Abstract
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.
Highlights
For many young people all over the world – including in villages in Bangladesh, Ethiopia or Uganda – pornography is the primary source of information about sex
Very little is known about the effectiveness of online sex education, or about how digital technologies affect young people’s access to wanted or unwanted information
Examining the history of online health information platforms, they conclude that in contrast to formal, traditional sources of sex education, the internet offers many advantages, including portability, anonymity, informality, personalised responses, and the ability to interact with peers who are not local and not part of face-to-face networks
Summary
For many young people all over the world – including in villages in Bangladesh, Ethiopia or Uganda – pornography is the primary source of information about sex. In an attempt to offer more responsible information on sex over the internet, digital sex education initiatives have been launched all over the world.
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