These are a person's capacity to reproduce and the behaviors and attitudes that make sexual relationships healthy and enjoyable.
Factual information about reproduction—Is necessary so youth will understand how male and female reproductive systems function and how conception and/or STD infection occur. Adolescents often have inadequate information about their own and/or their partner's body. Teens need this information so they can make informed decisions about sexual expression and protect their health. Youth need to understand anatomy and physiology because every adolescent needs the knowledge and understanding to help him/her appreciate the ways in which his/her body functions.
Feelings and attitudes—Are wide-ranging when it comes to sexual expression and reproduction and to sexual health-related topics such as STD infection, HIV and AIDS, contraceptive use, abortion, pregnancy, and childbirth.
Sexual intercourse—Is one of the most common behaviors among humans. Sexual intercourse is a behavior that may produce sexual pleasure that often culminates in orgasm in females and in males. Sexual intercourse may also result in pregnancy and/or STDs. In programs for youth, discussion of sexual intercourse is often limited to the bare mention of male-female (penile-vaginal) intercourse. However, youth need accurate health information about sexual intercourse—vaginal, oral, and anal.
Reproductive and sexual anatomy—The male and female body and the ways in which they actually function is a part of sexual health. Youth can learn to protect their reproductive and sexual health. This means that teens need information about all the effective methods of contraception currently available, how they work, where to obtain them, their effectiveness, and their side effects. This means that youth also need to know how to use latex condoms to prevent STD infection. Even if youth are not currently engaging in sexual intercourse, they probably will do so at some point in the future. They must know how to prevent pregnancy and/or disease.
Finally, youth also need to know that traditional methods of preventing pregnancy (that may be common in that particular community and/or culture) may be ineffective in preventing pregnancy and may, depending on the method, even increase susceptibility to STDs. The leader will need to determine what those traditional methods are, their effectiveness, and their side effects before he/she can discuss traditional methods of contraception in a culturally appropriate and informative way.
Sexual reproduction—The actual processes of conception, pregnancy, delivery, and recovery following childbirth are important parts of sexuality. Youth need information about sexual reproduction—the process whereby two different individuals each contribute half of the genetic material to their child. The child is, therefore, not identical to either parent. [Asexual reproduction is a process whereby simple one-celled organisms reproduce by splitting, creating two separate one-celled organisms identical to the original [female] organism before it split.] Too many programs focus exclusively on sexual reproduction when providing sexuality education and ignore all the other aspects of human sexuality.