Category Archives: Medical Issues

Fear-Based Sex Education

September 4, 2006

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

Much has been said about fear-based sex education in the past few years.  And I finally think I have figured out what they are talking about.

Yes, there is a lot of fear out there in the world of sex education.  It literally leaps off the pages of newspapers as editors willingly print the sound bites fed to them by people who are afraid of abstinence education.  One gigantic fear, built on lots of big, big fears:

  • Fear of admitting to differences between men and women…hormonal, physical, and emotional differences.  Any hint that men and women see sex and relationships from different perspectives is denounced as stereotyping the sexes.
  • Fear about medically accurate information on fetal development.  Any hint that students might think the “blob” inside the womb is a baby…this is denounced as teaching a moral value.
  • Fear about medically accurate information on failure rates of condoms in preventing sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy.  This is denounced as too much information.  Fear-mongers prefer to wrap up all this information into one vague promise called “protected sex.”
  • Fear of typical use rates about the real failure rates of condoms and contraception.  This is denounced is the wrong type of information.  Fear-mongers prefer teaching the laboratory rates of failure which occur when a stainless steel machine wears a condom installed carefully by a dispassionate lab tech under bright lights.
  • Fear of defining sex as absolutely inappropriate for youth.  Instead, fearing to set a line in the sand, these “sexperts” have decided to let children decide for themselves when they are ready for sex: “Are you ready to have sex, dear?  Go ahead and think about it.  You decide.  Don’t ask me.  Are you mature enough?  You are mature enough when you think you are mature enough.  Don’t ask me.”
  • Fear of scrutiny on sex education lessons such as those that promote mutual masturbation, redefined as outercourse (as opposed to intercourse)…fear of parents and medical experts exposing this type of “education” as a violation of sound judgment and medically accurate truths about its high-risk nature.
  • Fear of concrete language which sets unambiguous standards based on unambiguous information about healthy sexual behaviors.  Instead, fearing fear itself, they prefer to hide behind vague, undefined terms such as saf-er-er-er-er sex…and “protected sex”…and the all-important “responsible sex,” terms that children, once again, are left to define for themselves.
  • Fear of letting parents have control of the health and well-being of their own children, these advocates of saf-er-er-er-er sex prefer to hide behind “confidentiality”.  This conveniently allows them to provide STD testing and abortions to students, without the knowledge of parents, never having to deal truthfully with what happens when saf-er-er-er-er sex is not saf-er-er-er-er sex.

And finally…when all else fails…the champions of fear can scrape all the way down to the bottom of the barrel of their fears and dredge up fear of religion.  They make sexual intercourse into a religious value.  They make marriage a religious issue.  They make everything a religious issue.  And not just any religion.

Tapping into the deepest fear of Americans, these fear-mongers promote the idea that supporters of abstinence education are members of a draconian conspiracy conceived by Catholics and adopted by Protestants to teach religion, to have kids genuflecting before they graduate.

Yes, fear is rampant in public discourse about sex education.  Afraid that their version of liberated sex will be revealed by medically accurate information as a threat to the health and well-being of young people, fear is the major tool used by those who spend every waking and sleeping moment figuring out ways to derail, disembowel, and disenfranchise those who support abstinence education programs.

The greatest fear of those who promote fear-based sex education is that the truth will get out.  Waving their arms, like scoundrels crying “fire” in a crowded theater, they are hoping parents and legislators will close their eyes and run away from abstinence education, in a mindless panic.  But, in the light of thoughtful discourse, truth will endure.  It always does.

Abstinence education promotes healthy attitudes about sex for young people, attitudes and behaviors founded on medically accurate information about sex and healthy relationships.  Abstinence education advocates that sex be reserved for a time in life when it will produce the healthiest outcomes for our children…and their children…sex at the right time, for the right reasons, with the right person.

If this is a message that generates fear, then you have to wonder if these fearful “sexperts” deserve the right to teach our children.

 

July 17, 2006 –  Curing a Disease that “Wasn’t”

 See Archives for past editorials.

Worst-Case Scenario

August 21, 2006

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

This is the time of year when students head off to school.  From kindergarten through college, anxious parents wave goodbye to their children as they relinquish the ever watchful parent control and trust the fate of their children to outside forces.

The newspaper reporter called me.  She was writing a story to help parents of college students…to give them help and reassurance.  How could parents guide young men and women in dealing with the sexual pressures of the college campus?

We spoke about the precautions, the sex talks, the fears, and the boundaries.  We considered the coed dorms, the student health centers, the drinking, the parties.  And we strategized.  Parents had tools to open dialogue with their students, even if these college freshmen were breaking loose from the day-to-day oversight that had guided their first 18 years of life.

Hopes were balanced with fears.  Precautions were checked with risks.  Good and bad possibilities were in a battle for influence over their students.  The obvious question had to be asked.

“Yes, parents can do a lot,” the reporter said.  “But what happens, in the worst-case scenario?”

The worst case scenario.  Her words spoke volumes to me.  After ten years of working in the field of preventing adolescent sex, I was fully aware of the worst case scenario.  Like the mythical head of Medusa, it was a simple phrase that erupts into many tentacles of bad consequences.

Worst case scenario?  Was the reporter thinking of the student who calls mom and dad to tell them they tested positive for AIDS?

Perhaps the reporter was thinking of the one in five adults who are now infected with genital herpes.  Even with a lifelong prescription for Famvir, this infection will control the lives of millions of people with regular outbreaks that can only be treated, not cured.

Maybe the reporter, as I have, has spoken with ob-gyns who have treated women as young as eighteen for cervical cancer.  A new vaccine Gardasil has been introduced to the market that prevents HPV infections, a sexually transmitted disease (STD) responsible for over 97 percent of cervical cancer.  What do parents tell their  daughters?

Or maybe the reporter had personal experience with someone close to them who had undergone an abortion in college.  My own friend was overcome with regret and depression, amplified by the boyfriend who “loved” her during sex and promptly abandoned her after the abortion he wanted.

These stories are just the tip of the iceberg.  So many stories of worst case scenarios, personalized to the individual who has to live out the scenario.  I am friends with a pregnancy counselor who prevented a post-abortion suicide.  I attended the trial of an abortion doctor who walked away from a woman patient and let her bleed to death.

Speaking with the reporter, an unexpected pause let a flood of worst case scenarios fill my mind.  I told the reporter, “I’m trying to figure out what would actually be the worst-case scenario.”

She joined me in brief silence.  “Gee, I guess there are a number of possibilities, aren’t there?”

Of course, I knew from experience that the worst case she most likely had been referring to was a phone call from college, “Mom, I’m pregnant.”  But considering this question and the many people I know who have dealt with this scenario, I could see only life and hope.

“I am old enough,” I told her, “to remember the college housing for married students and families.  Children and marriage at one time were not hostile barriers to future happiness.  Maybe discipline and patience were required.   But life was big enough for it all.”

One dear friend gave birth to her unplanned baby and chose adoption to bless the lives of a mother and father who could only wait for her generous gift.  Today, she is much more at peace with her “scenario” than those I have spoken to who regret their hasty abortion decisions made under pressure and isolation.

When did babies become the enemy?  When did they define the “worst-case scenario” for American culture?

As our children leave home, and as we continue to parent them from afar, perhaps the best gift we can give them is an understanding of the wonderful joys that come from sex that produces life.

Four years in college is a slice of their life, a time when they set the stage for their future…not just careers…but lives as mothers, fathers, parents.  The best-case scenario is a dream they can catch, if we take the time to build it.

Our fears and our hopes both have the ability to capture our mind.  Which will it be for our children?  The best-case scenario…or the worst?

 

July 11, 2005 – Medically Accurate Cowards

April 2, 2004 –  Sex Education: Spinning the Truth

 See Archives for past editorials.

Curing a Disease that Wasn’t

July 17, 2006

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

A bright, bold sweater hangs from the thrift store rack.  Beautiful on the hanger, a telltale loose strand of yarn hangs from the hem just under the last bottom bright gold button.  At $5.00, the bargain tempts the unwary.

But for those who take time to look, inspecting the spot where the yarn dangles, a trail of empty loops signals a sweater coming undone.  One stitch at a time, six inches of hem have disappeared.  Scissors have snipped the evidence.  But a slow tug pulls another inch of knitted loops off the hem.

Like sweaters, stories can unravel.  Consider the recent development of a vaccine for the human papillomavirus virus.

Loudly heralded by many liberal groups such as Planned Parenthood and the National Organization for Women, if you believe the pretty story they are knitting with haste, you might believe they have been on the frontlines of the battle to protect women from cervical cancer.

But the facts tell a different story. The facts speak to a long campaign of deceit promoted by pro-sex groups over the past ten years to pretend that there was no disease to cure that a little latex couldn’t prevent. Looking carefully at the edges where truth has been snipped, it is possible to tug at a loose fact and find a story just one second of truth away from unraveling.

Loose Thread No. One

The first word I heard of human papillomavirus (HPV) six years ago was at a meeting of abstinence educators.  HPV was one of over twenty five sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) that abstinence educators were teaching in their medically accurate sex education classes.

Where was Planned Parenthood back then?  They were constructing a vicious and medically inaccurate campaign aimed at destruction of abstinence education.  What was Planned Parenthood saying about human papillomavirus (HPV) back then?  They called the mention of HPV a scare tactic of radical right-wing fanatics.

According to Planned Parenthood and NOW, HPV was just one of many sexual kill-joys that conservatives used to deprive adolescents of their “right” to express their “natural” sexual urges with wholesome activities such as oral sex with dental dams and outercourse.  Once infected and threatened with possible cervical cancer, the “cure” of choice promoted by these groups was a pap smear…a belated opportunity to tell a woman she has cancer caused by a politically conservative virus.

Loose Thread No. Two

Where was The National Organization for Women (NOW) back then when cervical cancer was killing more women annually than HIV?  Linking arms with Planned Parenthood for more medically inaccurate sound-bites, NOW decried the fear-based claims of conservative religious fanatics.  Cervical cancer killing women?  If so, NOW took no steps to alert women to the connection between HPV and cervical cancer.  Worse still, NOW put duct tape on the lips of anyone bold enough to mention HPV.

As recently as 2004, at their conference held in Las Vegas, NOW leadership rejected an opportunity to educate women about HPV.  Asked to support a resolution for Cervical Cancer Education, NOW leadership quickly pulled the resolution off the table and into the back room, where “privately,” the NOW Board promptly banished this call for an educational effort to tell women about HPV and its link to cervical cancer.

Loose Thread No. Three

The first time I heard condoms do not prevent infection from HPV was six years ago, a medically accurate fact taught by an abstinence educator.  The second, third, fourth, and fifth times I heard the medically accurate truths about condoms and their failure to provide anything at all like “safe sex” were at medical conferences hosted by agencies supporting abstinence education as a reasonable and necessary health response to the STD epidemic.

As far back as 2001, a comprehensive, medically accurate review of all research on condoms published by the National Institute of Health/Centers for Disease Control (NIH/CDC) revealed the paucity of evidence supporting condoms as “protection” against the many STDs of this epidemic.  The information in this report explains why one in five people today over the age of twelve is now infected with genital herpes.  It also explains why condoms do not prevent infections by HPV leading to cervical cancer.

Where were Planned Parenthood and NOW back then?  Putting more duct tape on their lips.  Wagging their fingers at the terrible, awful, big, bad conservatives who insisted on relating these medically accurate facts to the need for abstinence sex education programs.  Waiting for a cure for a disease they didn’t want to discuss.

And now…when there is a vaccine to prevent the disease that “doesn’t exist”…suddenly members of Planned Parenthood and NOW are willing to talk about HPV…the “conservative virus” that didn’t really matter…back then.

We’re all grateful for a vaccine that will prevent cervical cancer.  But some of us have been fighting the cause of women’s health and prevention of cervical cancer for the past ten years.  Others, sadly, have been carrying briefcases filled with duct tape.

 

July 11, 2005 –  Medically Accurate Cowards

April 2, 2004 – Sex Education: Spinning the Truth

See Archives for past editorials.

How Young Is Too Young?

July 10, 2004

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

I think she still holds it against me. As a teen today, it’s absolutely ludicrous to think that my niece Katie needs to hold my hand while crossing the street.

But way back when, when Katie was just three, our battle of wills produced fierce tears.  On a shopping trip, I, her aunt, was entrusted with her safety.  All was going well…until the moment I grabbed Katie’s hand before we crossed the busy parking lot in front of the store.

Katie, jerked her hand away from me.  Hearing a car’s motor on the left, I reached out to catch her hand again.  It took us a full minute to establish that she was going to hold my hand as we crossed the street.  And, if today she still holds it against me, I must confess…I’m not sorry for insisting on winning the battle.

Life is like that.  One minute we’re too young to be entrusted with a task.  And then we aren’t.

Life is like that.  One minute we’re held back.  And then, crossing the line in the sand, we are suddenly old enough to be trusted with new responsibilities.  It’s a simple principle.  And yet, it’s a principle some want us to ignore in the most significant area of life for American teens today.

Today, we are embroiled in a national debate about how to handle sexual behavior related to teens and adolescents.  In a surprising upheaval of logic, there are “sexperts” who cannot find any line in the sand at all to dictate a time when sex is absolutely, unequivocally and irrevocably inappropriate for young people.

Instead, these “sexperts” have declared this the “Age of Consent.”  If you can get or give consent, then you are old enough to have sex.

Ignoring the health implications for teens who are sexually active, these “sexperts” wag their fingers in the face of abstinence educators, rejecting any attempt to set a line in the sand.  Who is “ready” for sex, you ask?  Anyone who “consents” to have sex, they answer.

Embracing the philosophy of Kinsey, all sex is good sex…if you can dream it up, if you can manage to perform it, and if it is consensual…then it is good sex.

Like all ideas, pushing to the extreme, we eventually must come to terms with the insanity of insane ideas.  Consider the case of the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA).  According to Wikipedia, it is “a New York City and San Francisco-based unincorporated organization that opposes the use of age as the sole criterion for deciding whether minors can legally engage in sexual relations.

“NAMBLA defends what it asserts to be the right of minors to explore their sexuality on a much freer basis. It has resolved to ‘end the oppression of men and boys who have freely chosen mutually consenting relationships.’”

Checking out the NAMBLA website, disturbing evidence exists of adults promoting sex between grown men and young boys.  You can order a newly revised copy of Boys Speak Out on Man/Boy Love, promoted with a picture of a grown man dancing with a boy barely taller than his elbows.  Chapters include “It Shouldn’t Be a Crime to Make Love,” written by Bryan, age twelve and a half.  An interview with Thijs, age eleven, declares “I’m Not Going To Be Kept Away from Him.”  How about it, “Sexperts?”  Is consent considered justification for this type of adult/child sex?

Or what about a 2002 book written by Judith Levine, Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex?  Widely promoted as a book to challenge “widespread anxieties” about pedophilia, Ms. Levine was toasted by national media and given every opportunity to convince Americans that science supports positive benefits for sex between adults and children.

Publisher University of Minnesota Press called Levine’s book “a radical, refreshing, and long overdue reassessment of how we think and act about children’s and teens’ sexuality.”  James Kincaid, author of “Erotic Innocence: The Culture of Child Molesting,” called it “a crusading book that is also kind, a very rare phenomenon, and it comes down always on the side of trusting not only our kids and their pleasures but our own.”

Taking up the banner of “consensual sex,” most recently the Journal of Adolescent Health stated that “…there are no scientific data suggesting that consensual sex between adolescents is harmful.”  Seeking to justify their assertion, they pointed to the “many positive mental health consequences” of adolescent sex.

Finally, and most sadly, the Centers of Disease Control has now joined in the chorus of “sexperts” protecting sex for adolescents.  At their 2006 National STD Prevention Conference in Jacksonville, Florida, the CDC had a chance to draw a line in the sand.  And they failed.

At the CDC conference, standing before a crowd of national experts on STDs, Dr. Patricia Sulak sought to find common ground between the “sexperts” and abstinence educators.  Surely, she challenged them, we can agree on this one thing.  Can’t we agree on an age too young for sex?

NO! the room erupted in unison.  After all, this is the age of consent.  If sex is consensual, that’s good enough for them.  If you are wondering what the CDC has to say about this…so am I.

How about it, CDC?  How young is too young when it comes to children and sex?

 

July 11, 2005 – Medically Accurate Cowards

November 19, 2004 – Kinsey: Brave New World?

See Archives for past editorials.

Kaiser Embraces Abstinence Education?

June 5, 2006

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

Well, maybe the word embraces is too strong to describe Kaiser Network’s publication of a summary of the recent Washington Times article on sex education.

Then again, embraces abstinence pretty well sums up the impact of Kaiser’s summary posted on their Daily Women’s Health Policy Listing, reporting positively on the Times article that “examines ‘holistic’ approaches to preventing teen pregnancy.”

Perhaps I’m wrestling with the language a bit because I doubt Kaiser realizes that it has its arms locked around abstinence education in a big ol’ “I Love You, Man” kind of bear hug.

This is a very big deal for those familiar with Kaiser Network’s traditional editorial bias opposing abstinence education in favor of programs willing to promise teens condoms will provide saf-er-er-er sex.  Hence, we take the liberty of saying that Kaiser, a major national health network, perhaps unintentionally, now embraces abstinence education.  They do.  They really do!

The Times story reported on two “holistic” approaches to preventing teen pregnancy in the U.S.  Based on information from the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, these “holistic” approaches finally acknowledge that it is not enough to focus on “managing the health risks of sex.”

The big news for Kaiser is that these “holistic” approaches include “relationship skills” in their sex-education programs.  “Teens hear about biology and body parts,” Kaiser quotes, but they are also learning the importance of “how to achieve responsible and respectful relationships.”  Psychologist Michael Carrera advises Times readers “that the best way to prevent teen pregnancy is to ‘move from fragmentation…to wholeness.’”

The bigger news for Kaiser should be that this is not new news.  This is the foundation and core of the many quality abstinence curricula developed over the past 15 years, since founders of abstinence education declared that the “body parts” approach to sex education was inadequate at the least…and irresponsible at the worst.

Of course, those attacking abstinence education have been fundamentally opposed to abstinence programs for precisely this reason…that they teach teens the importance of “how to achieve responsible and respectful relationships.”

Hopefully, Kaiser is also taking note of mounting evidence demonstrating the need to teach young people about healthy relationships in the context of healthy marriages.  A recent Gallup poll finds that nearly all U.S. adults – 91% – either have been married or plan to get married one day.

Meanwhile, a survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention involved more than 12,000 men and women and investigated their attitudes about marriage.  Survey results released in May show that men (66%), even more than women (51%), agreed that “it is better to get married than go through life single.”  Moreover, men (76%) and women (72%) agreed that “it is more important for a man to spend a lot of time with his family than be successful at his career.”

This is good news for the children of married parents.  The CDC survey also found that among fathers in their first marriage, 90% live with their kids.  They are involved with their kids…from feeding to bathing to helping with homework and taking them to activities.  Other major research consistently proves that children living with their biological fathers are less likely to engage in risky behaviors…including teen sex.

Commitment to marriage and families is also good news for married men.  On June 1, UPI reported on a study in Denmark that found “the death rate among divorced men in their 40s is twice as high as it is for other men in the same age group.  Alcohol and suicide accounted for many of the deaths, and one-fourth were caused by heart disease.  “Rikke Lund, a senior researcher who was in charge of the study, said that given the findings, Denmark should do more to keep marriages together.”

Well, Kaiser, the good news for all of us is that abstinence education has and continues to bring all of this medical and relational information together into a “holistic” message of wellness for adolescents.  One curricula cited in the Times article, “Love U2” has been on the Arizona approved list for years for use in abstinence programs.

Marlene Pearson, founder of the LoveU2 Program, also teaches social science in Wisconsin.  She finds teens eager to hear more about love, intimacy, and ethical consequences of sex.  She tells the Times, teens already know “a messed-up love life can certainly mess up other parts of your life.”

Adults, says Pearson, need to tell teens there’s a “simple formula” that can help them fulfill their goals in love.  This “sequence for success” is to “graduate from high school (at least), don’t have a baby until you are married, and don’t marry during the teen years.”

Well, Kaiser, it’s encouraging to find you sharing this important message about “holistic” approaches to sex education with those interested in health care.  Fortunately, you will be reassured that this is what the many nationally recognized abstinence curricula and programs in existence today are all about…the holistic message…healthy body, healthy mind, healthy spirit.

It’s taken a long time for this to happen.  But, whether they realize it or not, Kaiser Network has finally embraced abstinence education.  Yahoo!

 

FOR MORE ABOUT HOLISTIC SEX EDUCATION

Read Last Week’s Column

May 29, 2006  – Why Condoms Will Not Save Us

 See Archives for past editorials.