Youth sexuality refers to the sexual curiosity, behaviors, and development of young people. It encompasses the range of sociosexual development stages ranging from birth, through adolescent sexuality, all the way to the period before adulthood.
The boundaries between youth sexuality and adult sexuality are hotly debated, because views on adulthood range drastically across regions of the world. Young people's sexuality is often treated with fear and many young people remain closeted about their sexuality,[1] regardless of their sexual orientation.
Adultism and fear of youth sexuality[]
thumb|300px|right|In this KinkForAll Washington DC presentation, maymay makes the case for how sex education for young people will save their lives, and explains why restricting information about sexuality from young people is a form of oppression called adultism. Across many parts of the world, youth sexual expression is actively discouraged or feared. One common example of this is the restrictions to sexuality-related material provided to young people. Notably, restrictions to sex education and misinformation about sex spread by public school curriculum has been a topic of political debate for some time.
Public sex education[]
In Washington, DC, the Montgomery County School Board approved a revised curriculum of sex education that provided more comprehensive material regarding homosexuality and contraceptive use. However, a group of local citizens took issue with the program and organized a long campaign to stop the curriculum from being introduced to the public schools. The campaign took the form of a lawsuit filed by a Florida-based Christian legal group loosely affiliated with Jerry Falwell.[2]
In 2009, the KinkForAll Washington DC sexuality education unconference, originally planned to be held on a Saturday in classrooms of the Bethesda Chevy-Chase High School, was pressured to leave school grounds by the Montgomery County School Board, citing fears that the educational event would attract sex offenders to the school grounds and put schoolchildren at risk.[3] The unconference organizers moved the unconference to the Montgomery County Executive Office Building.[4]