Everyone remembers how awkward their eighth grade health class was. Everything was going fine, learning about hygiene and washing your hair — stuff you didn’t really care about. Then it happened: The sex talk. The boys and girls were separated and they each watched their own separate videos. Then the teacher showed you scary pictures of STI’s to keep you from having sex. And there lies the problem.

The sexual education that American students are taught is not really education. It’s a scare tactic. Teachers tell you, “Don’t have sex before you’re married because you’ll get pregnant or get STD’s,” instead of teaching you what to do if and when you do have sex before or after marriage.

I’ve had to explain to too many girls about their own anatomy because their education system has failed them. I’ve heard too many times about how people’s first time was painful and awkward and all around not good, which shouldn’t happen. Your first time should not be painful, because you and whoever you are having sex with should be respectful of each other. The idea that your first time has to hurt comes from the fear that sex ed has put into teenagers.

Another issue with the sex education we have to go through as students is the severe lack of LGBT inclusive curriculum. There is not a single mention of how queer people have sex, or how to do it safely. People love to poke fun at how the AIDS epidemic is a gay problem, but don’t teach young gay teens how to protect themselves, other than take a condom. Dental dams aren’t even brought up as a form of contraceptive, resulting in teens and even adults, LGBT or not, being uneducated on how to have safer oral sex.

The fact that students are being taught fear versus actual education is resulting in unsafe sex among teens, and ultimately people being afraid to be open about their bodies and their sexuality, and could also be to blame for the rise in teen pregnancies. Abstinence-only education, while good in theory, is creating more problems than it is helping people. If you want kids to be safe, you have to teach them how to be safe. The more open teachers and parents are with students about sex, the more likely they are to be honest and open in return without fear of judgment or backlash.