Prevention Starts Before College:
K–12 Sex Education Matters for Men
How sex education shapes college men’s beliefs, behaviors, and readiness to engage with prevention efforts.
The Preparation Problem: How the System Ignores Young Men’s Sex Education Needs examines sex education as a prevention tool. With a particular focus on the resilience skills of Black and LGBTQAA young men, The Preparation Problem explores how gaps in college men’s experiences with sex education before college impact how prepared they are to engage with sexual assault prevention programming.
This research lays critical groundwork for improving prevention strategies nationwide, demonstrating that the work to prevent campus sexual assault starts long before students step onto a college campus.
Sex Education as a Prevention Tool
Less than 1 in 3
college men learned about sex through formal education.
Young men are not receiving the education they need before college. When education is inconsistent, incomplete, or absent, young men show up on campuses with varying levels of knowledge about sex and healthy relationships. To meet young men where they are, prevention education must consider how past experiences with sex education inform college men’s current belief systems, and training should adapt to these varying levels of knowledge and understanding.
Key Findings
Most college men learned about sex outside of a formal education setting before age 12, pointing to a lack of impactful, consistent education for young people in school, even when they are exposed to these topics in other settings.
College men most commonly learned about sex through media, including in movies, television, video games, and more — sources that often do not teach young men healthy expectations about relationships.
More than half of college men did not learn about consent and sexual communication in a formal educational setting prior to college, meaning young men encounter sex and relationships in media without guidance on how to handle these topics in their own lives.
It’s not just where or when men receive sex education that matters — it’s also the content. Sex education that teaches rigid gender norms and fear-based messaging is more likely to contribute to feelings of hostility toward women — a known risk factor for perpetrating sexual violence.
Recommendations
Actionable steps for students, educators, parents, and communities.
For Student Organizers
Meet Your Peers Where They Are:
Address Belief Systems:
Prevention efforts should consider the norms and values that students developed before arriving on campus.
For Schools & Educators
Start Earlier:
Provide comprehensive, age-appropriate sexuality education before adolescence.
Expand Core Content:
Include consent, communication, healthy conflict, and gender norms in all curricula.
Enhance Media Literacy Education:
For Parents & Community Leaders
Support Primary Educators:
Equip parents and trusted adults with tools and training to lead healthy, values-based conversations, drawing inspiration from Black communities who have consistently filled systemic gaps for boys with community-led efforts.
Move Beyond Fear-Based Messaging:
Focus on skill-building and critical thinking, rather than moralistic or shame-based approaches.
For Policymakers & Administrators
Invest in Comprehensive Systems:
Strengthen the Education Ecosystem:
Our Commitment
All students should arrive on campus prepared to practice healthy sexuality and relationships.
It’s On Us is committed to advancing research that strengthens prevention and empowers young men as part of the solution to combat sexual violence, rather than blaming them as the problem. Through research like this, we build the evidence needed to design trainings, tools, and campus programs that address root causes.
Fund Research That Drives Change
Understanding how sex education shapes beliefs is essential to preventing sexual violence. Your support helps turn research insights into actionable programs, educator tools, and campus interventions that make prevention more effective for everyone.