share: Empowering Teens Through Sex Education
When I was a teenager birth control meant statements like, you can’t get pregnant the first time.
In college friends told me they believed they were sterile because they’d never used birth control and had never gotten pregnant. I can think of at least one friend who was very surprised when, after a year or so of sterility, she did indeed conceive. She said it was a miracle.
The gulf between wishful thinking and sex education may have shrunk in the last generation, but there are still a lot of things kids don’t know and aren’t being taught about sex.
Case in point is the scene from “Mean Girls” when the PE coach utters, “Don’t have sex because you will get pregnant and then you’ll die. Okay, everybody, take some rubbers.” There you have it: both sides of the abstinence debate spelled out in a cacophony of contradicting absolutes.
The first conversation about sex I had with my kids was a kind of milestone with the sweet refrain of, “when two people love each other very much…” After a couple of years passed and the need arose to address the topic with a little more detail - well, that’s when I started to feel sick to my stomach. Not a lot of eye contact going on. Stilted wording, very small bits of conversation shuffling about.
Many teenagers don’t like talking about sex with their parents either. For adolescents, it’s a time to guard the private gate protecting the rain of hormonal changes and physiological leaps while they simultaneously test drive their opinions and beliefs in preparation for the adults they will become. If nothing else, they are completely self conscious, suffering from a horrible case of chronic audience syndrome. Talking about their impending puberty is (and pardon me for using this term but it’s one I hear in my household almost every day) AWKWARD. Sharing a tidbit or two about a situation at school usually surfaces more easily than talking about sexual urges.
Some parents overwhelmingly state they would like a better sex education for their teens on the “what if’s” than what they had back in the day. Many don’t hold a lot of stock in public schools when programs like Family Life Education are abstinence-only, which they feel lacks delving into the realities of situations they’ll be faced with. Discussion in FLE includes the down side of teenage pregnancy and STD’s and it touts the wonderfulness of waiting until marriage to begin sexual relations. Yet, when kids in FLE have questions about birth control, they go unanswered. When the kids want to talk about pregnancy options, the only topic is adoption. There are drawbacks of ending the discussion here.
We tell our children that they should wait until marriage, but deep down we ask ourselves how realistic is it when the average age of matrimony is now in the mid to late twenties? And to add more fuel to the fire, studies show that marriage more often is successful when the couple waits up until age 30 or so to get hitched.
Sociologist Paul Amato of Pennsylvania State University found distinct benefits to marrying older. "We found that the delay in marriage was actually a good thing and it actually improved the average marital quality by a fair amount," he says.
"Older marriages (30’s vs. 20’s) were more cohesive in the sense they did things more often together as a couple. And couples who married at older ages were less likely to report thinking about divorce or that their marriage was in trouble.”
I contacted Caroline Fuller from the Virginia Dept of Education who told me the School Health Advisory Board determines which type of abstinence plan teens (usually in the 8th grade) from a particular school district will receive. This means that the plan which FLE will offer, at least in Virginia, is locally controlled. The program can either be abstinence-based or abstinence-only: abstinence-only focuses solely on abstinence while abstinence–based promotes abstinence but also includes discussion on contraception. The latest evidence shows which of the programs is working.
The University of Georgia conducted a large scale study across 48 states linking teenage sex education and pregnancy rates. In states where abstinence-only programs are the only programs available, the teenage pregnancy rate continued to rise. Researchers also found that abstinence was part of the most effective sex education programs ONLY when it’s used alongside contraception.
Further, CDC centers reported a 9% drop in teenage motherhood in a 2009 -2010 study. Teens aren’t having less sex, they say. They aren’t having more abortions either. Kids are getting better at using contraception, have better access to contraception and they’re choosing to wait to have sex. Years ago, doctors would rarely prescribe IUDs for teens and nowadays teens can sometimes get a prescription for the pill without a pap smear.
Faith based and community organizations launched an abstinence-based program a ways back called Our Whole Lives, aka OWL, a sexuality education program for youth that addresses the attitudes, values, and feelings that youth have about themselves and each other.
OWL provides a non-judgmental co-ed forum for kids to learn about listening to their own inner conscience in the face of pop culture messages and peer pressure. Sexuality is viewed in a holistic light as a part of the human experience. Sessions are dedicated to learning about how sexuality is damaged by violence, exploitation and abuse of power. Other sessions become more controversial. OWL addresses sexual diversity, contraception and abortion as well as adoption and parenting. And there is the ongoing two most mentioned tenets of all: It is healthier for adolescents to postpone sexual intercourse and it’s good to talk to your parents about these issues.
If kids are uncomfortable asking what’s on their mind in an OWL session, there’s always the question box, where questions get anonymously placed. Every question gets answered. Issues are as widely ranged as there are people on this earth. A girl asks, do guys really care what girls wear? A boy asks, is it all right to talk to other guys about personal things? Questions about pornography, rape, contraception, pregnancy and a host of other issues all surface from the box oftentimes due to what students pick up on from the news and in their community.
Teenagers who have completed OWL understand the responsibilities and possible outcomes in romantic relationships. When other kids make some off-the-wall comment about sex, such as you can’t get pregnant the first time, they will not surrender to the typical teenage angst born of uncertainty. They will know the difference between truth and wishful thinking. Some parents voice concerns that this gives kids the green light to promiscuity, but I beg to differ. As one OWL teacher put it, Sex Ed causes sex about as much as umbrellas cause rain.
Sources
Wilson, Pamela M. Our Whole Lives, Grades 7-9. Boston: UUA, 1999.
On-line sources
http://www.guttmacher.org
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-11-09-delayed-marriage_N.htm
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Add a Comment7 Comments
Carol, what a solid program!
Teen sex education is abysmal in this country - both from schools and parents! Some of the "facts" that teens have are frightening and the fact that anyone can say anything on the internet doesn't help!
I do not want my kids to have sex as teenagers either. I didn't and I'm glad. But I also don't think anyone should wait for marriage if they don't want to. Women get married later and later or never marry - why should they all be virgins? Sex should not be exclusive to married people - it's not natural.
But many teen girls don't think it's cool to say 'no' and have sex to become or stay popular and give blow job parties to look cool, when it's utterly gross and demeaning. If a boy won't date you unless you have sex with him - GET RID!
But we do need to wait before having sex so that we have the education behind us and are emotionally equipped to handle sex. Any creature can have sex but humans have an emotional sexuality that must be considered.
~Susan
February 22, 2012 - 10:47amThis Comment
Right on, Susan, thanks for your passionate response!
February 22, 2012 - 3:53pmteen sexuality education is also abysmal in Australia. Adolescents live in an overly-sexualised society with its explicit images and media. Adding to this complexity is the lack of agreement about whose responsibility it is to undertake the education. As many parents lack good information or are ignorant about the consequences of sexual behaviours, adolescent sexuality education ideally should be an integrated approach between the parent or primary caregiver, school and family physician, all who should be trained in effective communicatioon of sensitive issues. Often there is an unfair onus on adolescent females to engage in sex or take sexual precautions. Education will empower female and male adolescents to make informed choices about when they will commence sexual activity and protect against STIs and pregnancy. Margaret E Heffernan, OAM, PhD, HPV researcher, Melbourne , Australia
February 22, 2012 - 10:03pmMargaret - thank you so much for your insights.
February 23, 2012 - 5:12amMargaret, I agree!
Boys need to be held just as responsible as girls for avoiding pregnancy and disease.
All the pressure seems to on the girls (just like in the 50s -and before and beyond- where there was the shame of single motherhood, yet nothing said about the deadbeats who got them that way) to both have sex, and then be solely responsible for the outcome.
I have two very pretty little girls (as well as a handsome young son!) and people tell me (like they do) to lock up my daughters or that I'm in for a lot of trouble. I tell them to keep their sons the heck away from my daughters instead! And to teach them, just as we teach our daughters!
I also hate the way women are advised to not go out after dark. Why aren't they telling rapists this - or take steps to take them off the streets permanently. Again - the onus on women. Aren't women always accused of stealing someone's huband and being a homewrecker? I don't hear men called homewreckers who "steal wives". There is a law in North Carolina where a wife can sue her husband's mistress for "alienation of affection". She should sue her very willing husband for "not keeping it in his pants!"
So I am off on a tangent! But what I am saying is that males are just as responsibiltiy for sex and sexual health females. And the reality is that this just is not the case. This needs to change.
~Susan
February 23, 2012 - 10:18amI totally agree, Susan - you hit the nail on the head. Coed programs, like OWL are designed specifically to address this issue. When these kids hear what the other gender goes through in these adolescent years, there's a lot more understanding and dare I say, empathy, for what pressures are involved on both sides. Coed helps both girls and boys take responsibility for their actions and intentions. Carol
February 23, 2012 - 10:40amSuper input, Margaret and so important for us to know what other communities are doing to help their teens become healthy and happy later on. Please contact me if you come to the States. Carol
February 23, 2012 - 10:37am