Sexual "Education" part I

"Sex is bad. You'll get pregnant. You might get an STD...but you'll definitely get pregnant." Who hasn't heard this mantra in every health class or sex ed lecture? Have you ever heard a teacher go in-depth about birth control or protection? Didn't think so.

"Sexual 'Education'" will be posted in three installments. One to talk about what the abstinence only education is, one to mention the obvious problems, and the final to talk about solutions.

In 1996, the federal government passed a welfare reform addition called Title V. This program gives funding to educational facilities using sexual education. Title V's extremly specific requirements include:

• Has as its exclusive purpose teaching the social, psychological, and health gains to be realized by abstaining from sexual activity;
• Teaches abstinence from sexual activity outside marriage as the expected standard for all school-age children and that mutually faithful sex within a marriage is the expected standard of sexual activity;
• Teaches that abstinence from sexual activity is the only certain way to avoid out of-wedlock pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and other associated health problems;
• Teaches that bearing children out-of-wedlock is likely to have harmful consequences for the child, the child’s parents, and society.

A program called "Sex Respect" emphasizes abstinence, does not discuss issues such as masturbation or homosexuality, and rejects contraception as something that does not work. The program is designed to teach students self-respect and the advantages of discipline, and it extols the psychological and physical health benefits of sex within loving, committed marital relationships.

All the programs stress that sex should only be used in a "loving and monogamous" marriage. They all stress that the only way to protect against unwanted babies and unwanted diseases is to not have sex at all. This is a problem.