Why Sex Education

Reforms Needed In Sex Education

(School Paper)

Every year there are outlandish news headlines about sex education. They can be seen all the time. “Sex Ed could be coming as early as kindergarten in Kentucky”( WLWT5), “Carnal knowledge: The Sex Ed debate”(Masland), and “Teacher’s sex-ed field trip to a Minneapolis sex store isn’t going over well with parents” (Holt). These are all eye catching headlines but they ignore the real news that while sex is being taught people are not being educated. According to the CDC less than half of the high schools and one- fifth of middle schools are teaching the recommended sex education guidelines. These are appallingly low numbers. Sex is something most people will do at some point in their lifetime. They will have to figure it out and work through it like other life skills. As much as the education system should be teaching things like how taxes and insurance work, they should also be teaching about sex and its implications on life choices and relationships. The divorce rates in America are at 50% with the leading cause given as sex (Kale and Cavanaugh). Teen pregnancy in America is currently the highest in the developed world (Kale and Cavanaugh). These statistics show that Americans are not good at figuring out sex. It shows that Americans are not being taught how to negotiate it either. America must stop looking at the shock value and work on delivering real sex education that is applicable to real life situations.

Ninety-seven percent of American adolescents will receive sex education in the United States (Hall et al 9). The content of that sex education and the quality of what they will be taught is very questionable since the federal government does not have regulations in place. Each state is able to decide what will be taught in their state. For example, California can teach about gender identity and sexual orientation. However in contrast to that in South Carolina they will teach that Homosexuality is immoral and unhealthy (Hall et al 7). As far as the medical accuracy of abstinence only education only 14% of states require that abstinence based education be medically accurate and only 12% require medically accurate information about contraception (Hall et al 5). These types of discrepancies leave a lot of room for other states to teach what they want. This can lead to wide variation about what individuals have been taught from one place to another. People from different locations who may end up in a relationship with each other or having sex with one another could have wildly different information that may or may not be medically accurate.

Even today, most states still teach abstinence only (Hall et al 4). One of the reasons they choose to teach this abstinence only type of curriculum is due to funding. The federal government will give aid to schools that teach abstinence only with President Trump proposing in 2018 to add $277 million in new funding (Fox et al 1). From a moral standpoint abstinence only education is advocated for due to the belief that teens will have less sex. This should logically cause teen pregnancy rates and STDs to go down, and it would if teaching teenagers something was as easy as telling them to do it. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Abstinence only education is also advocated for because according to Ascend (Formerly the Nation Abstinence Education Association) early sexual debut will increase other risky behavior throughout life. They believe that it will lead youth to be “less likely to use contraception, lower educational attainment, and increase sexual abuse and victimization”. However, even in their own report they note that “the research does not necessarily imply causation”. They also avoid saying that it shows correlation rather stating that it shows a “positive association” (Policy Priorities 1). This type of wording can lead the reader to believe that it did not even meet the minimum requirements to show correlation, a high correlation coefficient. Without being able to look at their data there is no way to know for sure. Their data does not seem to be readily available for review even after following their sources listed.

According to research done by Hall et al who looked at each state, less than one fourth of the states will teach what is called comprehensive sex education. This means that they will teach about prophylactics and contraception. This type of comprehensive education is considered progressive and believed to be able to lower teen pregnancy rates and STD rates (9). However, it does not include education on consent in most cases nor does it include relationship dynamics unless it is related to sexual violence (2). This shows that even when trying to expand on the topic of sex it is still mainly taught by focusing on the negative. Even with comprehensive sex education, it is still not taught how to have healthy discussions about negotiating sex. Teaching about how a healthy relationship starts with consent is an important point to be made before relationships begin. In addition, the signs and skills of positive relationship dynamics can be taught just like the signs of unhealthy relationships are stressed. There are several other things not taught under comprehensive sex education. The lack of these important topics shows that so called comprehensive sex education is not really being taught and what we refer to as comprehensive is in actuality just a modification to the abstinence only education. Both forms of current sex education being taught could be viewed as “’disaster prevention’ — how to avert pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases” (Weissbourd et al 2).

Dr. King from Clemson University has taught sex education for the last 28 years. He gives a true/false test on sex at the start of his classes. The average grade is 26-28% with no improvement in all of his time teaching. Since the numbers show that 97% of people have been taught about sex it is extremely discouraging that a large majority of them cannot pass a true/false test. The fact is that most people will have sex at some point in their life. It seems though that people do not have a true understanding of sex and its connection to healthy relationships. While society is so concerned on preventing disaster caused by sex they choose to ignore that more relationships are failing due to a lack of being able to navigate the topic of sex. There needs to be major reforms in government spending on sex education and state laws that affect how sex is taught if there is ever going to be motivation for the educational system to change the curriculum.

Dan Savage is sex advice columnist and freelance journalist who has extensive experience in the world of sex education. This is due to his question and answer format where anyone can submit questions and he answers them, with the help of experts if necessary. He talks extensively about sex in his Savage Love article. Savage talks about the power of sex in a great YouTube video where he says:

“We are told as children about sex that one day we will grow up and have sex. When the reality it is one day we will grow up and sex will have us… We pretend we are in charge of sex. We pretend we make all the decisions and we are not in charge of sex… We have to acknowledge its power as we approach it because we are negotiating always the terms of our surrender with sexuality and sex and those drives”

Currently American society acknowledges the power of sex much the same way we do a hurricane. Sex will come and ruin everything and move on. It does not need to be that way. At this time sex is viewed as a problem that causes disease and unwanted pregnancy. People are taught that sex is devaluing them as a person if not done a certain way. The idea of abstinence until marriage has led so many people to heart ache and shame. Schools have been teaching sex education since the 1970s and claiming the moral high ground because they were teaching to only have sex after marriage (Fox et al. 1). The unfortunate side effect of this is that teenagers do not understand sex as America now has the highest teen pregnancy rates in the developed world. This also leads to marriages ending in disaster due to limited knowledge of sex and its importance in healthy relationships causing adultery and intimacy problems. The American government must change how sex is taught by changing their policies on funding. It is time to move away from disaster prevention and teach the entire picture of sex. This includes: how to talk about sex and individual preferences, relationship dynamics including how to start and end relationships, how to recover from a break up, and other real life relationship skills. Only by giving people true knowledge instead of disaster prevention can they manage their own sex lives.

Works Cited

Fox, Ashley M., Georgia Himmelstein, Hina Khalid, Elizabeth A. Howell. “Funding for Abstinence-Only Education and Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention: Does State Ideology Affect Outcomes?”. American Journal of Public Health. Vol. 103 (3). March 2019. Pp497-504. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mnh&AN=30676806&site=eds-live

Hall, William J., Benjamin L. H. Jones, Kristen D. Witkemper, Tora L. Collins, Grayson K. Rodgers. “State Policy on School-based Sex Education: A Content Analysis Focused on Sexual Behaviors, Relationships and Identites”. American Journal of Health Behavior, May/June 2019. Pp 506-519. CINAHL Plus with Full Text. http://dx.doi.org/10.5993/AJHB.43.3.6

Holt, Jerry. “Teacher’s Sex-ed Field Trip to a Minneapolis Sex Toy Store Isn’t Going Over Well With Parents”. National Post, June 2, 2015. https://nationalpost.com/life/teachers-sex-ed-field-trip-to-a-minneapolis-sex-toy-store-isnt-going-over-well-with-parents. Accessed March 1, 2020.

Kail, Robert V., John C. Cavanaugh. Human Development A Life-Span View. Cengage Learning, 2019.

King, Bruce M., Alexandra E. Scott, Elizabeth M. Van Doorn, Emily E. Abele, Meredith E. McDevitt. “Reasons students at US University do or do not enrol in a human sexuality course”. Journal Sex Education Sexuality, Society and Learning. Vol. 20 Issue 1. 29 April 2019. Pp 101-109. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14681811.2019.1606793

Masland, Molly. “Carnal knowledge: The Sex Ed Debate”. NBCNEWS.co, msnbc. 2013. http://www.nbcnews.com/id/3071001/s/health-childrens_health/t/carnal-knowledge-sex-ed-debate/#.XlwVhKhKhPZ. Accessed March 1,2020.

Policy Priorities: Why Sexual Delay Should be the Goal in Sex Education…And Why Teen Pregnancy Prevention Isn’t Enough. Ascend Youth. Sex. Relationships. Leading the National Conversation, 2016. https://weascend.org/resources/. Accessed March 5, 2020.

Savage, Dan. “3 Things We Get Wrong About Love” Mindvalley Talks, YouTube, October 3,2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brZIb4MG8oA. Accessed March 1, 2020.

“Sex Ed Could Be Coming As Early As Kindergarten In Kentucky”. WLWT5, January 28,2020. https://www.wlwt.com/article/sex-ed-could-be-coming-as-early-as-kindergarten-in-kentucky/30689332. Accessed March 1, 2020.

Weissbourd, Richard, Amelia Peterson, Emily Weinstein. “Preparing students for Romantic Relationships: Schools Could and Should do much more to prepare students for romantic love and sex”. Phi Delta Kappan. Vol. 95 Issues 4, 54. December 2013. Gale Academic OneFile http://eds.a.ebscohost.com/eds/detail/detail?vid=1&sid=37c529ab-07b4-4dc9-a08d-6852642f2787%40sessionmgr4006&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU%3d#AN=edsgcl.355249443&db=edsgao

“What Works: Sexual Health Education”. CDC, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/whatworks/what-works-sexual-health-education.htm. Accessed March 1, 2020.