July 24, 2009

• Sex Education

  
  SEX IS EVILLLL. ABSTAIIIN OR ROT IN HELLLL.

  I'm kidding, of course, but other people aren't when they say that.  The above was essentially the "sex education" I received growing up, all the way until age eighteen.  I honestly received messages as simple (or complex) as "Sex before marriage is bad, sexual desire before marriage is bad, and homosexual sexual desire is bad at all times always."  I don't remember getting any formal sex education until I was required to take health class in high school and I didn't take that until my junior year.  I repeat: MY JUNIOR YEAR.  With at least one of my sources saying that roughly 70% of American teens are no longer virgins by their seventeenth birthday (which was junior year for me), I have one thing to say about that: That was too late in my life; it should not have taken me that long to get educated about sex.  Oh, and when I say "educated" I say it in the loosest way possible, such as "This is what herpes looks like" and "Maybe you shouldn't be embarrassed to buy condoms at the drug store." 

  My sex education in my public high school was abstinence-only to receive that beautiful federal dollar and, while it didn't teach "morality" (limiting sex to that within the bounds of marriage), it did well with avoiding discussion about the use of contraceptives.  I simply learned about STIs, condom failure rates, date rape and rape kits, and the wonderful physical and emotional costs to sex outside of marriage and/or at an early age.  I firmly believe, from my very core, I did not learn enough.

  Each year, U.S. teens experience as many as 850,000 pregnancies, and youth under age 25 experience about 9.1 million sexually transmitted infections (STIs).  By age 18, 70 percent of U.S. females and 62 percent of U.S. males have initiated vaginal sex.  Comprehensive sex education is effective at assisting young people to make healthy decisions about sex and to adopt healthy sexual behaviors.  No abstinence-only-until-marriage program has been shown to help teens delay the initiation of sex or to protect themselves when they do initiate sex.  Yet, the U.S. government has spent over one billion dollars supporting abstinence-only-until-marriage programs. Although the U.S. government ignores it, adolescents have a fundamental human right to accurate and comprehensive sexual health information.*

  I grew up in a sheltered conservative Christian environment.  Every facet of the media -- radio, television, Internet, movies, books, CDs -- was monitored by my parents (or church).  From the prohibition of shows like "Friends" to the outright blockage of web search categories like "Sex" or "Alternative lifestyle" I had no exposure to anything they didn't want me to see.  I went to seminars held by the authors of such books like Pure Revolution, Don't Date Naked, Boy Meets Girl: Say Hello to Courtship, and Dateable; was directed to sites like the Pure Love Club, The "Dateable 'Rules for the Sexes'", The 5 Commandments of Dating and web broadcasts such as "The Arrogance of Sexual Sin"; and signed my virginity over to God around age twelve.  (If you didn't click any of those links, check out the video clips that accompany a book of this nature I spent some time reading at Barnes & Noble last night -- and leave a comment with your thoughts!  Especially "Sex" and "What Girls Want" -- and if you need an extra giggle, watch the "music video".)

  These dating books contained my sex education as well as my moral education.  I learned from them (and remember, I grew up as a "young woman") that if I "gave away" my virginity, I was left used, unattractive, undesirable, and emotionally and morally crippled.  Essentially, I was told that having sex would both ruin me and the man I had it with (women of desire were never addressed, because naturally all women like men) and cause God to be displeased.  Luckily I was never attracted to men in my adolescence and I was able to escape the consequences of this upbringing in any "real" way: consequences like viewing myself as a failure if I failed to adhere to this unnecessary ideal of virginity until marriage, or a pregnancy or STI from not knowing how to protect myself.

  Let's be real, morality doesn't control biological function, it just shapes your perception of things; hearing that you will be ruined from having sex will change your perspective, yes, but in the heat of the moment, that perspective may not be enough to "save" you.  While the fact may be that abstinence doesn't fail, people do fail at abstaining (I stole this phrase from someone else on Xanga, I'm pretty sure).  It shouldn't be wrong for that to be taught.  But it also shouldn't be wrong to teach that, while not 100% effective, there are contraceptives that are 99.9% effective to protect you; they are imperfect, and there are a lot of factors that can lower their effectiveness, but they're there.  I've yet to come across a comprehensive safe sex education program that does not communicate this message, which is one of the many reasons why I support comprehensive sex education so strongly. 

  Sex education should be about what sex is, not whether or not it's good or bad.  Leave that up to the church or parents to teach.  But sex education needs to be taught in schools, because if you leave it up to the church and parents, you end up with a kid like me who doesn't know a damn fact about sex until eighteen, nineteen years old. 

  The reality is that kids as young as eight and nine are experimenting with each other and each others' bodies and, though they can't quite impregnate each other they can still cause each other significant emotional distress.  They are not doing sexual things because they're little deviants, but because they're curious and don't know any better.  As it is, the less you know, the more you want to try it and see for yourself what everyone is talking about.  Evaluations of comprehensive sex education and HIV/ STI prevention programs show that they do not increase rates of sexual initiation, do not lower the age at which youth initiate sex, and do not increase the frequency of sex or the number of sex partners among sexually active youth.  Kids don't experiment with sex because they were educated too early, but because they weren't educated enough. 

  As a big side note to young sexual education, those who know what sex is--or at least vaguely understand the importance of those parts of the body--are more likely to speak up if they are being sexually abused, because they are more likely to understand what is happening.  One-in-four females are in some way sexually abused before their twelfth birthday (I don't know about the statistics for males but it is likely similar; however due to infrequent reports the statistics don't currently reflect that) and it would be empowering to our children to be able to stand up for their bodies as opposed to being confused about what is happening.  As a personal anecdote to this, I was molested around age six or seven and, being aware of that part of my body for the first time, I engaged in quite a bit of risky experimentation, from age eight until about age eleven.  I loved sexual gratification at age ten.  When I learned that I was supposed to be ashamed of my body and that God would be upset to know of what I was doing with it at about eleven, I repressed my sex drive.  It wasn't until I was thirteen that I came into the awareness that I was molested.  And it wasn't until I was nineteen or so that I (re)experienced sexual attraction to another person.  Sexual attraction was (unhealthily) missing from my life my entire adolescence, and I do strongly blame this on my lack of a proper education.

  I am an advocate for educating children on complicated or "adult" issues at the earliest possible age, in age-appropriate ways.  This includes topics such as sexual activity, sexual abuse, homosexuality, transsexuality, and various lifestyles and the perspectives that shape them.  I do not believe in abstinence-only education.  I believe comprehensive sex education is a MUST and should be incorporated into every school year as the students grow and change and are able to understand more about their bodies and the importance behind what is being taught.  Sex isn't bad, but it does have consequences.  Children should understand the consequences of sex, the "other side" from what the media is showing them about how sex is pleasurable and, well, commonplace, even.  It should be addressed the way all other aspects of health are addressed, like making sure you wash your hands after using the restroom or playing in the dirt or sneezing or whatever else is unsanitary.  It should be brought down off its pedestal and made real to people.  It shouldn't be a taboo, heterosexual sex and homosexual sex alike.
  
  *This paragraph was taken from the Advocates for Youth webpage, which you should certainly check out.

  Also here are some other useful links:
  First Intercourse Info
  First Gynecological Exam Info
  Info on Contraceptives
  Planned Parenthood - Health Topics Index
  Go Ask Alice! - Columbia University's Health Q&A

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