History of sex education

The history of sex education is the shift from silence and taboo to an approach based on health, science and human rights. It began as medical warnings about venereal disease in the late 19th century and is today a comprehensive form of education recommended by UNESCO and WHO. Knowing this journey helps explain why it is still debated.

From silence to moral control

For centuries, sexuality was dealt with mainly through morality and religion, as something to be controlled rather than part of health. Information circulated indirectly, surrounded by shame and fear. Ignorance was wrongly seen as a form of protection, especially for women and young people.

The social hygiene approach (late 19th and early 20th centuries)

Concern for public health and diseases such as syphilis led doctors and reformers to argue that informing people was better than keeping them in the dark. This education focused on risk and fear, but it took the subject beyond purely moral terms. In 1928 the World League for Sexual Reform was founded in Copenhagen, calling for sexuality to be approached scientifically.

The first compulsory school sex education

In 1955, Sweden became the first country to make sex education compulsory in schools. Over the following decades, other countries in northern and western Europe followed, with very different approaches.

The second half of the 20th century: social change and epidemics

• Modern contraception: the pill, approved in the United States in 1960, separated sexuality from reproduction (see main contraceptive methods).
• Feminist and equality movements claimed the right to bodily autonomy.
• The HIV epidemic, from the 1980s onwards, made prevention information urgent and strengthened the role of schools in tackling sexually transmitted infections.
• The International Conference on Population and Development (Cairo, 1994) placed sexual and reproductive health within a rights framework.

From health to sexual rights

The Declaration of Sexual Rights was first proclaimed in 1997 at the World Congress of Sexology in Valencia, Spain. The General Assembly of the World Association for Sexual Health (WAS) approved a revised version in Hong Kong in 1999, and the current text was approved in 2014. One of its rights states that "everyone has the right to education and comprehensive sexuality education". Read more in our entry on sex education and sexual rights.

The international consensus: 2009, 2010 and 2018

• 2009: UNESCO publishes the first International Technical Guidance on Sexuality Education, based on a review of 87 studies.
• 2010: the WHO Regional Office for Europe and BZgA publish the Standards for Sexuality Education in Europe, with guidance from birth.
• 2018: UNESCO, together with UNAIDS, UNFPA, UNICEF, UN Women and WHO, publishes the revised edition, supported by 22 systematic reviews and 77 randomised controlled trials. It defines comprehensive sexuality education and organises it into eight key concepts.

Spain, France and the UK

In Spain, the 2010 Sexual and Reproductive Health Act brought sexual health education into the school system; since its 2023 reform it states that relationships and sexuality education is part of the curriculum throughout compulsory schooling. In France, sex information officially entered schools in 1973, and a law of 4 July 2001 requires at least three sessions a year, yet a 2021 report by the French education inspectorate (IGESR), based on a survey in one education authority, found that fewer than 15% of primary and lycée pupils received them; a national programme from nursery to sixth form was adopted in 2025 and has applied since the 2025–26 school year. In England, relationships education in primary schools and relationships and sex education in secondary schools became compulsory in 2020.

A debate that is still open

History is not a straight line. In many countries progress and resistance coexist, and the scope of these programmes remains politically contested. Yet health and education bodies firmly agree: accurate, age-appropriate information protects young people and does not make them start earlier. To see what the field covers today, read the concept of sex education.