Sex Education of Teenagers in Contemporary Russia

A time of Sexual Liberation, which started at the beginning of 1960s, have challenged traditional codes of behavior related to sex and sexuality. Sexual Liberation underlined the need to legalize abortions, to accept the premarital sex, all alternative forms of sexuality, and to put forward a variety of ways of contraception, especially the pills. In the United States and many European countries, Sexual Liberation have led to the establishment of a school discipline, named “sex education”. Sex education provides an opportunity to comprehend students` own values and attitudes towards sexuality and to acquire decision-making skills in order to reduce the risks associated with many aspects of sexual life. Nowadays there is no sex education in Russia, despite the fact that Russia adopted a ratification in 2013, which stipulated that Russia should introduce sex education into schools. Moreover, the results of several studies demonstrated that the conversation about sex is a taboo in Russian society. In addition, sex education is perceived as a “propaganda of the lechery”. Despite the taboo, the information about sexual life can be found on the Internet or learn from people who already had such experience. Thus, it is the aim of this study to understand whether teenagers are interested in sex education, what sources of information do they use, and what kind of knowledge do they have. The aim was achieved using qualitative methodology (12 semi-structured interviews) and the elements of quantitative (12 tests to evaluate sex education knowledge of respondents). The stratified sample, based on the rating of the educational achievements of the St. Petersburg schools, was used for the selection of respondents.