BORN of a frustration that little has changed in the teaching of sex education in Catholic schools in decades, theatre director Catherine Exposito put pen to paper.
The result of her effort is a short play which exposes what she says is a lack of informed understanding of sexual relationships are.
It comes amid evidence young people are increasingly relying on porn before their first sexual experience.
Ms Exposito's play, Immaculate Correction, is the October highlight of the month in The John Byrne Award
It centres on 14-year-old Stacey, who attends a Catholic high school in Cumbernauld, and is not taught about sexual health and education.
Like her peers, she ends up turning to porn for help.
Stacey tells the audience pupils are brought up to believe 'sex is bad, dirty, filthy, ugly, neddy, slutty.'
If they do go ahead with it, she says the teachers warn they could end up pregnant and single mothers.
The play culminates in a trip to the confession box where she tells a priest she has been 'shagging around.'
Stacey says '20 years ago he'd beat me black and blue' for the admission.
Ms Exposito said the play was based on her experiences of sex education in school between 2005 and 2011.
She said nothing should be considered taboo in classroom sex education classes, including homosexuality.
She added: "I believe that all schools should make all aspects of education accessible to all. In 2017, too many young people are not being taught about sexual health and relationships, with often the only readily accessible information being porn.
"This creates lad culture, unrealistic body image expectation as well as sexual expectations.
"It is important to me that future generations are taught about sex and relationships fully; regardless of religion, sex, race or sexuality."
'The John Byrne Award competition accepts creative work from 16-25 year olds in Scotland 365 days a year. Find out more at www.Johnbyrneaward.org.uk'.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel