As the semester comes to a close, I want to talk about something severely lacking in our high schools, and that is proper sex education. Sex education is a topic that always sparks controversy, with parents and teachers butting heads over who should be the ones teaching it to them, how much they should teach and what exactly should be taught to them.
In 2015, the New York Times ran an article on questions that students submitted anonymously to their sex ed teacher. They included basic questions such as "Do you always get a baby from having sex?", to which the answer is no, to more poignant questions such as "Is it okay to be gay?" and "How do I know when I've met the right person?", to which the answers are yes and I can't explain it you'll just know.
But depending on where you live, the answer to "Is it okay to be gay?" could have a very different answer. There is no required standard for sex ed in this country, and that is a huge issue. As of March 1, 2016, only twenty-four states mandate that public schools teach sex education to children, and only twenty-one of those states require both sex and HIV education.Thirty-three states mandate that public schools only receive HIV/AIDS education, and only twenty states require that the material presented in sex ed class be medically accurate.
This is simply unacceptable. If the biology teacher started teaching subjects that were biologically inaccurate, people would throw a fit and rightly so. So why is it any different when it comes to sex education? It is a class, just like history or algebra. If you wouldn't want those to be taught inaccurately, then you should want the same standard for sex education.
Not only can the information presented be medically incorrect, it can also be heavily biased. Thirty-seven states require that abstinence be taught, which is good, teenagers should be learning all their options when it comes to sex. But twenty-six of those states require that abstinence be stressed, which most often leads to abstinence only education. This goes hand in hand with the nineteen states that stress the importance of only having sex when you're married.
Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with being abstinent and it is a viable choice for many teenagers. But abstinence only education can also be very problematic, as it usually demeans people who do have sex before marriage. Non-virgins can be compared to an old chewed up piece of gum, a pair of dirty shoes, or a piece of tape that doesn't stick anymore.
Take Shelly Donahue. She travels around the country talking to students about choosing to be abstinent, and she warns of the dangers of sex by comparing girls to a piece of tape. She then sticks the tape onto the arms of several boys to show that the tape looses its stickiness and is no longer transparent. Shelly says that the girl represented by the tape now needs therapy because she's had so much sex that she is damaged. That somehow she has lost her ability to bond with the people she's had sex with, nevermind the fact that she may have loved those people and enjoyed herself very much.
This is where abstinence only education becomes a problem, it can and most often does devalue people who choose to have sex before marriage. But imagine how those who have that choice stolen from them feel. Elizabeth Smart is a survivor of kidnapping and rape and now speaks out against school and church tying girls' value to their virginity. She talks often about a lesson she recalled right after her traumatic experience. "And she said, ‘Imagine you’re a stick of gum. When you engage in sex, that’s like getting chewed. And if you do that lots of times, you’re going to become an old piece of gum, and who is going to want you after that?’"
No one should have to hear that. This is not a lesson that anyone should be learning, let alone victims of rape and sexual assault. And yet this type of abstinence only education is being taught in twenty-six states, this is what teenagers are learning. It's great to teach about abstinence, but if you're going to do that then you have to teach about safe sex methods as well.
Many states do not require, and most often restrict, how and if safe sex is taught. For instance, Mississippi prohibits condom demonstration in class. This is a problem for two reasons, one being that it's funny to put condoms on bananas and zucchini. But two, the more important reason is that Mississippi is ranked second in teen pregnancy rates in this country. Thankfully, some teachers have realized the issue here and have come up with creative ways to get around this rule. This teacher, for example, demonstrates how to put on a condom by using his foot and a sock.
The bottom line is things need to change. Sex education is something that needs to be taught, and like it or not it needs to be taught in school. No parent wants to talk to their kid(s) about sex, and vice versa. That's why when a sex scene comes on during a movie, everyone freezes and refuses to make eye contact for the rest of the night. Sex ed is something that benefits everyone and, unlike calculus, is something that teenagers will actually use in their daily adult life.
