Last night I had a dream. It seemed so real at the time, as most dreams do. In the dream I promised a friend I'd write up my opinion in my blog, and although it wasn't real, it was an interesting situation I'd like to write about anyway.

The dream was about sex, somewhat of a taboo subject. As kids, when we are taught about sex, we're always taught it is how babies are made. The message is that sex is for married couples. Of course we know the truth is that lot of kids are having sex. Never "your kids", but you know it is out there. According to some statistics I looked up (I don't need to provide links because these things are easy to find), by age 17 over 50% of people have had sex, and by 19 it is roughly 80%. We may want there to be something special about sex, but the amount of recreational sex belies that in most cases. Now, instead of ignoring it, what if we embraced it? If you accept that it is fun and appealing and that kids are going to want to try it then maybe we could curtail many of the emotional and physical problems that result from it. In any case, that is a little of what the dream was about.

I was in High School, and probably 17 years old. Up to that point sex education policy was the same was we all know it. However, in the dream, my parents and teachers started taking a different approach. In this bizarre dream, they started encouraging sex. Rather than the wild orgies you might expect, there was actually no sex in the dream. I imagine that all the kids there still wanted it, but after years of thinking it was a secret, talked about through bird and bee metaphor, they were uncomfortable hearing adults talk about it freely and openly. There was a lot of giggling and shyness. No one wanted to raise their hand in class and say "Yes, I'd like to have sex now." We weren't ready for the sudden attitude adjustment. It didn't feel right.

Now, I don't remember what I really wanted to say about it in the dream. The dream experiences seems to undermine the point I was trying to make above which almost supports the philosophy from the dream. However, a dream is just a dream. It doesn't make any sense and isn't proof of anything. Although the dream was what gave me the idea, it made me think that, applied to a slightly lesser extent, slowly, and realisticly, the idea has merit. It's not really a new idea of mine either. It is basically the same policy that I much more strongly believe in regarding alcohol, where I think the drinking age should be 16 so that parents and teachers would have to deal with drinking and teach responsible drinking rather than just teach no drinking and ignore what really went on when kids learned to drink irresponsibly on their own.