Students at UCD who spoke to RTÉ News strongly agreed with the recommendations of an Oireachtas committee report released today, which stated that Relationships and Sexuality Education in schools is outdated and in need of an overhaul.
Those from single-sex Catholic schools and mixed community schools described their school sex education as "almost entirely negative".
For most of these students, consent, abortion and contraception were not taught at all. LGBTQ+ issues were also barely touched on, they say.
"Basically, a roll of sellotape comes out," said Lisa Murnane, who attended a single-sex Catholic school.
"Everyone is told to put a bit of sellotape on their finger, then you take it off, turn around to the person beside you and ask ‘do you want to put this on now’, when it’s all skinny and gross.
"And they go ‘this is why people shouldn’t have casual sex’, because when they come around to marriage, they’re not as worthwhile," she said.
"That’s how the virginity talk was dealt with."
Lisa said that many in the class laughed and thought it was ridiculous, but "we were quite concerned that some people were really eating it up, like people really were internalising it."
After the talk, she said students shamed other students over their sexual activity or history.
"Girls kind of attacking the personalities of others, being like ‘oh, this person is easy’, shaming people for sexual activity at a young age," she said.
When asked what she felt was not taught that should have been, she said: "We definitely didn’t get consent. It was never said that sex was actually an enjoyable thing for people. We never got anything in relation to LGBT communities other than ‘don’t bully them’, and that was about it.
"There was an abortion debate in which it was firmly agreed by the teacher that abortion is bad. Also we watched a surrogacy documentary which says ‘don’t do surrogacy, it’s immoral’."
Lisa felt that the sexual education was "very strongly influenced by the convent, very strongly influenced by the personal biases of a teacher".
"I was not impressed, I think it was a genuine disservice to the people in the school," she said.
"Most people would have relied on the internet or the Simpsons for their sexual education, and I think that’s a lot of responsibility for a cartoon."
Chloe Maguire Sedgwick went to a Protestant mixed school, and said they were "definitely taught more than other schools were", but still were not "taught a lot".
"They just kind of touched on things - so they explained contraception, they emphasised STIs more than they emphasised contraception. They briefly touched on consent, didn’t talk about abortion, and in terms of LGBTQ+ things, it was very heteronormative," she said.
Gregory Phelan, who went to a single-sex Catholic school, said that "consent was touched on".
"With LGBTQ+ stuff, it wasn’t touched on at all, it was kind of ignored. Contraception wasn’t talked about and abortion wasn’t talked about, and I suppose that was totally influenced by the ethos of the school," he said.
"You’re betrayed by the people who are there to educate you, they’re taking education from you."
Brian Treacy, who went to a community school, thinks that "scare tactics" were used in the sex education he received at school.
"It was kind of to actively discourage things rather than to see sexual health as something that should be promoted and encouraged. Most of the discussions that we had in our SPHE classes and on towards sixth year would mostly have been along the lines of STIs and unplanned pregnancies and the problematic issues that arise from that, rather than seeing sexuality and sexual health as something that’s important in our lives and to give students tools to essentially equip them to navigate the sexual world in which we all live," he said.
Consent, abortion and LGBTQ+ issues were "absolutely not" dealt with properly, he said.
Shauna Craig, who went to a community school, said that contraception was mainly dealt with as part of biology, "rather than saying it’s a good thing to get".
Eva Doherty, who also attended a community school, said that they did not get any education on LGBTQ+ issues.
"We did not really partake in the LGBTQI activities that you should be doing in secondary schools – like, we didn’t know how to handle gay people basically," she said.
Eva said that there were boys in the class who did not take consent videos seriously, and who made rape jokes.
Shauna added that it is "ridiculous" when sex education is taught to boys and girls separately in a mixed school situation, saying: "Why should we go separately, we’re going to be taught about the same things."
