Pauline Oosterhoff

Digital Pathways to Sex Education

For most young people in the world, sex and relationships have a big impact on their lives. However, various gatekeepers restrict reliable information on sexual health that has a positive take on pleasure and relationships. Therefore, online sex education is of vital importance for young people. Using online traffic data and information on operational realities from Love Matters – an online provider of sex education on web, mobile and social media platforms in China, Egypt, Kenya, Mexico and India – this article attempts to contribute to an understanding of how online information about sexual health education in different national contexts is accessed by users and restricted by gatekeepers. Our findings show the importance of understanding audiences, visible traditional and invisible online gatekeepers, and working with local and supranational commercial organisations for effective outreach and provision of sex education.

Introduction: Sex Education in the Digital Era

Young people all over the world are keen to learn about sex and relationships but are not finding the information they seek in their immediate environment. The internet provides them with a welcome alternative. In response to the rapid increased connectivity of young people, international organisations that work on comprehensive sex education for young people have moved online. While there are new opportunities to reach young people in these digital spaces, sex educators also encounter restrictions. They face the immense power of new supranational commercial digital gatekeepers such as Facebook and Google and must respond to digitally mediated sexual and gender-based violence. This article introduces a special issue of the IDS Bulletin on experiences with internet‑based sex education in 14 countries. The authors explore how familiar forms of exclusion and inequality, as well as empathy and solidarity, manifest themselves in these new digital spaces in highly diverse national settings.

Sex Education in the Digital Era

Exploring sex and sexual relationships is an important part of adolescence, and therefore sex education should have a central role in adolescent emotional development as well as dealing with crucial public-health issues. Good sex education reduces maternal and child mortality by helping to prevent unwanted, early and risky pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases, yet in many parts of the world unmarried teenagers are excluded from receiving information and sexual health services because – according to unrealistic and conservative religious and socio-cultural norms – they are not supposed to be sexually active.Much of the research on sexuality in the digital era is moralistic and slanted, so for those working on sexual/reproductive health and youth/digital development issues, learning more about the subject is a major challenge. There has never been a collection of scholarly work on this topic for a mixed audience of researchers, policymakers and practitioners until this issue of the IDS Bulletin. A collaboration between Love Matters and IDS, articles discuss experiences with digital sex education in many countries and in a range of settings. The issues confronted are diverse, yet the common themes encountered are often as striking as the differences.Young people need help in critically examining the sexual messages they receive, as well as access to new types of digital sex education environments that are realistic, emotionally attuned, non-judgmental and open to the messages they themselves create. Contributions in this IDS Bulletin suggest an urgency for academics and practitioners to understand and develop digital literacy skills in order to help build such environments.

Affective Engagement: Teaching Young Kenyans about Safe and Healthy Sex

Research suggests that young people are arriving at sex education sites mostly through campaigns on social media and paid sites. Whilst not everyone is accessing porn, it is essential to find creative ways to engage with young people to strengthen and build on existing online sex education. In this study, a team of researchers, international project staff, musicians and multimedia artist worked effectively together on mobilising audiences based on research evidence on sex education for young Kenyans. The approach taken was innovative but it was also rooted in high-quality research evidence. This article focuses on two areas of learning from the programme – how research can support a creative team to discuss sexuality in a radically open fashion and how to remain focused when working in multidisciplinary teams.

Visualizing Development with Identity: Relational Aesthetics of Indigenous Collaborative Community Art Projects

This chapter deals with two participatory community art projects exploring aspirations and fears regarding identity and development with representatives of indigenous Benet people in Uganda and Khasi people in India. The projects were implemented in collaboration with Dutch artists as well as development and museum experts from the Royal Tropical Institute, Amsterdam, in 2012. The development experts worked for over a decade on indigenous wellbeing and are part of a global network of development practitioners, activists and indigenous representatives. Through these contacts a number of indigenous groups in Asia and Africa were identified that experienced clear tensions between cultural heritage preservation and development. One key consideration was the availability of a variety of local leaders and organizations, especially indigenous ones, who understood and supported a collaborative artwork on indigenous identity, aspirations and fears. Another was community access to basic necessities such as drinking water, physical safety, and electricity for computers. Keywords: community art projects; Dutch artists; India; indigenous identity; Royal Tropical Institute; Uganda