An appropriate understanding of sex and healthy sexual relationships would have helped Kareena MacGregor understand that she did have sex (“Hear My Plea,” Feb. 19, City Weekly). Understanding sex and sexual relationships may also have helped her recognize that she was being sexually abused by two of her peers and emotionally abused by adults she trusted to do something about the abuse but who did nothing.
Utahns can no longer trust religious leaders and families to provide young people with necessary sex education. Comprehensive sex education in public schools provides additional information for students about healthy sexual relationships.
When comprehensive sex education is taught in public schools, students get the information they need before their sexual and emotional health is compromised.
Also, comprehensive sex education taught in school is not entangled with conflicts of interest such as the one MacGregor’s bishop had to keep her uninformed, or her parents’ early obliviousness, as if they thought they were living in a Disney movie.
Renae Skordas
Salt Lake City
