Sex education evolved in Quebec much as it did in the rest of North America, though it was slower to take its place in the curriculum here because of the strength of the Catholic Church.
In 1969 the government of Canada decriminalized the dissemination of information and the sale of birth control. At the same time, it legalized oral sex and established the age of consent for engaging in anal sex (21), as opposed to 14 for other forms. (The Harper government raised the age of consent to 16 in 2008.)
The Quebec government followed suit in 1972, creating, among other things, a prevention program for schools starting at the high-school level. But Catholic parents’ groups aligned with the church resisted, and it wasn’t until 1985 that the Personal and Social Development program became part of the curriculum — with a section on sex education.
By then, AIDS was a full-blown epidemic. Di Matteo’s generation was scared into safe sex by the prospect and vision of an atrocious, painful death.
It was either abstinence or condoms.
Fast forward to the early 2000s, however, and AIDS, though not curable, has become treatable, and largely invisible. Sex is everywhere online, available 24/7, and new problems, like sexting and cyberbullying, have emerged along with it.
At the same time, curriculum reform under a Parti Québécois government emphasized math and language skills, and de-emphasized social development courses that don’t translate easily into job skills.
As of 2005, when the Liberals returned to power, there would be no formal or dedicated sex education classes; rather, the thinking went, it would be taught by everyone, a little here and a little there.
Lisa Trimble, a professor in the education department at McGill University, who did her PhD thesis on sexual health education, says asking everyone to teach it, though appealing in theory, is ensuring that no one does.
“Sex education in Quebec schools is either non-existent or completely random,” says Trimble. “Some students are getting some sex education, but it’s largely at the discretion of the teacher. But (the government) doesn’t understand that teachers need training and to develop comfort in teaching this.”
In the absence of training, fear becomes a common teaching tool, she says. One of her undergraduate students recalled how teachers escorted her high school class to the hospital and had them stare at a dying AIDS patient.
Trimble says when sex education is taught, it’s with “flash pedagogy” — a crisis approach to teaching kids not to get sick or pregnant.
“We try and teach students in a very short time and expect meaningful learning they can apply. But instead they are getting basic anatomy lessons and missing out on what makes sex, sex. They are talking about ovaries and testes and not about handling emotions, negotiating safer sex and sexual ethics.”
Beyond getting sick or pregnant, Trimble and other sexologists worry that there is no room in the curriculum to discuss sexual orientation or gender identity, and create safer, more inclusive schools, or to teach sexually active youths about the other, more modern dangers lurking.
Trimble points to the gang rape in August 2012 of an intoxicated high school student by football players in Steubenville, Ohio, and the subsequent posting of photographs of the incident on social media.