years, young people are more likely to find sex without being in love okay. Now, as many girls as boys think this. “A bit of emancipation for those girls,” says De Graaf. Acceptance of gender diversity and LGBTIQ+ is also increasing.

Young people often experience sexually transgressive behavior, the research shows. Among girls, the percentage who have sometimes been forced to cross their boundaries has increased from 12 percent in 2017 to 20 percent in 2023. Also remarkable: the group of young people who do not use contraception is increasing. Among young people who had ever had vaginal sex, 9 percent did not use contraception in 2012. That group grew to 20 percent in 2023.

“These types of studies are often talked about in terms of: ‘Oh no, what are those young people doing?’,” say Krista and Marcelle Arriëns, better known as ‘the sex sisters’. They read the study with great interest. In 2019, Krista and Marcelle started a YouTube series (VPRO) for young people about sex, based on the idea that information could be much better. In episodes with titles such as ‘PorNO or yes?’, ‘Misunderstandings’, ‘Getting pubic hair’, ‘Regretting sex’ and ‘Happy with your pussy’, the women discuss their own experiences in a vulnerable and open manner. The series became so popular that an extensive TV program followed, in which the sisters themselves gave sex education to secondary school classes.

“We noticed that all the trends in the research might be explained by growing awareness,” says Krista. “For example, what is the reason for the increase in sexual violence? Could there be more reporting because there is less shame in being open about this?”

De Graaf also mentions that possibility. Young people may know better what sexual violence is due to social developments or reporting. “For in-depth research, we tend to focus on this theme,” says the researcher. “More than half of the young people who experienced sexual violence did not show that they did not want it. We want to discuss that further.”

Own choices

Researcher De Graaf also sees this growing awareness. “If I had to mention one unifying factor in the report, it is that there seems to be more room for personal choices,” says de Graaf. For example, a young person’s last sex partner is more often someone with whom they are not in a relationship, and more young people nowadays identify as other than cisgender – with cisgender, the gender identity corresponds to the sex at birth.

The sex sisters also see this freedom of choice reflected in the decrease in pill use, which does not appear to lead to more unwanted pregnancies or more sexually transmitted diseases. Most girls who don’t take the pill said they do so because they don’t want so many hormones in their bodies.

“I would also have liked to think about that more,” says Krista. “In the past, you went to the doctor, he prescribed the pill and you took it,” De Graaf also says. “Girls who now choose not to take the pill because of the hormones must use a good alternative, such as a copper IUD or condom,” says Krista.

The fact that young people start having sex later cannot necessarily be linked to greater awareness. The group of young people under the age of eighteen who have experience with falling in love and dating has become smaller, de Graaf sees. “And most young people mainly have sex within a relationship.” Previous research shows that social pressure to do ‘well’ at school may also play a role. “That slows down partying, flirting and therefore having sex.” Aren’t young people simply becoming more prudish? “You hear that a lot,” says Marcelle. “But this clearly contains a judgment from an older generation, which itself started having sex at a younger age.”

The fun sides of sex

Then the information. Boys and girls are dissatisfied with sex education at school, queer youth even more so. 22 to 24 year olds gave education the lowest score. “Maybe they have become more negative looking back,” says De Graaf. “Someone of 24 obviously has to think back a bit. But it is also possible that sexuality education is better now than then,” says De Graaf. “We hope so.”

About half of the young people felt that they receive sufficient information at school about STDs and contraception. More than half were told nothing or too little about falling in love, pregnancy and abortion. And a large majority felt that there was insufficient attention to the fun sides of sex, sex in the media, sex against your will and consent.

Yet Krista and Marcelle noticed during their school visits that students were better informed than the sisters themselves in their teenage years. “I think the smartphone is an important factor in this. A lot more information comes to you,” says Krista. For example, the young people were aware of a theme such as consent, according to the sisters, but they do not yet know how that translates into practice.

Marcelle: “When we did exercises where they had to indicate boundaries, it didn’t work very well.” For example, students had to decorate a cake for each other and indicate exactly how they wanted it. “If you only want a little bit of custard, and someone throws half a pack on it, do you dare to say: I think this is too much?”, says Krista. “Then you are practicing skills for the bedroom in a very safe way. We didn’t even talk about sex 80 percent of the time.” And that is also nice to know for schools that are afraid that parents will rebel against the lessons.

Marcelle: “It doesn’t have to be as scary as some parents think.”

It is mainly parents who are concerned about things that children may see in the exhibition, says Janneke Pierhagen of the Education Museum. “But what children do not want to see in the exhibition simply passes them by.”

Lieneke Bouwer’s children fly through the exhibition, put on ‘nude suits’ and draw penises on a chalkboard. During the part about consent, the boys press buttons on a board, with each button a different child’s voice with a question blares through the room: “Should you always kiss someone if he wants to?” Bouwer seizes her chance. “If grandma comes by and says: give me a kiss, is that necessary or can you say no?” she says. Her sons, in unison: “You can always say no!”

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