About 'Women's Sexual Health' Course

This course is designed to teach women about a variety of topics pertaining to their sexual health through an online classroom. All course materials are free and open to the public and encouraged to be shared with anyone who would benefit from its content. This course is intended for women who may not have received a comprehensive sexual health education lesson in their school setting, but the course is open to anyone who wishes to take it.

Why I Designed This Course

In the United States of America, there is a huge elephant in the room when it comes to sexual health education. With lack of standards for sexual health in the school systems and funded abstinence only programs, we send a negative message about choosing to have sex. However, the USA produces more pornographic material than any other country. What are these mixed messages saying to our youth?

The combination of inconsistent sexual health education standards and the "taboo" nature of sex education is a disservice to the youth in the United States. It chokes their resources for valid, up-to-date information about their sexual health and ultimately keeps them from knowing how to make educated decisions about their sexual health.

In my home state, our Department of Health has created an Abstinence Education Program, which according to them, is intended to "increase the number of youth who abstain from sexual activity and other related risky behaviors to reduce out-of-wedlock births and sexually transmitted infections". This program was federally funded through Fiscal Year 2016 by Title V Abstinence Grant and continues to be the main form of sexual health education in public schools. The portions of their website was last updated in 2015, and some information about the program hasn't been updated since 2007.

While there is no argument that abstaining from sex is the best way to prevent unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, teaching students abstinence only negates providing important information about how to [eventually] say yes in a way that is safe and consensual.

I recently started a post-baccalaureate program in Instructional Technology from Kent State University to follow up my BS in K-12 Health and Physical Education and Human Sexuality minor. I had a vision to create an comprehensive course in sexual health that is completely free and open to the public. So, I researched if this had ever been done before, and as it turns out, it has.

Northwestern University has created "Introduction to Reproduction" (or "Sex 101"), a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) that is open and free to the public. It addresses key critical issues around sexual health education including birth control, fertility, and sexually transmitted infections. 

The class has been designed to address reproduction and other sexual topics for learners who likely received varying, inconsistent information about sexual health from their high school health education programs. The course was designed by Dr. Teresa Woodruff, vice chair for research in obstetrics and gynecology at Northwestern's Feinberg School of Medicine. According to her, the course covers "everything first-year students need to know about sex and reproduction and didn't know to ask".

This course is, in my opinion, the beginning and the tip of the iceberg for a much wider range of topics pertaining to sexual health. I wish to create a course that focuses on women's sexual health, and while I'm currently working on designing course, I'm thankful that a university like Northwestern has already recognized the importance of comprehensive sexual education and making it freely accessible to the public.