Well, the first study to compare the effects of comprehensive sex education to abstinence-only sex education was recently published in The Journal of Adolescent Health. And for proponents of abstinence-only education, the news is less than positive.
OK, so the returns are in, and guess what? It appears that keeping your kids in the dark and teaching that sex is dirty, evil, or however you happen to poison their minds, DOESN’T WORK. Gee, whodathunkit? Knowledge is more effective that ignorance. What a radical concept….
I can understand believing that sex is best left until marriage. In a perfect world, our children WOULD wait until marriage before becoming sexually active. Unfortunately, here in the real world kids experiment with sexuality; it’s called a sex DRIVE for a reason, no? Hormones being what they are, children quite often simply lack the maturity to effective and safely deal with their sexuality. What purpose is served, then, by keep our children in the dark? If we don’t teach them about sex, their decisions will be based on rumors and half-truths. Is that what we really want for our children?
Abstinence-only is a noble goal, but I would submit that proponents have long since forgotten what it was like to be a horny teenager. Wanting something to be a certain way is neither necessary nor sufficient to make it that way. In today’s sex-soaked world, if we don’t teach our children about sex, they’ll learn about it through other means…and what they learn may not equip them to face the realities of making sound decisions about their sexuality. We all want our children to wait, but what purpose is served by keeping them in the dark? How does enforced ignorance prepare them to face their own sexuality and make sound decisions?
Or perhaps your narrow, knee-jerk ideology really is more important to you than the welfare of your children?
