TheAgitator.com
True Love Waits… Until the Adults Aren’t Looking
Wednesday, June 2nd, 2004While we’re talking about teen sex, what we really need to be talking about more is sex education. Educators from Planned Parenthood have recently reported hearing a frightening new question from teenagers coming to them for advice: Why bother using condoms when you have sex, since they don’t work anyway? The misinformation assumed in the question is the product of “abstinence only” sex ed, which under federal law is not allowed to tell teens that condoms are 96 percent effective at preventing the spread of HIV and 97 percent effective at preventing pregnancy. If teachers of such programs talk about condoms at all, they are only permitted to emphasize their failure rates. And people wonder why half of all new HIV infections are among people younger than 25.
When the Clinton welfare reform bill was passed in 1996, few people noticed that it included $250 million for programs to teach kids that sex is bad for them unless they get married first. States match each $4 of federal money with $3 of their own, and can use the money in schools, community programs, non-profits, or the health sector. This year, President Bush has increased the amount of federal funding available to $270 million. Eligible programs must have the exclusive purpose of “teaching the social, psychological and health gains to be realized by abstaining from sexual activity” and that “sexual activity outside of… marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects.” Many include “virginity pledges,” in which a teen promises not to have sex until marriage. No federal funds are available for comprehensive sex-ed, which includes any program that teaches about contraception and prevention of sexually transmitted diseases, even if the program emphasizes abstinence. This puts money pit state governments in a bind, since they have trouble refusing free money, even if the strings Congress attaches may end up killing their children.
Now, I’m obviously not in favor of any sort of nationwide curriculum to teach children about the birds and the bees, it’s clear that we’re currently headed in that direction. California is the only state that refuses to accept federal sex ed money. Coincidentally, California has seen a 40 percent decline in teen birthrates over the last decade, 25 percent greater than the decline in the national rate in the same period. Sixteen states have laws requiring that sex education programs encourage abstinence, but do not require that programs provide basic, medically accurate information about condoms or other ways to prevent unplanned pregnancies.
Proponents of abstinence only sex ed claim that their programs work to protect teens from the consequences of sex. It’s true that kids exposed to abstinence only education wait, on average, 11 months longer than their comprehensively educated peers. The abstinence crowd trumpets statistics that teens who have sex earlier are more likely to get STDs, more likely to have abortions, and more likely to be depressed and commit suicide, and they declare victory. Of course, it never occurs to them that perhaps teens who are more depressed are more likely to have sex, or that teens who have sex younger have riskier sex because they haven’t received enough education on safe sex, but that’s another argument. Abstinence only programs have been proven to delay sex by less than a year, after which kids start having sex, but have little information about how to protect themselves. Teens who take pledges to remain virgins and then break them are less likely to use protection their first time.
Even if you believe that 11 month wait is significant, kids who are remaining “virgins” are not remaining safe. According to a study by Northern Kentucky University, 55 percent of undergraduates who claimed to have kept pledges to remain virgins have engaged in oral sex. Apparently, the Clintonian abstinence programs also come with a Clintonian definition of what constitutes sex.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that teens are disturbingly blase about any form of sex that isn’t intercourse, and that many don’t understand the dangers of the activities they choose to engage in. Many of the same parents who want their kids taught that sex before marriage is always wrong are now alarmed to find that their kids are engaging in a wide array of sexual behaviors, including oral sex, exhibitionism, sex with multiple partners, and masturbation. Whether this trend is actually significant, it’s clear that middle class, suburban parents are worried about the trend towards casual sexual behavior by the amount of attention it has received in the media. And yet, it seems not to have occurred to people that teenagers are having unprotected oral sex because their teachers have told them that having protected intercourse is too dangerous. No one is talking about the fact that preaching abstinence and telling kids that pre-marriage romantic relationships can hurt them may be encouraging promiscuity. No one is outraged that we’re teaching teens to fear their sexuality, and that as a result, they get all of the dangers of sex with none of the rewards.
The United States is the only country where abstinence education is so widespread. According to the UN Population Fund, our teen birthrate (pdf) ranks in the middle of the third world, higher than those of North Korea, India, and Rwanda. Countries like Sweden and Denmark, where sex ed is comprehensive, matter of fact, and reinforced throughout adolescence have one seventh the number of teen births that we do. They have lower rates of STDs and, social conservatives might be interested to know, a few as one eighth the number of abortions. Their kids get information that ours do not, and they’re better off for it.
So, is your point that abstinence does not work? In my calculations, abstinence is 100% foolproof. I do not think it should be taught exclusively, but it is the #1 way to prevent pregnancy and STD’s. I do think it should be taught first in the home by the parents and their own personal choices and behaviors, and then encouraged by outside societal behavior. I do NOT want my daughter learning about condoms and birth control pills in school. That is my responsibility.
If anything, sex ed should be an elective taken only with parental permission and should be a frank and clinical discussion of what fucking is all about - replete with warnings about pregnancy and disease, but without the psychobabble and the moralizing.
Parents who do not want their kids exposed to condom talk can refuse their children exposure to the class and let it fall on their shoulders what the kid is taught.
Parents who feel uncomfortable talking to their kids about it, or who feel that the kids won’t take it as seriously coming from them, can send the kids to the class.
In a perfect world, sex ed would not be needed in schools at all. Clearly our world is less than perfect.
As a side note: I never took sex ed in school - they didn’t teach it. And thank god they didn’t: my sex life in High School was GREAT! I can only imagine what I might have missed, or gotten wrong had there been a class.
Ms. Dani,
I don’t think anyone is proposing that abstinence isn’t a very effective method of birth control. Merely that abstinence-only education does not appear to have the most desireable outcomes in terms of teens’ sexual behavior.
Brian, I agree with that.
Yeesh, I hate to say it yet again, but this is what people get for letting the government steal their kids. I mean, please—can anyone honestly say that they are surprised by this? What, with standard currics that teach kids how great Lincoln supposedly was, this is only the next logical step.
This isn’t a singular problem, this is a large-scale issue that, at its root, is caused by, guess what, mob-rule, i.e. democracy. What would Jefferson or Madison say if they knew that we let the government steal our children, against our will, and teach them what the government deems right?
But, when the people threw up their hands and let the government enter the realm of education, they let the wolves in. When you standardize something subjective, by law, you always, always, always have disagreements. And you always rob someone of their liberty. Don’t like abstinence-only sex-ed? Then you shouldn’t hand over your kids and let the government teach them about sex.
Jeeez, it seems as though all these arguments boil down to the same problem. hehe.
Evan, I agree with you. This is not limited to sex education, but many facets of our childrens education (no child left behind).
As an aside, does anyone know what the curriculum in a sex ed class looks like? We didn’t have it either, just health class (boys and girls separate) where we learned about what was happening during puberty and our reproductive systems. I wouldn’t call that sex ed…
Yup, same here. Sixth grade, old videotapes of kids with bell-bottoms and afros, lots of giggling when they started talking about getting erections in public. “Don’t worry, most people probably won’t even notice…”
I like the bunnies on the Simpsons better. “…and he started getting hair where there was no hair before!”
But goodness, they never told us a thing about actual sex-ed. And that’s the way it should be. Who taught me? My parents. What the hell is so difficult about that?
Abstain or accept the consequences, HIV and all.
My parents taught me… and then I taught my friends…..
I was the proverbial “gutter”.
It’s not difficult, but I suspect most American parents don’t do it. It’s the only way I can explain the sheer ignorance I found in college (and way after college). Reminds me of a funny story: junior year i met a woman who thought that a man’s ejaculate could spray tens of feet and thus was scared stiff to ever get near a man. She was serious. I didn’t stop laughing for months. Okay, I’m still laughing…
I don’t want anyone paid by the government teaching my 2 daughters about anything having to do with sex. My wife and I will handle that as we see fit, period.
Regarding Sweeden and the other countries mentioned as having exemplary sex ed techniques and results… I’d love to know the prevailing social attitudes toward sex on TV, in music, in movies etc. My bet is that it is much more puritanical than ours in the U.S. Just a thought.
I don’t think the issue here is whether abstinence is better than comprehensive education. What bothers me is that $270 million of our tax dollars for sex ed or personal health or whatever you want to call it education is tied to abstinence only teaching.
Matt,
Sweden’s TV programming makes the U.S.’s look like “choir hour”. Our “prevailing social attitudes toward sex” in media or just in general are much more puritanical than the Europeans.
If more kids had the poor personal hygiene, social ineptitude, and low self-esteem I had as a teenager, they’d have no problem with pregnancy or STD’s.
In the decades old book “Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Sex but were Afraid to Ask” the author addressed the question of waiting for marriage.
He said it would be effective if all kids started getting married at 14.
I believe in fighting the battles we can win. Getting teenagers in this society to totally abstain, to trust their health and lives to their teenage decision making and ability to stick to their abstinance is an excercise in futility.
We don’t stop them from electrocuting themselves by telling them they simply can’t use electricity. We teach them how to use it safely.
The fact is, many parents do not take the time to teach their kids these things. And you can stand back and say “I don’t want the school teaching my kids about sex, that’s my job” but it is a head in the sand approach. Your kid IS learning about sex at school. If not in the classrooms than in the halls and rest rooms and the back of the bus.
I would rather my daughter have access to a teacher that is allowed to give her a straight answer about sex than only have access to the football player in the back of the bus who is lying to her about how they can “Do It” without her getting pregnant.
Hey Me. . . I think that could be better stated thusly: “Abstain or risk the consequences, HIV and all.”
Really now, let’s not go overboard.
When I was 12, I asked my mom how babies were made. She sat down next to me, and told me. Straight up. No frills, no moralising.
I said to her, “mom, I asked you a serious question. If you’re just going to be joke around, then never mind.”
Anyway, my parents taught me what I needed to know, and my friends and a bunch of awful young men taught me all the things that can be wrong in a sexual relationship, outside of disease and pregnancy. I knew how to protect myself in that respect, but in all the emotional aspects of self-preservation were things I learned the hard way.
I don’t think I could have learned any of this effectively in a classroom.
Unnamed poster…
Your analogy with teaching kids how to use an electrical outlet is excellent. However, we as parents do that teaching. Suppose they taught that in school and your childs teacher was a Sado-Masochist who got off on watching people electrocute themselves? O.k. that’s a little over the top, but carry that over to the beliefs of the teacher. Why on earth would you trust any teacher (unless you knew them intimately) to teach his or her personal beliefs about sex? You have to know better than to simply answer “they don’t do that”. People have agenda’s and I don’t want them teaching my 14 year old girl how to use a dildo. Or my 16 year old boy that it’s normal to meet men in the bathroom in a park.
they teach about dildos in sex ed???
Matt-
Even teachers who are allowed to teach safe sex along with abstinence have very strict guidelines on what they can discuss, and how. They are not allowed to encourage one behavior over another, and are generally only allowed to answer questions in a technical matter.
And what’s wrong with dildos?
Matt, where on earth did you get the idea that Swedish society is puritanical with regard to sex? The truth is about as far in the opposite direction as it’s possible to get.
Richard, you are a dreamer aren’t you?
Bronwyn: You’re lucky. I was about 10 when asked my mother where babies come from, and she sat me down and said that when a mommy and a daddy love each other very much, they hug, and then they make a baby. The only other conversation I ever had with her about sex was when we were watching a movie in which a teenage girl gets pregnant and then kills her baby. She said, “I don’t ever want you to do that.” I said, “What, become a teenage mother, or kill my baby?” She said, “Either.” My dad, I’m pretty sure, has never said the word “sex” to me, and I’m 23.
The point is that some parents won’t teach their kids about sex. Some genuinely don’t know themselves. Some won’t give their kids the facts. I think that just as every child deserves the opportunity to learn to read, every child deserves to learn the relevant facts about their own bodies and how to keep themselves safe from things that might harm it. And while I don’t like the existence of public schools, I think school is probably the perfect place for a teenager to learn about sex just as it’s the perfect place to learn about biology and algebra and literature. Parents should absolutely take the opportunity to instill values in their children about love, about family, and about morality. But even if some parent wants to raise their children with the belief that sex outside of marriage is wrong–and I believe they have the right to do that–that doesn’t mean that the child, once he gets old enough that his body is mature enough to have sex, doesn’t have every right to learn how sex works, what dangers it might pose, and how to protect himself from those dangers.
Amy, what is the “mature enough” age?
I didn’t say Sweeden was Puritanical in their attitudes toward sex… or at least I didn’t mean to, or to even imply that. I was trying to draw a line comparing attitudes toward sex in multi-media (TV, Music, movies etc.) as a possible rider to the reason their teen pregnancy rate is so low. But I was corrected on that.
Amy I do agree with you in that some parents do not have the wherewithal to discuss this with their children. Mine didn’t. The issue I have with this would be irresponsible sex ed. Teaching more than part A goes into part B etc. My problem is I guess what others here are calling moralising? I take that to mean moralising extreme attitudes? I don’t know, I guess I just have a problem with government run institutions deciding the sex ed cirriculum for my children. Where does the US rank with the world in our other public education endeavors? Near, or at the bottom. Why would anyone believe sex-ed wouldn’t get just as f**d up?
Dani: Puberty. When I say “mature” I mean it in the biological sense of the word. We know the rough age at which puberty begins, and that’s when kids should start getting information about how sex works, the potential risks, and ways to mitigate those risks.
Matt,
sorry for the anonymous post, different computer and forgot to set it up.
I appreciate your point, but from the stand point of actually lowering the rates of teenage pregnancy and disease, there is the ideal and realistic.
Ideally, all parents would have truly effective discussions with their kids about sex at the appropiate times to keep them informed and safe. Schools would not even address the issue and everything would work fine.
Realistically, any teacher that would tell your daughter about dildos or your son about homoerotic park visits are people that know that such discussion is over the line and will probably do so anyway, not needing school sex ed as an excuse. They can have curriculum that is covered and not deviated from, that sticks with facts and not preferences.
Realistically, you son or daughter is hearing the most explicit discussions imaginable from their friends. Thinking that you can possibly be the first person to address the subject with your child, or that you could arrange to do it at the most appropriate time in their development is just kidding yourself. Maybe you can pul it off, but you run the risk of not having your influences in their decision making when the time comes if you waited to long. And information from their friends is often inaccurate, or complete falsehoods because they are trying to get your child to do something sexual.
Amy, What is your idea of mature enough to begin having sex (not just learning about it) because that is what you incenuated in your previous post, that there is an age at which children become capable emotionally of having sex? How are you going to determine if your kids are mature enough?
Dani: The point is that regardless of whether they are emotionally ready to have sex, there is a certain age when they are physically capable of having sex. At that age, they should be given information about the physical aspects of sex. It’s up to parents to instill in their children the values to determine whether they are emotionally ready, because it’s different for every person and for every family, depending on emotional maturity and moral values and such. Schools should teach the physical so that they’re prepared if and when they make the decision to have sex, now or in the future.
I agree with you that parents should teach their own children morals and values and such.
So you say the mature age to have sex is subjective dependent upon the child and his/her environment. Well, what if the child is mature enough at 11 to have sex. Would you consider that to be ok? Why do we have laws preventing adults from having sex with children?
The problem is that the people who teach abstinance only policies, are crap in bed!
So, they just don’t want some 16 year old fucking like a beast and being better than they are (if the manage to get it up, that is).
And the old spinsters who don’t fuck are jealous of the teenage slappers who give ten blowjobs per day.
But I do think there is an element of self-hatred and demand to dominate other peoples’ lives here.
Especially from the moralistic bitches!
Dani: If you can find me a child who, at 11 years old, is emotionally ready for the consequences of sex, I’d be very surprised. But given that there are at least some 11 year olds whose bodies are physically mature enough to have sex, and given that some 11 year olds’ parents are not teaching them the value of waiting until they are emotionally ready, and given that at least some of those 11 year olds are already having sex, I think they deserve to have information about how to protect themselves from disease and pregnancy.
Amy, I think I’m more in Ms. Dani’s corner on this but you do make a very soid point. My issue as the father of 2 georgeous little girls is the combination of sex ed in public schools with the hyper-sexation (can I be recognized as the first to say that?) of media, be it music video’s, movies, video games clothing advertising (on and on) work hand in hand in creating a very slippery slope.
When I was 11, 12, 13 I was playing baseball and catching snakes- I never really cared about anything to do with sex- sex was not brow-beaten into our skulls the way it is today.
I think most folks like me who romanticize about “the good old days” get shouted down by the lunatics preaching the message you are so eloquently stating here. “OH SURE, lets go back to the ‘Good old days’ when sex was dirty and fags were beaten up and Uncle Jimmy raped little Suzi because she didn’t know it was wrong” blah blah blah. That isn’t really the point. To me the point is I don’t want my kids thinking about sex until late into thier teens. I realize thats probably unrealistic, but that’s how I want it to be.
I think this Garth fellow is a little queer who just wants to bone plastic lawn animals. Put it away. In a perfect world your hand might have actually been a real woman. But we can all have dreams I guess.