Wear condoms. Consent is mandatory. Be careful what you sext.
With the release of its new sex ed curriculum today, Ontario has entered the digital age. From now on, education will include discussing the risks of sexting and protecting privacy online, as well as the possible legal, socia,l and emotional implications of distributing such material into cyberspace.
It’s the province’s first sex ed revision since 1998, which is pretty alarming considering the frequency of sexual activity on the internet.
Part of the new curriculum’s strategy is to teach students about the unknown consequences of sexting and to emphasize that “once a person sends a sext, they lose control of it.”
While some elementary students have admitted to sexting, the issue is particularly prevalent as they reach secondary school – 11 per cent of Grade 10 students and about 14 per cent of those in Grade 11 say they’ve sent texts of a sexual nature.
As education around sexting finally catches up to the times, technologies themselves will likely begin to create safe practice guidelines for young people when it comes to online safety.
Snapchat, which has aggressively accelerated the sexting trend, coincidentally unveiled a campaign today to shed its image as a nude photo messenger.
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