Category Archives: Sex Education

One Stop Shopping

This week, experts around the nation are convening in Washington, D.C. to review grant proposals submitted for federal abstinence education funding.  There are still many misconceptions about what students learn in abstinence programs.  This week’s column is dedicated to a consideration of what we teach our students and how we teach it.

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Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

August 8, 2005

Comprehensive sex education…it’s being sold all over America.  The best thing about comprehensive sex education, we parents are told, is that it teaches our children everything.   That’s right…everything.

It teaches children how to say no…and then it teaches them that they can pleasure each other with mutual masturbation.

It teaches children how to say no…and then it teaches them how to put on a condom.

It teaches children to ask their parents…and then it hands them the address to the nearest clinic where they can get birth control and abortions without telling their parents.

It teaches children that some people save sex until marriage…and then it teaches children that marriage isn’t for everyone.

What is the true message comprehensive sex education gives our teens?  This is only clear when put into context with a real child.

In my first interview with an expert who had been teaching comprehensive sex education for over thirteen years, I came to the end of the hour totally perplexed.  “Safe sex”, perfect use, neutral values, healthy attitudes?  In a moment of frustration, I asked this expert about “my Daughter Debbie.”  What if “Daughter Debbie” sat in on your sex education class?

It’s a simple question, and I have tagged it the Ultimate Test Question for all sex education programs.  If you want to know what all the fancy talk and clever rationales mean, just ask someone about “your own Daughter Debbie.”

13-year-old Daughter Debbie

OK, so, what do you really teach?

What if my 13-year-old Daughter Debbie sat through all of your lessons on sex education and came to you as you were packing to leave with this question:

My boyfriend is at the high school.  He’s 16, and we’ve been talking about having sex.  It seems like if we use a condom we’ll be safe.  I’ve talked it over with some of my friends, and they’re already having sex.  We’re mature.  We know what we’re doing.  Everyone says if we use a condom that we’ll be safe.  I’m thinking I’m going to go ahead…What do you think?

In every interview with every adult who teaches comprehensive sex education, I have concluded with this question.  Not one of these adults would express any opinion to Debbie in answering her question.

At best, several said they would do a quick re-run of all the lessons and options presented.  They might encourage her to talk with “someone she trusts.”  I suggested that Debbie had chosen them as a trustworthy person.  They said she needed someone else.  I mentioned her boyfriend and her girlfriends.  Well…they paused.  And silence set in.

Thinking perhaps I had caught them off-guard, I suggested a possible response:  “As gently and quietly as possible, what if you told Debbie that ultimately she would have to make up her own mind, but that since she had asked you, you would have to say you would not recommend having sex at this point in her life.  Could you tell her that?”

“No,” came the quick reply each time.  “We don’t teach values.”

Most of these educators had been in “the business” for more than ten years.

Consider this additional fact concerning Daughter Debbie.  At 13, she and her sixteen year-old-boyfriend are considering the kind of sex called statutory rape in many states.

Can we really call it conscionable sex education to deny her the wisdom of our counsel—especially when she asks us?  “No, Debbie, I do not believe it is wise for you to begin having sex with your boyfriend.  Can I offer you some help in dealing with this problem?”

One stop shopping that sells children anything they want at any time in their lives is the core of the problem with sex education in America.  If we fail to place a value on sex, if we fail to discriminate between appropriate and inappropriate, if we fail to make value judgments, then we have no reason to be surprised when our children become pregnant and infected with STDs.

One stop shopping…educators who give our children a free pass to do whatever they want when they feel they are ready to do whatever they want…and educators who give them the tools to do it…are they part of the solution…or part of the problem?

One stop shopping…if we tell Daughter Debbie that she can buy anything in the store whenever she wants and that we will write the check for her…then we shouldn’t be surprised if she buys sex with her boyfriend.

 

One Stop Shopping was first printed April 16, 2004

See Archives for more past editorials.

NARAL: The Finer Points of Vulgarity

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

July 18, 2005

You’ve got to hand it to NARAL.  They really know how to get their point across.

NARAL Pro-Choice Washington wants to make it clear.  No ambiguous, vague, uncertain, unintelligible, nebulous, amphibological message from NARAL.  Absolutely none!

Do you want to know what the leading proponent of abortion thinks about healthy sexual behavior?  NARAL wants everyone to know!  Screw Abstinence. 

Just to make sure you don’t miss it, they scream at the top of their voices.  Throw your hands up and say it loud: “Screw Abstinence!!!”  They tell us at the bottom of their e-mail flyer to let everyone know:  Print Out Flyer & Help Promote Screw Abstinence.

This is not just political rhetoric and subtle behind-the-scenes lobbying.  They are throwing a party.  They are raising money.  And there is something for everyone at NARAL’s funfest:

  • A sex ed class for adults performed by Seattle theatre’s hottest sketch comedy group
  • Tips on Sexy Sex by Sex-positive purveyors of adult toys
  • A Screw Driver drink ticket
  • A Screw Abstinence T-Shirt

If there is anything good that comes from vulgarity in your face and over the top, this must be it.  We now know for sure and without a doubt, what NARAL values and elevates as their ultimate ideal for healthy sexual attitudes and behaviors.

For the past thirty years parents and health experts have agonized over the high rates of unwed teen pregnancy and the epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).  Untold hours have been spent debating how to best educate young people on healthy choices related to sex.

Abstinence…purity…chastity…modesty…concepts of self-control and restraint have made a comeback.  But it has been a hard fought battle.  At every turn, there are opponents to abstinence.  Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, and NARAL have worked hard to convince us abstinence education won’t work.

Now, thanks to NARAL, we know one of the major reasons abstinence education struggles.  It is mocked and ridiculed and rejected by the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League.

The finer points of NARAL’s Screw Abstinence party are these.

They trivialize the very essence of healthy choices based on self-restraint and the medical realities of sexual behavior.

They flaunt the outdated term “Safe Sex,” mutating it into “Safer Sex” without one shred of proof that sex toys are harmless games in the hands of promiscuous people.   Safer sex?  Safer than what?

They model for adults over the age of 21 the foundations of mindless, medically illiterate objections to abstinence education.  NARAL doesn’t need a reason to object.  It’s enough to “Come, laugh, learn, socialize and buck the system at NARAL Pro-Choice Washington’s Screw Abstinence Party.”

And perhaps the finest point of all in NARAL’s attack on the healthy attitudes toward sex by America’s young people is this.  When over twenty percent of children relying on the promises of “safer sex” get pregnant this year, NARAL will be there with Planned Parenthood and the ACLU to defend their right to sneak to the nearest abortion clinic without parental consent.

If abstinence education is challenged in its efforts to educate young people about healthy sexual attitudes and behaviors, we finally have the answer…in our faces…over the top…and without a doubt.  Thanks to NARAL.

February 5, 2005:   Sex Without Value

June 6, 2005:   Planned Parenthood’s War Against Choice

Planned Parenthood’s War Against Choice

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

June 6, 2005

Choice:  option, alternative, preference, selection, election: suggests the opportunity or privilege of choosing freely

American children are raised on choice.  They cut their teeth on choice.

Stores live or die based on their ability to offer consumers a myriad of choices.  Hotel conglomerates buy up competitors just so they can offer travelers a range of overnight comfort.  Marriott is not just Marriott.  It is Fairfield, Courtyard, Springhill…well, you get the picture.

It’s no wonder that Choice became the mantra of Planned Parenthood.  In their own Encyclopedia of Women’s Health, they list out the reasons “a woman may choose an abortion,” much like you would list the reasons why a girl might choose a pizza.

Choice is captivating.  Marrying choice to freedom, we elevate the power to choose to an inalienable right.  Thus, the sexual revolution was born on the wings of freedom and choice with its emphasis on an array of sexual behaviors from which any man or woman, girl or boy, could simply choose.

And with a sexual revolution came sex education.  In 1970, a training in Philadelphia for Planned Parenthood staff concluded with a day-and-a-half marathon of films and discussion.  The goal of these trainings?  “To lead to desensitization of anxieties surrounding sexual behavior…with a resultant development of understanding and tolerance of the range of sexual behavior.”

For over twenty years, this “tolerance” formed the foundation of sex education programs supported by Planned Parenthood.  They were all about choice…a child’s right to choose sex from a “range” of behaviors…given the “tools” of contraception.  And if it didn’t work out, there was always one more choice.

Planned Parenthood has grown up on choice.  It cut its teeth on choice.

Thus, it is either surprising, alarming or amusing to watch them conduct a war against choice.  This war can be traced back to 1980 when U.S. Senator Jeremiah Denton won congressional approval of the Adolescent Family Life Act (AFLA).  Designed as an “almost exact mirror alternative” to Planned Parenthood’s Title X funding, AFLA set a new course for sex education.  Program objectives emphasized adoption, parental involvement, abstinence from sexual intercourse, and pro-family education for teenagers.

Well… that was just a little too much choice for Planned Parenthood to handle.  It geared up to undo the harm of excess choice.  In Congress, it fought to limit and ultimately decrease AFLA funding at the same time that it sought increases in Title X funding.  It continued to exploit its own federal funding streams flowing from over 100 different laws.  In the battle between U.S. funding of Planned Parenthood-style programs and abstinence programs, they had a funding advantage by one report of at least 75:1.

Another tactic to eliminate AFLA programs was an attack on the very meaning of the term “abstinence.”  In a March 1987 report written by Marie Haviland-James for the Planned Parenthood Federation, an attack on the abstinence program Sex Respect set out an extensive list of objections including: “many references…to a ‘spiritual’ dimension of sexuality”, “use of the word ‘baby’ for fetus”,  and “unsubstantiated claims” such as “abstinence has future benefits for teens.”

In its battle against choice, Planned Parenthood had no better friend than Senator Edward Kennedy.  In the 101st Congress, he submitted two bills with the intent to subvert the AFLA programs by repealing the focus on adoption and abstinence, requiring abortion counseling, and repealing the mandate for parental involvement.  No wonder, Senator Kennedy received a Planned Parenthood Memo for March 28, 1989, warmly praising his help in crafting legislation to “prevent teenage pregnancy rather than teenage sex.”

Apparently, for Planned Parenthood, choice is worth defending…as long as it is their choice.

Abstinence education is a choice that parents pay for with hard-earned tax dollars.  It is a choice to have medically accurate and complete information presented to their children that helps build understanding of and reinforcement for abstaining from sexual behavior.  It helps teens define future goals, and it is taught by teachers who value teens enough to believe in them and their ability to succeed.

Abstinence education is a choice.  No school district, nor any parent or student, is forced to listen to or believe in the abstinence message.   It is a choice.

Abstinence education is one choice.  Nothing prevents a school from inviting abstinence educators to their campus in October and inviting Planned Parenthood to their campus in February.

But that’s not good enough for Planned Parenthood.  If they are to have their way, we will be paying our taxes to have one choice, and one choice only…theirs.

Choice?  Hey, Planned Parenthood…what about the choice of people who don’t want your choice?

February 21, 2005:  Sex Without Value

April 2, 2004:   Sex Education:  Spinning the Truth

Only Half a Child

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

May 30, 2005

New Mexico is stepping out front of the pack in the national effort to help children retain self-control and delay sex until marriage.  New Mexico health department officials are stepping out with one foot, to teach half a child, to go half the distance…and stop.

New Mexico Health Secretary Michelle Lujan Grisham announced in April her decision to target $500,000 in federal sexual-abstinence education funding toward elementary-school students…students sixth grade and under, generally no older than twelve.

Students twelve and under, you are encouraged to be sexually abstinent.  Students over twelve, you are encouraged to use a condom.  Half of your life you are encouraged to succeed.  The other half of your life, you are told you will probably fail.  In New Mexico.

Grisham has set teens adrift.  Concluding that they are having sex anyway, she will offer them condoms and birth control as their “best option” for a successful future.  Grisham pretends to base her plan on research.  But if you open wide the curtains, there is a bigger picture behind her policies.

In January, 2005, she fired her first attack at abstinence education in a press release challenging the national guidelines for these programs.  She wanted the money for teaching abstinence.  She just didn’t want to teach abstinence.

Parents, legislators, and educators raised the roof against this plan!  But Grisham had at least one friend in her camp.

Planned Parenthood has conducted a ten year campaign against abstinence funding.  In a July 2002 speech, Planned Parenthood President Gloria Feldt rallied her friends, “We can harness our power to advance our agenda by working together with one vision, one goal, one set of issues, one message spoken by many voices.”

One message, two voices?  Planned Parenthood and New Mexico?

In January, when Grisham heard the public outcry generated against her plan to sabotage abstinence education, she retreated.  But only half way.  Throwing a bone to the crowd, she agreed to promote sexual abstinence to half a child.  But the other half…the part of the child that grows up and needs this message in junior high and high school…well, Grisham figures they are a lost cause at that point.

Perhaps this is because Grisham is reading only half the research.  Could she know that a poll by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy shows that nearly 70% of teens do not believe high school students should have sex and that approximately 65% of sexually experienced young people said they “wish they had waited longer to have sex”?

Did Grisham have time to read the CDC study released December of 2004?  Did she read the half of the study crediting sexual abstinence for part of the drop in the teen pregnancy rate between 1995 and 2002?  Did she note the decline in sexual activity among teens…especially among teen boys?

In fact, during the decades when pro-condom sex education flourished without challenge, teen pregnancy rates skyrocketed.  At the highest rates of teen pregnancy in 1990, enterprising parents and educators introduced abstinence education around the country.  Since then, both teen sexual behavior and pregnancy rates have been steadily declining.

Pro-condom education accompanies a rise in teen pregnancies…and Grisham embraces pro-condom education.  Abstinence education accompanies a decline in teen pregnancies…yet Grisham rejects abstinence education for New Mexico teens.

Now, thanks to Grisham, Planned Parenthood and other organizations with access to Title X dollars will be free to carry in their condoms to junior high and high school students with promises of “protected” sex.  Protected from what?

Has Grisham read the research demonstrating the failure of condoms to deliver on “safe sex” promises?  Does the New Mexico health department have any commitment to deliver medically accurate information on condom failure rates?  If so, perhaps they could post their version of condom facts on the Department of Health website for all to see.

With one voice, Planned Parenthood and New Mexico are unified in an ideological rejection of abstinence education that defies medically sound reasons for its message and educationally sound methods for developing successful programs that teach the message.

Just when evidence is building a convincing case that abstinence education is impacting young people, bringing about a decline in teen pregnancies and helping students maintain abstinence until marriage, New Mexico officials have declared war on abstinence.

It’s a sad day for students and parents when the state health system gives up on teaching healthy choices and opts to believe that teens are incapable of restraining sexual urges.

One eye on half the research.  New Mexico has taken the lead in this parade of one foot marching…half a heart in helping half a child.

April 2, 2004:   Sex Education:  Spinning the Truth

March 14, 2005:   Does Abstinence Work?

SIECUS Redefines Humanity

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

May 9, 2005

 

Much of the social history of the Western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what worked with what sounded good.                                  Thomas Sowell

 SIECUS is on the warpath.  If it could have its way, abstinence education would be outlawed.  That’s right.  While parents and legislators are working to develop ways to restore healthy sexual boundaries for our children, SIECUS is mustering its troops for an all-out assault on abstinence education.

SIECUS has a better idea.  As its name implies, the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States is fighting to regain control of the definition of “healthy sex” first set forth in 1964 when Mary Calderone left her position as medical director of Planned Parenthood Federation of America to organize and lead SIECUS.

Fortunately for all of us, SIECUS has had forty years to spell out what it wants our children to learn.  At its initial press conference on January 9, 1965, Mary Calderone set out their plan.  SIECUS would “perhaps take positions on problems of sexuality in America.”

On the surface, SIECUS assures the public it wants children to develop a healthy respect for their sexuality.  It even suggests that SIECUS is “for abstinence,” too.  But the devil is in the details.  And we can be grateful that its long-time executive director Debra Haffner took time to spell out her ideas for raising teens.

A passage from Debra Haffner’s article “Safe Sex and Teens” in the September-October 1989 SIECUS Report is quite open about what it wants for our children.  “Colleagues and I have fantasized about a national ‘petting project’ for teenagers….A partial list of safe sex practices for teens could include: Talking, Flirting, Dancing, Hugging, Kissing, Necking, Massaging, Caressing, Undressing each other, Masturbation alone, Masturbation in front of a partner, Mutual masturbation.  Teens could surely come up with their own list of activities.”

Based on magazine ads, movies and television…yes…teens “could surely come up with” quite a list of sexual activities.  But is that what we want our children to do?  Indulge in sexual promiscuity?

Even more amazing than the list of extracurricular sex suggestions from Haffner’s article is the general premise of SIECUS that these activities are a form of abstinence from sex.  In fact, some creative educators actually coined a special word for this brand of abstinence…outercourse…as opposed to intercourse.

In the old days, before enlightenment by the likes of SIECUS and Planned Parenthood, these “outercourse” activities were just the types of activities that led many a teen into intercourse.  If avoiding intercourse is their true goal, one has to wonder why Haffner and her colleagues felt that empowering teens to explore highly charged eroticism is preferable to abstinence.

The history of SIECUS provides endless examples of this type of sexual conundrum…having more sex to avoid having sex.  In 1977, Time began its article, “Cradle-to-Grave Intimacy,” quoting Mary Calderone saying that a child has a fundamental right “to know about sexuality and to be sexual”.

“Cultivating” the sexuality of children was of prime importance to Calderone and others.  Adopting a Kinseyan philosophy that children are sexual from birth, few in this circle of “sexperts” saw any need to restrict the sexual behaviors of people…and children.  Their concerns actually focused on repelling any attempts to limit or restrain sex, seeing these as repressive and counter to human design.

In 1981, Calderone co-authored The Family Book about Sexuality that asserted, “The major effects of such incidents [molestation] are caused not by the event itself but by the outraged, angry fearful, and shocked reactions of the adults who learn of it….It is these immoderate reactions which may cause whatever psychological damage occurs.”

Today, SIECUS guidelines for sex education are 112 pages long.  Read carefully.  You will find Calderone’s and Haffner’s same philosophy on sex underlying the core ideas of SIECUS and the activities they recommend for children.

Is it any wonder that SIECUS would take offense at abstinence education?  Programs that encourage teens not to engage in sex and that present information demonstrating abstinence until marriage is the healthiest and happiest choice…SIECUS never has been fond of limiting sex.

Knowing SIECUS is the surest way to understand the reasons for their attacks on abstinence. And know this…it is also the surest way to understand the value of restoring the natural definition of human behavior.

Sex is a magical gift of bonding and procreation between a husband and wife.  Until then?  For our teens?  Abstinence is a choice that protects and empowers.

 

 May 2, 2005:  Who Is SIECUS?

November 19, 2004:  KINSEY: Brave New World?