Roz Purcell says sex education in Ireland 'didn’t help anyone'

The former Miss Universe Ireland appeared on the Thanks A Million podcast with Angela Scanlon to chat about the low quality of sex education she received as a teenager attending a Catholic secondary school.

She explained: “We had this like random woman who came in and gave us Sex Ed, just was like a nun.

“They would hand around a piece of sticky tape and by the time we got to the last person, they were like this: ‘If you have too many sexual partners, you don't stick around anymore.’

“I've gotten so many messages off teachers [saying] that the sexual education is completely better, but in my experience, growing up with that, sexual education didn't help anyone.

“It definitely made you very fearful of it and also made you probably hide it or not talk to your parents about it or not used or not understood proper contraception.”

Roz said that the lack of sufficient sex education in school led to some awkward misunderstandings later on when she began to explore her sexuality.

“The general secondary school rumours were just - I mean, the girl who got pregnant from getting fingered or whatever,” she said.

Angela clarified: “That's not technically possible.”

Roz continued: “When I was 16, I had to go get the morning after pill because I got fingered and I had heard a story of a girl that got fingered.

“And this was like back in the day, when you had to go into the hospital to get it and sit down with the doctor and explain it. And they all 100pc thought I was lying.

“I was so freaked about it the day before that I was at my best friend’s house. I was like, ‘We need to Google it.’

“So, she Googled: ‘Can you get pregnant from getting fingered?’ And her parents saw the search history and I was banned from going to the house.

“They also thought I was really stupid,” she added.