Sex education unnecessarily teaches an innate behavior

The argument

Proponents of this argument hold that sex education takes something no one needs to be taught and turns it into a formal school subject. Their starting observation is drawn from the natural world: no other species requires formal sexual instruction between adults and their offspring. Animals reproduce successfully generation after generation without anything resembling a curriculum, because procreation is a natural, biological instinct. On this view, humans are no exception. The knowledge required for reproduction is not like algebra or grammar — information that must be transmitted deliberately or be lost — but an innate capacity that emerges on its own as people mature. Instruction, advocates argue, is only necessary for behaviors that do not arise naturally; applying it to an instinct is redundant by definition. The argument's second strand is historical. Humanity managed perfectly well before the introduction of sex education, proponents note, and our ancestors lived healthy, fulfilled lives without formal sexual instruction. If classroom teaching were genuinely necessary for people to understand and carry out reproduction, the human species could not have flourished for the countless generations that preceded the modern classroom. The long record of successful human life before any formal program, on this reasoning, is standing evidence that such programs answer no real need. Taken together, these two premises support the position that sex education should not be taught in schools. School time and resources, advocates conclude, ought to be reserved for knowledge that must actually be taught to be acquired. Because sexual behavior is innate rather than learned, formal instruction in it is unnecessary — and an unnecessary subject has no claim to a place in the curriculum.

Context

Why are we teaching biological instinct? If you are heterosexual, you have a biological instinct to find a potential mate and reproduce. If you are homosexual or lesbian, your urges also instruct you to find a sexual partner. We don’t need to teach these instincts. They are simply there.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Sex education does not just mean teaching the biology of sex, which is instinctual. It deals with issues of consent, social norms, disease prevention and healthy living. It is true that humans have survived for millennia without formal sexual instruction. But sexually transmitted diseases were rife, sexual assault has been common and as a race, we have been historically intolerant of the LGBTQ+ community. Sex education can help with all of these things. Just because humans have survived for millennia, doesn't mean that we can't aspire to be better. Sex education is part of that aspiration to create a better society for everyone.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Sex education isn't just about reproduction.