5-8-year-old children must know that people show love through sexual behaviours.

Remember all the times adults try to keep sexually suggestive actions away from children for their innocence’s sake? This seems to do the opposite. Exposing young children to such information creates an opportunity for sexual predators to entice and exploit them.

9-12-year-old children must know that sexual stimulation produces a physical response. They must describe male and female responses to sexual stimulation.

While some young children may touch themselves in an attempt to soothe themselves (in times of boredom or anxiety), it is categorically different from masturbation which is meant to achieve sexual release. By conflating the two, it makes children more likely to engage in masturbation than otherwise. What for rob children of their innocence?

By teaching youths that masturbation does no physical or emotional harm, this CSE is putting forth a one-sided view and could be at complete odds with significant value systems these children and their families hold to.

Why should CSE promote such a view which creates unnecessary problems for parents and children? It also neglects the fact that such sexual practice could hurt a person’s ability to engage people whom they may have an interest with or lead easily into addiction. Such harms are clearly ignored by CSE.

9-12-year-old children must compare and contrast the advantages and disadvantages of choosing to delay sex or to become sexually active.

Abstinence is only taught and not exactly promoted when it should have been the case, especially for young children at this age. They are well below legal age and should be given the best possible option which is abstinence until marriage for their own well-being’s sake. 

Curious what CSE wants to list down as the disadvantages of delaying sex/abstinence. All CSE providers ought to make these information transparent and clear to parents, so that they can make the decision to avoid exposing their children to wrong information and placed in a vulnerable position for sexual predators to exploit.

12-15-year-old teenagers must learn that sexual stimulation involves physical and psychological aspects, and people respond in different ways, at different times.

This lesson is a step up from the 9-12-year-old lesson, focusing on how other people respond to sexual stimulation. 

This may be a lesson to enhance marriage life but is clearly inappropriate for teenagers who are first of all underaged and should not experimenting sexually. Again, such teachings can place children in vulnerable positions for sexual predators to exploit.

12-15-year-old teenagers must have the attitude that they can choose to be sexually active, choose with whom to become sexually active with, and change their minds anytime.

CSE amplifies individual autonomy in sexual decision-making and never mentions the significance of sex. 

Marriage is never mentioned as the context for sex. Sex and the human body are instead treated as services or objects merely for individual gratification – all under the guise of achieving “well-being”. If sex is treated as such, it sets the youths up for a harder time in a committed faithful marriage.

12-15-year-olds must recall that non-penetrative sexual behaviours don’t cause pregnancy, but provide pleasure

This is a subtle promotion of sexual behaviours that are non-penetrative as though they are morally neutral. Also, reduced risks does not mean no risk or free from long-term consequences. Rather than teaching risk management in sex, teenagers should be taught risk avoidance.

Furthermore, every sexual encounter leaves an imprint in a person’s life, and youths are better off not engaging in any sexual behaviours, especially since they are still underaged!

12-15-year-old teenagers are taught that transactional sexual activity might pose health and well-being risks.

However, they are not taught that these are inherently wrong. 

At best, this learning objective can be seen as an attempt to warn youths about prostituting themselves. However, it promotes the idea that prostitution/transactional sexual activities are morally alright, which is affront to the value systems of many parents and communities.

Furthermore, this could also end up sowing prostitution as a way to earn money into young minds, making them think of engaging in such activities when in the first place they may not even be exposed to it. 

Teenagers deserve better than this. They deserve to be protected from sexual exploitation, not introduced to it and only taught to minimise risks.

15-18-year-old teenagers must know the elements of sexual pleasure and why good communication enhances a sexual relationship.

This lesson is relevant for couples that are entering marriage. However, it is highly inappropriate for teenagers who are barely legal. It will only end up becoming an exercise to encourage them to experiment sexually while schooling.