“Madam, what is the vulva? » Theo (the students’ first names have been changed) triturates, a bit worried and shy, the piece of paper where this word is written and with which he does not know what to do. Alternately, twelve students from 6e from the Emmanuel-Maffre-Baugé college in Paulhan in the Hérault must come, on this February morning, to place the labels that the teacher has given them on the silhouettes of a woman and a man projected on the blackboard. Thorax, abdomen, pubis, penis, arms, anus… The idea is to determine which are the private parts. “So, who to help Theo?” », launches Julie Delcasso, professor of life and earth sciences (SVT). Silence. “Everyone knows what a penis is and nobody knows what a vulva is? » And after a pause: “It’s the sex of the woman”she explains in front of an audience where the giggles are less present than what one might expect.
This session around intimacy addressed to students from 6e is a novelty in the sexuality prevention and education program implemented over the past ten years in this rural college of 600 students, located about forty kilometers from Montpellier. In the second group, Lucas, arms crossed and rebellious gaze, asks: “But all the same, madam, sometimes the girl agrees and then afterwards she goes to file a complaint. » The teacher stops and is firm: “Those are stories we tell each other and you have to get that out of your head. There are no “girls who”. A no is a no. The victims must be listened to. »
Other students then talk briefly in front of their classmates or aside about the attacks they have heard about. For one, it’s a cousin who had “a sex in the mouth” while she was in kindergarten; for the other, it’s a 15-year-old teenager who touched the private parts of a younger girlfriend… At 11, these students already seem seasoned on the subject. “We experimented a lot before proposing this session, but it seems to us more than essential to free speech and protect our students. notes Julie Delcasso, one of the project coordinators.
Joyful atmosphere
While less than 20% of middle school students and 15% of schoolchildren benefit from the three annual sexuality education sessions provided for by law since 2001, this “home” system driven by a SVT teacher, Isabelle Lardat, still has everything of an exception. Sex education is ” a failure “hammers out a September 2022 Senate report devoted to the porn industry: “Adolescents are often left alone with their questions and without space for discussion” as porn has become “a place of learning about sexuality by default”. Faced with these findings, the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, recently asked to strengthen sex education, without concrete impetus so far.
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