Over the next eight weeks, the government will be asking parents and young people for their opinions on what topics should be covered in sex education. These will help to shape part of the new Department for Education guidelines, which haven’t changed since 2000: there is expected to be new guidance on sexting, internet pornography and LGBT issues.

While this move is welcome, it made me realise how much was missing from even the basic aspects of sex education, which I was taught not that long ago (I’m now 21) in my all-girls school.

Despite the programme of study being titled sex and relationships and education, there was little guidance on forming healthy relationships – including the ideas of support, commitment and mutual respect. When relationships were discussed, they were treated in a clinical manner – as little more than sex.

Truth be told, I had missed one brief sex education lesson in year 6, so year 8 was the first time I was given the “talk”. Unfortunately, the two teeth-clenchingly awkward and rushed lessons on contraception and STIs came too late for many girls my age who were beginning to have their first boyfriends and sexual experiences.

What was desperately needed at school was an open space in which relationships in all their complexities could be discussed for those young people who didn’t have the chance to discuss this at home.

Issues surrounding consent, now a hot debate issue, were skirted over

An all-girls school should have given us a strong feminist foundation: instead, we were given the message that to be accepted by a male partner meant repressing our sexuality. Talking to friends my age at different schools, the general consensus was that the sex education we received taught us to be scared of sex, rather than see it as a natural and even enjoyable part of life.

Issues surrounding consent, now a hot debate issue, were skirted over. Since that time the reported number of sexual offences by under-18s against other under-18s in England and Wales has risen dramatically – from 4,600 in 2013 to nearly 8,000 last year.

Neither did it help that relationships were always depicted as strictly between a man and a woman: at my school, words such as “gay” and “fag” were still tossed around as insults.

One friend, who is gay, said LGBT relationships were never spoken about, which gave him an unhealthy view of same-sex relationships – and the lack of information could have put individuals at risk in terms of practising safe sex.

The new guidance, though, will at least bring youngsters up to date with the evolution of smartphones and social media. For my generation, there was no one to warn us that when you send a picture, you can’t get it back – we had to figure that out for ourselves, sometimes with devastating consequences.

On the other hand, sexting (without images) can be an entirely acceptable expressions of sexuality – a normal part of a relationship – though I never realised this until I reached university.

Tired attitudes towards sex are still deeply ingrained in our society, and what we need is a radical shift in focus – away from the pure physical act and towards relationships. We owe the next generation the chance to talk about sex in the mature and open manner we were never given access to. The new government consultation will hopefully be part of the solution.

• Georgia Chambers is a freelance journalist and writer