Category Archives: Sex Education

Hey, Everybody, Let’s Give Up!

August 7, 2006

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

Fifteen people sat around the conference table. Fourteen were educators teaching junior and senior high students about sexual abstinence until marriage. One person, Mr. Boss Man, at the head of the table, was a state leader in charge of setting the educational focus for programs in the public schools.

Fourteen voices told about the high school students who wanted educators to return to their classrooms next year. These students, even the juniors and seniors, want to hear the truth about sex. They want to receive encouragement to be abstinent as a way of fulfilling their personal goals and securing their good health.

At the conference table, from the front of the room, Mr. Boss Man with his one voice answered fourteen. “Isn’t that too late? Aren’t they already having sex?”

He might as well have said, “Hey, everybody, let’s give up!”

Maybe Mr. Boss Man hadn’t heard that over 50 percent of high school students persevere under considerable pressure from a society that pushes sex at every turn. These students haven’t given up. They are sexually abstinent.

Mr. Boss Man’s name isn’t important. He is not alone. He is only one of many community and national leaders who are heading the parade to give in to failure.

Yes, they concede. Sexual abstinence until marriage would indeed prevent untold negative personal and social consequences of adolescent sex. But before they can take one deep breath, they raise their flags of failure and begin chanting.

On the left, they cry, “Teens can’t be abstinent. They can’t, they can’t. Rah, rah, shish boom bant!”

On the right, they answer back. “Teens don’t need to be abstinent. Sex is natural. Rah, rah, bish boom pow!”

Imagine. What if this mentality had ruled the coaching staff for the San Francisco 49ers? From 1979 to 1992, they were led by one of the top quarterbacks of all time. Joe Montana earned the nicknames “Joe Cool” and “Comeback Kid” due to his ability to rally his teams from late game deficits, including 31 fourth quarter comebacks.

Montana made his career proving that losing is not inevitable … no matter how many minutes … or seconds … are left in the game. His comeback from a 28-point halftime deficit to a 38-35 overtime victory against the New Orleans Saints still stands (as of 2006) as the most points ever overcome to win a regular season NFL game. It was the first of Montana’s 26 fourth-quarter comebacks with the 49ers.

Imagine. Montana could have had a coach tell him, “Relax. You’re losing. Don’t worry. Save your energy. We’ll try again next week.” But he didn’t. Winning was the point of playing the game. And he played until the last second on the clock.

Imagine, instead, the coaches of the losers, the teams that played against Montana, the Saints, Bengals, Lions, and Dolphins … maybe they should have saved all the blood, sweat, and tears of coming in second. If they had known the 49ers would come back and win, maybe they would have given up earlier in the game and saved a lot of strained muscles and broken bones.

Imagine if Mr. Boss Man coached football with the same confidence he coaches teenagers. “Chance are you’re gonna lose. Give up now.”

Give up does not make winning teams in football. And it does not build winning lives for people either. In the famous Oak School experiment, Harvard professor Robert Rosenthal’s research into the “Pygmalion phenomenon” showed the impact on students of a teacher’s expectations.

“Simply put,” as reported in The National Teaching and Learning Forum, “when teachers expect students to do well and show intellectual growth, they do; when teachers do not have such expectations, performance and growth are not so encouraged and may in fact be discouraged in a variety of ways.”

Regarding our youth and sex, success is closer at hand than what many would have us believe. Parents want their children to understand the benefits … the physical, emotional, social, educational, and economic benefits … of saving sex for marriage.

Students increasingly want to be encouraged to succeed in their relational and educational goals by adults who help them maintain their commitment to sexual abstinence.

For those adolescents aged 12-19 who have had sex, 63 percent of them wished they had waited. They are prime candidates for hearing that they can return to a sexually abstinent lifestyle. Change is possible.

And for all of these parents and students, there are many dedicated educators who are able to undergird these personal desires and goals with medically accurate information and lessons that build student confidence and give students the skills to maintain their personal commitment to abstinence until marriage.

The parade is ready. They are ready to march. The only thing holding them back from success is Mr. Boss Man and his fellow leaders at the front.

“Sure, we can start marching toward success,” the leaders tell the group. “But why bother? You’re never going to make it.”

 

September 5, 2005 – Succeeding at Failure

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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

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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.

Why Condoms Will Not Save us

May 29, 2006

The Washington Times reported last week on a consensus report on sexual health just issued by “wildly divergent political organizations.”  Yet, in spite of this much-heralded consensus, no agreement was reached on “what constitutes sexual abstinence, responsible sexual behavior, sexual orientation and ‘medical accuracy,’ such as condom efficacy.”

So just what does consensus mean?  In truth, it seems we are left with the same splits, divides and disagreements.  Consider condoms.  Long heralded as the KEY to solving problems associated with teen sex, you would think a national agreement on at least that one issue would exist by now.

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Why Condoms Will Not Save Us

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

Teen parents Dan and Christy[1] are just two people. I love them.  They are personal, they live in my world. But their two lives speak of the millions of children and parents in our country today.

Dan’s parents love him.  That has never been in doubt.  It’s just that they couldn’t remain in love with each other.  As Dan was maturing, he watched his parents argue, separate, reunite and then begin the cycle again–over and over again. Until one day, his mother sent divorce papers to his father.  And it ended.

Dan’s mother was determined to make a good life for herself and her two children.  She enrolled in a university, gained government assistance, and worked any part time job she could find.  She supported him in his school work, rented movies to watch late at night with Dan and his older sister, and went to all of his basketball games.

Yet, the strain of the family breakup was too much.  Dan missed his father, and his sister became ensnared in a cycle of drugs, truancy, and running away.  His mother, working hard to deal with each emergency as it happened, was glad Dan seemed to be motivated at school and surrounded by good friends.  She just didn’t have time to do everything.

Without a father at home, and with a mother and sister caught in a battle of teenage rebellion, Dan took solace in his friendships.  And he sought affection in the arms of his high school sweetheart.  Dan and Christy only had sex once.  But that was enough to create a new life, Allyson.

Today, Allyson is being raised most of the time by her great-grandmother, Christy’s grandmother.  Christy takes care of Allyson when she is at home.  She and Dan broke up right after she knew she was pregnant, and Christy has had a steady string of boyfriends since then moving in and moving out of her life.  And she is pregnant again.

After a paternity test proved Dan to be Allyson’s father, the court assigned him a support payment of $100 per month.  He felt a sense of duty to meet this payment and began a pizza delivery job, but with his basketball practices and the demands on him as senior class treasurer, Dan finally quit work, and his mom took over the monthly payments.

Dan has just entered college on a basketball scholarship, and he tries to drive home on weekends to spend time with Allyson.  He and Christy end up in court periodically to argue over custody arrangements that involve both sets of Allyson’s grandparents and her great-grandmother.  Dan’s parents, both mother and father, along with a sister who has finally settled down, and aunts and uncles who love him, support him in his role as Allyson’s father.  But it’s not easy.  Dan’s grades last semester were low enough to threaten his scholarship.

And what about Allyson?  She just celebrated her first birthday as a bright-eyed toddler.

In only twelve more years, Allyson will herself be a teenager.  Meanwhile, who will be the adults in her life to guide her and love her?  Will she grow up to seek love in the arms of a high school sweetheart?  Will she ever know what it means to have two parents at home, a mother and a father who love and hug each other at night in the kitchen?

When she enters high school, will a teen pregnancy and a baby create a problem for Allyson?  Or might they solve a problem for her?  Might a teen pregnancy give Allyson’s life a focus, a meaning–a glimpse of the love and affection that seemed just out of reach in the few short years she had for learning what love and parenting are all about?

Yes, what about Allyson?

[1] Names have been changed to protect the privacy of these individuals.

    

April 30, 2004 –Condoms: A Failure to Protect

January 3, 2005 – Teen Sex: What’s the Problem?

 See Archives for past editorials.