I was fairly young when I proudly announced to my mother my “extensive” knowledge of an almost taboo subject. I puffed out my chest, stood on the sofa so I could reach her ear and leaned forward as though to tell her a life-changing secret.

“I know where babies come from.”

She raised an eyebrow and amusedly asked me to tell her where they came from. I shrugged and told her that when a man’s “thing” touches a woman’s “thing,” a baby appears in her belly. In retrospect, I wasn’t too far off.

My mother merely chuckled and never corrected my conclusions, leaving me the delighted owner of misinformation.

In fact, I was never given the sex talk.

In my household, the “birds and the bees” never came up in conversation. It was a silent agreement that it was too awkward of a discussion to have.

School tried to teach us about sexual health. We had one lesson in middle school and I can’t remember, if any, class being taught in my high school. Everything I know about sex came from the teen section of WebMD and knowledge from friends. While they weren’t most reliable sources, it was still a form of sex education.

It wasn’t until I began to repeatedly hear the phrase, “I learned that from porn,” did I truly start to question the rise of this kind education.

No matter how widespread it is, porn isn’t a reliable form of sexual education.

There are two prominent ends of the sexual education spectrum — either refrain from sex by practicing abstinence, like we were taught in middle school, or have sex without practicing it safely, like in porn.

For starters, there are rarely videos where a man uses a condom. While the woman might very well be on another form on contraceptives, a condom is the only known way to prevent many sexually transmitted diseases.

The dialogues of STDs are rarely talked about in porn, too. No one in the video worries about contracting anything.

Furthermore, porn lacks the depth in conversation about consent. The Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network reports that one out of every six American women and one in 33 American men are victims of attempted or completed rape.

The statistics on sexual assault may have forced a national discourse on consent because it’s an imperative part of sex. However, honest conversations are still lacking between adults and teenagers about what happens after consensual sex. This includes talking about relationship building, partnership communication, respect, reciprocity, the ability to assert desires and setting limits.

Rarely are any of these topics covered in porn videos.

The reason behind this is because porn was made for short-term pleasure. The directors behind each and every porno hope to get the actors off, so you, the viewer, can too. They’re not thinking of the aftermath because they got the job done.

Sydney Morning Herald’s Dr. Anita Elias, who specializes in sexual medicines, is particularly worried about young women experiencing sexual pain due to their lack of arousal.

If their sexual endeavors are guided purely by porn, these women can easily fall victim to low sexual self-esteem and unsatisfying experiences. Because hard, aggressive sex and other fantasies in porn may not appeal to them, these women feel ashamed for not becoming aroused.

The same low self-esteem can go for men too.

I remember my girlfriends telling me their boyfriends or hookups didn’t know how to please them in bed. All they know is to mimic the jackhammer movement. While not all men do this, those that do will be met with an unsatisfied partner.

To further understand the problems with sex education with a funny twist, I suggest the “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” segment on sex education.

But it’s not enough to just speak out. Sex becoming a popular form of education speaks on a deeper level of how our education systems are failing its students. They need to provide better education so students don’t have to turn elsewhere.

Isabella Ong is a sophomore television, radio and film major. Her column appears weekly in Pulp. She can be reached on Twitter @isabella_ong.

Published on April 6, 2016 at 8:08 pm