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Abstinence-Only Education is Stupid and Dangerous
Why are we so scared to talk to our kids about sex?
In my freshman year of high school, during what should have been my gym period, my class was instead ushered into the auditorium for a special presentation. A woman (whose name I cannot remember) had come to teach us about the importance of “saved sex,” that is, abstaining from any sexual activity until marriage. At the time, I didn’t care about the particulars of what she was saying, was only excited that I was getting out of gym class. At the end of the presentation, we were given a survey to fill out asking what we had learned. I hastily wrote something superficial about how informative the speaker had been and handed it to my teacher on my way out the door to my next class.
Knowing what I know now about abstinence-only education, I wish I had taken a little more care with my answers.
In the United States, there is no national mandate that says sex education must be taught in high schools; that decision is left up to state legislators, meaning that depending on where you live, your state’s sex-ed curriculum could either be highly informative or more like that scene in Mean Girls.
