kcobweb

galagan and I had a conversation the other night in which he said that he thought the function (or one of the functions) of Sarah Palin was to distract the Democrats from the real issues – and she has succeeded very well on that front. Look! She has a pregnant daughter! Her husband had a DUI 22 years ago! She is a secessionist!

So I want to return to the issues at hand, because I don’t want to waste any more of the 60-odd days before the election. And what I most want to talk about right now is abstinence – not because Palin’s daughter is pregnant, but because (even before that particular story broke) that is an issue for which she has positioned herself as a hardliner. Literally the first thing I heard about Sarah Palin was that she was an anti-choice, pro-abstinence woman.

The federal government has defined abstinence education through its eight points, the most infamous of which is that "sexual activity outside of the context of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects". Yeah, that's just lovely. (Also, "a mutually faithful monogamous relationship in the context of marriage is the expected standard of human sexual activity;" even though studies have shown that 95 percent of all Americans have had premarital sex. And that figure has remained consistent since the 1950s.)

There is no argument with the statement that, in general, abstinence works. Abstinence is, in fact, the only birth control method that is 100% effective. HOWEVER, as with other methods, one must take into consideration user error and method failure. (I think of user error and method failure in this case to be something like "I didn’t mean to have sex tonight, so I didn’t bring any condoms and whoops! I fell on a penis!" A lame excuse, but one teenage girls often make when they are afraid to admit they had sex, or even *wanted* sex.) Abstinence is only 100% effective if it is used 100% of the time. With any method, you have to also consider back-up methods. And this is where abstinence education fails. You always need a back-up. And students who have been taught a strict abstinence curriculum will not know what other options there are….. or often, have been given misinformation that those options will fail. Studies have shown that students who received abstinence-only education are likely to delay sexual initiation, but only for a few years (not until marriage); furthermore when they do become sexually active, they are less likely to use contraception. source.

A good comprehensive sexuality education program will include information on abstinence, but will also put it into context with information about other methods of birth control, sexually transmitted infections, healthy decision-making (that includes saying "no"), relationships and so forth. (The Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States has a good list of what a comprehensive program should include, here. I like the Advocates for Youth guidelines even better, here.)

And a majority of Americans want comprehensive sexuality education for their children. A study done in 2004 by NPR, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and the Kennedy School of Government found that 85% of Americans supported sex education, and only 15% wanted abstinence-only programs. Palin and her ilk are in the definite minority.

I should also add that any sex educator worth their salt should know how to separate the factual piece from the values piece – in all my training as a sex educator, that point was hammered home again and again. (Example: if the question is "will masturbation make my penis fall off?", the factual part is that masturbation will not harm your body in any way. Then you can say something like "but many people have different opinions about masturbation and whether it’s an okay thing to do." And tell them to speak to their parents/priest/rabbi/etc. about the values piece of it.) Values should be taught at home, and not in the schoolroom. (Okay, no killing people is a universal one, not lying, etc. – but beyond that, you need to allow for individual families to do their own thing there.)

Talking about sex in schools doesn’t somehow "make" kids want to go have sex; it’s a biological urge. Sex is present in their daily lives in every way already. "Youth are interested in sex because of biological reasons, hormones," says Dr. Cynthia Waszak, an FHI senior scientist who focuses on adolescent health. "Suggestions about sex in music, radio, advertisements, films and television reinforce that interest." source Why not teach them how to cope properly with that?