Let's Talk About Sex, Baby. Let's Talk About You and Me.

In the wise words of the esteemed female performance group TLC, let's talk about sex. In our modern media culture, teens are literally surrounded by sexual imagery. If we don't talk to them about sex, the media will.

Study after study has returned the same result: abstinence only sex education does not work. In the eight years that funding for abstinence only sex education was drastically increased by the Bush administration, the rates of teen pregnancy and and abortion simultaneously rose. This reverses a trend of continually decreasing rates of both teen pregnancy and abortions during the years of comprehensive sexual education provided by the Clinton administration. A 2002 report from the Progressive Partners in Health stated, "abstinence only programming runs the serious risk of leaving young people, especially those at elevated risk, uninformed and alienated."

The idea that providing teens with a comprehensive sexual education will a) teach them how to have sex and b) indicate that teen sex is acceptable are both easily refutable. First and foremost, teens will learn how to have sex whether we address it in a school setting or not. The first humans did not have sex ed classes, and yet thousands of year later here we are, products of their procreation. Teaching teens how to have SAFE sex is a critical part of ensuring that their health is provided for, both emotionally and physically. Second, cultural norms about the acceptability of teen sex and premarital sex in general are not going to be reinforced in the classroom nearly as effectively as they would be in the home. For teens from families which deem premarital sex a serious issue, they won't need abstinence only sex ed to convince them that abstinence is the best choice. Their families will already reinforce that decision. However, for students who do not have that strong moral influence from the family, an abstinence only sexual education leaves them without the knowledge to defend themselves against the dangers that come along with engaging in sex. In fact, a study of one California abstinence only program found that students who went through it were more likely to become pregnant (or get a partner pregnant) or need an abortion.

Maher's arguments are flawed in a few places. To start, the one study she cites that shows comprehensive sex ed in a negative light is an old favorite of proponents of abstinence only sex education. The study isn't peer reviewed and isn't regarded as a solid research study by many in the field. Aside from shoddy evidence, her only argument against these programs is that they talk about condoms and don't mention abstinence as a option. Let's just add abstinence to the comprehensive curriculum and call it a day.

While I agree that sex has many physical and emotional consequences, the idea that we can only teach teens about the ideal of what they should do is ludicrous. She can throw any number of statistics about how much teens/society is harmed by pre-marital sex, but until she prove to me that abstinence only sex education actually reduces the numbers of teens having sex across the board (which not study has done thus far), then I am inclined to educate our teens about the choices they make. Ignoring the realities of teen sex in the classroom will not make them go away, it will simply make them taboo topics that teens feel they are completely alone in facing.