America Needs Better Sex-Ed Classes! No, Really.

[lilah]

There is overwhelming evidence that the more access people have to birth control and the more educated they are about how to use it, the fewer crisis pregnancies and STDs occur.

Yet most americans have really puritanical attitudes towards sex and can't seem to get over them to teach children how to practice safe sex. Teaching abstinence succeeds only in getting people to delay having sex but then usually they have unsafe sex.

My school taught me abstinence only education and teachers told us to wait until we got married. I regret not pointing out that a) most of us weren't getting married until we were in at least our mid-twenties b) married people used protection too.

[SpeakNow]

We got our first sex Ed lesson in 5th grade. It was mostly about puberty and the basics of how babies are made. We got the same thing in 6th grade. In 7th grade we had this amazing teacher who hated the fact that sex and certain body parts were so taboo. For the first few minutes of several classes she made the class shout random "awkward" terms loud enough to be heard from the hall. After shouting stuff like "vagina" and "semen" at the top of your lungs, you get over the "awkwardness" she also taught us about Saferrr sex. She said that most sex is not 100% safe, but that doesn't mean it's a bad thing. The three r's at the end of saferrr stood for "rubber, responsibility, and respect." Rubber=make decisions about birth control. Responsibility=make plans for the "what ifs" and respect=respect yourself and your partner. That was honestly the best sex Ed class ever. It's actually one of the few things I remember from 7th grade.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

Ah, the way I was taught was that if you don't have sex (of any kind) you can't get pregnant or get STDs, but if you feel that it's the right time for you to have sex then here are a bunch of methods of protection that work pretty well, and that's okay too. So it depends what you mean by abstinence, and how your frame it. You can be sexually active for a few months or years or whatever, and then decide, or by circumstance, abstain from sex for a while, and that's still abstinence. So the "method" wasn't really described in my sex education course as something you pledge to and then stick to for a set period of time, more as how you describe any time period when you're not having sex, and a choice like any other, where you can change your mind at any time. If you don't have sex, there is a 100% chance you won't get accidentally pregnant, so it really depends if the teachers attach a judgement. Most teens who pledge to be abstinent until marriage tend not to get any contraceptive sex education so when they decide being abstinent doesn't really work for them, they tend not to know about their options.

To me that "abstinence plus" and it makes sense. But to get those scary stats about how only "abstinence" (and "abstinence only" in the way it's compared) is perfect and all other methods are failsauce, you gotta compare like with like, and they don't. The weakness of "abstinence" (only) is that people sometimes fail to observe it - at which point, wouldn't it be GREAT if they had condoms in their wallets and knew how to use 'em? :) Far too often though it's used to say "abstinence is 100%, condoms sometimes break so you can't rely on them - only abstinence works." Then they don't teach anything else. That's dangerous.

Abstinence PLUS some other method for that time when you decide you just gotta go for it, that's all good by me.

[Patsy]

I'll add, too - I have a serious problem with the way abstinence is taught as the only "100% effective" way to avoid pregnancy and STDs. That argument makes a fundamental math error, namely it is comparing statistics taken in HINDSIGHT with the statistics for other contraceptive methods which are calculated beforehand.

To properly compare the effectiveness of "abstinence" with other methods (condoms, birth control pills, IUDs, whatever) you need to compare like to like, which means that you need to start with a population of people who start the year (or whatever observation period) promising to rely on abstinence as their contraception method. At the END of the observation period, you count up how many of them got pregnant or STDs.

That means that all the people who set out to be "abstinent" but then give in in the heat of the moment are properly counted as FAILURES OF THE METHOD. That's a failure of abstinence just as "oops, it broke" is a failure of condoms.

Compared that way, abstinence doesn't look so good.

There's a "typical use" failure rate and a "perfect use" failure rate for each type of contraception. It is correct that the "perfect use" failure rate of abstinence would be pretty close to 0%, but we all know that the typical use is far from it. Even further than typical use of condoms, the pill etc. When it comes to any recommendation from trusted sources, one would hope that both rates are taken into consideration: and yet we still have people who are supposed to be reliable sources of advice going on about how it's "100%" effective. Not in the real world, which is where your recommendations are going to be applied.

[bananacat]

I hate the way abstinence plus ignores rape. Rape is really common. Abstinence isn't necessarily effective even with perfect use because of rape. All sex ed needs to do a better job of discussing rape, especially the classes that focus on abstinence. Personally, I would rather see sex presented as value-neutral.

[shesinsane]

When somebody argues the talking point "if you teach children how to use condoms, that encourages them to have sex", ask them if their car has seatbelts and airbags. Odds are they'll say yes, then ask how many times they drive into walls because they know the safety devices will protect them. If they can't make the connection on their own, point out that knowing how to use safety devices in your car does not encourage you to crash your car, just like knowing how to use safety devices on your genitalia does not encourage you to use it with others. :D

[freejoytoo]

When somebody argues the talking point "if you teach children how to use condoms, that encourages them to have sex", ask them if their car has seatbelts and airbags. Odds are they'll say yes, then ask how many times they drive into walls because they know the safety devices will protect them. If they can't make the connection on their own, point out that knowing how to use safety devices in your car does not encourage you to crash your car, just like knowing how to use safety devices on your genitalia does not encourage you to use it with others. :D

Yeah, that!

[smores]

Huh. I had sex ed in 5th grade, 6th grade, 7th grade and 9th grade.

In elementary school, they talked about puberty and periods and how that works. Once we hit sixth grade, we got a talk about contraception, being safe, relationships, etc. They talked about STDs in 6th and 7th grade, and in more depth in 9th grade. We had to do some sort of "spreading STD" exercise involving dye and plastic cups... I don't even remember. Then the birth video.

No one in my 6th or 7th grade classes were having sex. We were the dorky honors kids then. But I will never forget learning about all those things and basically the "fear of God" put into me about STDs and unwanted pregnancy because of those great educational experiences. I hope that my daughter has as comprehensive sex ed as my teachers, schools and school district believed in.

[CanadianHippie]

There's a "typical use" failure rate and a "perfect use" failure rate for each type of contraception. It is correct that the "perfect use" failure rate of abstinence would be pretty close to 0%, but we all know that the typical use is far from it. Even further than typical use of condoms, the pill etc. When it comes to any recommendation from trusted sources, one would hope that both rates are taken into consideration: and yet we still have people who are supposed to be reliable sources of advice going on about how it's "100%" effective. Not in the real world, which is where your recommendations are going to be applied.

Yup, Abstinence is only 100% effective if you live a truly celibate life (the whole life not just part of it) or you live in a perfect world where no one cheats on a spouse.

[SpeakNow]

Yeah, that!

You can also tell them that teaching kids to use lifejackets encourages them to engage in unsafe boating activities, and that teaching children to wear helmets encourages them to engage in unsafe biking.

[m0drnmoonlight]

Let me just say I agree with all of you. Sex-ed is so damn important and the fact that this country's teen birth rate is so high is proof that "abstinence only" and leaving kids and teens in the dark about how their bodies work is such a huge disservice. I also apologize for how long this response is, I got really into typing it heh.

I started sex-ed in 6th grade (this is 1997 in NY). It was co-ed and it was a strictly clinical "This is the male reproductive system, this is the female reproductive system" approach. Puberty was also tied in, but the teacher didn't go into serious detail. It was part of our health curriculum, so we only spent time on it for a bit before learning about the skeletal or nervous system for awhile. I remember a boy in my class giggling over some of the names of parts of anatomy and my teacher made him say "testes" out loud heh. It was part of health, so we were required to learn it, and I don't remember permission slips being sent home or parents making their kids sit the lessons out.

I remember learning about the human body in 5th grade as well. We had those DK books in the back of our classroom about the different systems and I remember during free time, groups of kids would flip through the books and giggle because there was pictures of naked people in it. Our teacher caught wind of it and gave our class a lecture about how the human body is not something funny to be laughed at and we should be respectful.

I got my period midway through 6th grade (I was one of the later ones - I got teased in 5th grade for not having a bra yet) and in early spring that year, a ~special program~ was held one evening for the girls in my class. We all gathered in the middle school cafeteria and watched a video about how a female's body changes in puberty. It touched on menstruation and breast development and why you should wear deodorant and ways to take good care of yourself. A box of tampons was also passed around the cafeteria, which I don't see the point of, because most of us had our periods already, so it wasn't like it was something brand new to us.

I have no clue if the boys got a similar lecture; I agree with you all that 6th was a little too late to give everyone the "talk" because a majority of kids had already started going through changes. You can tailor these lessons so it's age-appropriate. I would have started giving kids a very basic lesson in like 4th grade, so they had an idea about what was to come.

We got health class in 7th grade, but I don't remember learning much in the way of sex-ed. We did learn what HIV/AIDS are and how they're transmitted, but the majority of this health class was devoted to learning about the harmful effects of drugs and alcohol and cigarettes. And considering how many kids in my class were smoking by the time we were in 10th grade, I don't think those lessons stuck.

In high school, we got another strictly clinical "this is what the reproductive systems in males/females do" lesson in biology (which I took in 10th grade) and that's when we watched the infamous "Miracle of Life" video. I was in a class of 9th/10th graders and no one really acted immature about watching it, apart from the kid who screamed "NO WONDER MY MOM HATES ME!" during the birth part. Health was required for graduation, so most kids took it in 10th or 11th grade. That's where our sex-ed was most comprehensive - health teacher broke out the, ahem, model and a box of condoms and one of the less-squeamish kids volunteered to be the one to demonstrate how to properly put it on while he instructed her. We also spent a lot of time in that class learning about what birth control does and more lessons on HIV/AIDS and how to prevent it. The bulk of the class was once again devoted to drug/alcohol abuse and we got to watch the "here's what smoking does to you" video. But like I said, that didn't do much to scare kids, because so many of them were habitual smokers by that time.

Again, sorry this got long D:

Edited for grammar

[Kitty]

Back in the early 2000s, North Carolina moved to the abstinence-only approach to sex ed. I'm not sure what it did before, but I got force-fed the bullshit in 2005 and 2006, from late 7th grade to early 9th grade.

Even back then it was appalling. I could tell the people teaching the classes were full of shit and didn't believe it themselves. I didn't buy the cutesy "speedy the sperm" segment or the gluing two paper hearts together thing (is that supposed to be warning against giving away pieces of your heart?) They spent so much time railing against condoms that I couldn't help but wonder about birth control pills, which at that point I knew existed (wasn't quite aware of anything else) but they didn't mention at all.

Oh, and the gender stereotypes presented as fact. Apparently as a girl I was weak and vulnerable and jsut wanted someone to love me, so of course I was going to run off and have sex with some asshole sociopath boy who just wanted sex and cared about nobody else. Given that my closest friends in middle school were boys, I knew this wasn't true.

My sex education took place entirely online (no, not through porn, but from more reliable sources like Planned Parenthood) but it didn't go into everything. I had no idea about some things until... after high school. And I'm 20. My boyfriend that I've been dating for over a year now still occasionally gives me a "wtf?!" look when I'm really missing something, and I get all defensive and go "I went to school in Carolina okay, they didn't teach us ANY of this shit!"

I should also mention that last year, a girl I knew 3 years behind me in school got pregnant, hid the pregnancy, gave birth in secret and stabbed the baby to death. Yeah, wonder why...? The nearest Planned Parenthood clinic is also an hour away, and any kind of doctor's office or pharmacy where someone *won't* recognize you and tell the whole damn town is at least half an hour away in Virginia. So with most teens in Hometown unable to get to Virginia without having to bum gas money or a ride, and too afraid to tell anyone anything for fear of being slut-shamed or kicked out by the people who are supposed to care for them, THAT'S WHAT FUCKING HAPPENS WHEN YOU DENY PEOPLE KNOWLEDGE AND CONTROL OF THEIR OWN GODDAMN BODIES.

[m0drnmoonlight]

Exactly, Kitty. If you're ignorant about pregnancy and preventing pregnancy, you're not going to know what to do! And stopping comprehensive education and not teaching kids and teens how to be responsible is going to result in stories like that.

Forgot to also mention, in my 10th grade health class, when learning about pregnancy/birth control, we also had the option of simulating pregnancy. You know, like how some teachers will pass out eggs and you have to care for it like it's a baby? Only in our class, we had actual (anatomically correct) DOLLS. Dolls that would start crying at random times (including the middle of the night and during other classes. God, the other teachers loved when this segment of the class came up) and the parent was given a set of keys (for feeding/change diaper/playing) and they had to pick the right one to stick into the baby to make it stop crying. And yes, you'd fail the assignment if you ripped the doll's batteries out, the teacher had a way of knowing if that happened heh.

As a prerequisite if you wanted to carry the baby around, you had to spend the 24 hours before that simulating pregnancy. As in, wearing your backpack over your front or with a pillow stuffed in your shirt. And boys and girls did it! I opted not to and ended up writing a report on another topic, which was fine with me heh. I went to a small school and there was no teen pregnancies while I was there (that I know of). However, there was rumors about girls skipping school to have abortions. One girl I graduated with got pregnant weeks after we graduated high school and a girl in my brother's class got pregnant shortly after her senior prom though.

Edited for riffle

[Gil]

What? This doesn't do the trick?

Bless this post. :pray:

[Shoobydoo]

What? This doesn't do the trick?

That actually happened in my high school. We got sex ed as a small section of our mandatory health class, and what you learned depended ENTIRELY on who was teaching you. I was lucky and had a great teacher who gave us ACTUAL sex talks. I have no doubt that if students had blabbed about what he was teaching us he would have been fired. Luckily he was a great teacher and everyone loved him.

My sister, on the other hand, was told that if you had sex you would get cancer. This would have been in the early 2000's, between '02 and '05. Yeah.

[Arete]

We had the first talk in 4th grade, and my niece actually got it in 3rd a few years ago. Who knew we lived with so many heathens? We then had sex ed in 7th and 9th grade. This is BEFORE the AIDS scare, so obviously we had no HIV education, but we did go over all the "big" STIs of the time. We were taught there was no 100% way to prevent pregnancy and STIs except for abstinence. We were the given information on the contraceptive methods of the time and their effectivity rate. Condom-bannana demonstration followed.

I couldn't say about 4th Grade, but I don't remember anyone having to leave, and there was certainly no permission slip involved in 7th and 9th. This is another problem, even within an individual state, each district does it's own thing.

[2xx1xy1JD]

We had a mandatory, panic-filled week of sex ed in the classroom that just had me rolling my eyes. It was 1988, and AIDS hysteria prompted the school to get over any squimishness and actually teach us about disease prevention. They did a somewhat decent job of given out info on various STDs. Unfortunately, we had the new conservative principal of our formerly libertarian high school teaching our class, so it included some "wait for marriage" junk and a red-face explanation that the condom must have "fallen out of the pocket" so we couldn't get the demo with the banana. Even then, I remember thinking "how on earth is a wedding ring a substitute for a condom, esp. if your spouse cheats on you?"

The school did have decent sex ed in the family studies dept., but the course was optional.

Thankfully, I had a radio, and listened to Sex Wtih Sue every Sunday night. That show was completely awesome. She's no longer on air, but is still passionate about sex ed and has a good website:

http://www.talksexwithsue.com/home.php

Not breaking the link since it's a sex ed site. Pass it on to a kid in need.

[mkitten]

I will never forget having my period in the fourth grade in Arizona and not being able to throw away my pads in a trash can for the first week of it in the girls restroom because there were no trash cans in the stalls. There were only trash cans near the (unisex) sinks that were open air to the playground that served grades 4-6. No way was I going to carry my used pads for all the world to see to the trash can there, so I would stuff the pad behind the toilet. This lasted for two days before trash cans appeared in the girls room. All these years later I still wonder about that, why on earth were there none before? Was the school just trying to ignore basic biology? I could not have been the only person with that problem. I just wish that I had actually complained instead of being passive/aggressive about it. Arizona was one (and probably still is) a state that had terrible sex ed. Another "Don't do it!" state....

[Kitty]

We had the first talk in 4th grade, and my niece actually got it in 3rd a few years ago. Who knew we lived with so many heathens? We then had sex ed in 7th and 9th grade. This is BEFORE the AIDS scare, so obviously we had no HIV education, but we did go over all the "big" STIs of the time. We were taught there was no 100% way to prevent pregnancy and STIs except for abstinence. We were the given information on the contraceptive methods of the time and their effectivity rate. Condom-bannana demonstration followed.

I couldn't say about 4th Grade, but I don't remember anyone having to leave, and there was certainly no permission slip involved in 7th and 9th. This is another problem, even within an individual state, each district does it's own thing.

Yeah, even in NC where abstinence-only was the norm, New Hanover County schools were all "fuck that noise." I can't remember the exact policy but I think schools offered both and let parents decide. Regardless, U.N.C. - Wilmington was really on top of educating students about sex, and a lot other universities in NC are for that reason.

[rock_girl]

I had a teacher in fourth grade who decided she may as well give the entire class the puberty/basic sex ed talk (it was a composite 4/5 class). She was fantastic. Told all the girls to go home, get a mirror and really examine what was down there because whatever it was, it was normal and we should appreciate it. Now there was a teacher who was way, way, way ahead of her time with body acceptance. I like to think that a number of us came away from our time in her class equipped to deal with the ways our body would change in the coming years and not freak out about lopsided labia or a little more hair than we'd otherwise prefer.

This was a Catholic school, btw.

I'd like to see more teachers giving the "vaginas are all cool and all normal" speech to their students. My waxer tells me that her youngest brazilian client is 15, which makes me feel a bit uncomfortable.

[bellpepper]

Wow! All of your had your periods so early. Mine was the summer between 7th and 8th grade.

In 5th grade, we had a meeting where we learned about body parts and the basics of reproduction (boys separate from girls). Then in 8th grade (everyone together) we had the STDs and safe sex and all that. In freshman health, they never really did anything. I'm a sophomore now. I learned most of the stuff I know from my friends, because my parents were not open about this stuff at all!

[bluelady]

I teach Sex Ed as part of our Health curriculum. I teach Grades 7 and 8.

We do have a curriculum to cover. Grade 7 focuses on the body, puberty and how pregnancy occurs. In Grade 8, the body is reviewed, we talk about different methods of contraception and the different options available if an unwanted pregnancy occurs.

While that is what I'm supposed to cover, I often do a lot more. Every day, all of my students write either a question, if they have one, or a short note to me telling me about their day if they don't. All students put a slip of paper in the question box on their way out the door and I answer them the next day. The rules for the question box were that I would answer any and all questions assuming that they a) were not personal questions and b) were written using proper terminology. Some of the questions were out there, and ranged from whether Mountain Dew was a spermicide to how much gender reassignment surgery cost, but I figured it was better they hear the truth from me than rumor elsewhere.

It also made me a little sad that these kids didn't feel like they could ask their parents these questions.

[ElphabaGalinda]

I teach Sex Ed as part of our Health curriculum. I teach Grades 7 and 8.

We do have a curriculum to cover. Grade 7 focuses on the body, puberty and how pregnancy occurs. In Grade 8, the body is reviewed, we talk about different methods of contraception and the different options available if an unwanted pregnancy occurs.

While that is what I'm supposed to cover, I often do a lot more. Every day, all of my students write either a question, if they have one, or a short note to me telling me about their day if they don't. All students put a slip of paper in the question box on their way out the door and I answer them the next day. The rules for the question box were that I would answer any and all questions assuming that they a) were not personal questions and b) were written using proper terminology. Some of the questions were out there, and ranged from whether Mountain Dew was a spermicide to how much gender reassignment surgery cost, but I figured it was better they hear the truth from me than rumor elsewhere.

It also made me a little sad that these kids didn't feel like they could ask their parents these questions.

Do they learn about puberty before grade 7? If not that seems really late. Though what you teach in grade 8 sounds like what I learned in grade 8. I think it doesn't have to mean that their parents aren't teaching them things or aren't open, talking about anything related to sex with your parents just is often made to feel super awkward, and they may not have asked anyone had it not been anonymous, because they might be embarassed. I wish my school did answering questions like that. There was a box you could put questions into anonymously, but somehow everyone would know if you did it and made fun of you. I would have loved if everyone had to submit a paper so no one would know who was asking.

[bluelady]

Do they learn about puberty before grade 7? If not that seems really late. Though what you teach in grade 8 sounds like what I learned in grade 8. I think it doesn't have to mean that their parents aren't teaching them things or aren't open, talking about anything related to sex with your parents just is often made to feel super awkward, and they may not have asked anyone had it not been anonymous, because they might be embarassed. I wish my school did answering questions like that. There was a box you could put questions into anonymously, but somehow everyone would know if you did it and made fun of you. I would have loved if everyone had to submit a paper so no one would know who was asking.

I"m assuming they do. I'm guessing it's more of a review to them. And, instead of "this is what is happening" it's more of a "this is also WHY it's happening". Again, only my assumption. I'd have to dig into lower grade curriculum to be sure.

And, as to the not talking to their parents, I guess it was more one student than the others. I kept getting questions in the box pertaining to late periods (like, if the ovum were to "miss" the fallopian tube when it was released, could someone miss a period?). After a few days of me giving the same answer, the girl came to me, told me she was a virgin, had never had genital contact with a boy, but had missed a period and was terrified of telling her mom. She had no idea that periods could be irregular at 13.

[Childless]

Wow! All of your had your periods so early. Mine was the summer between 7th and 8th grade.

In 5th grade, we had a meeting where we learned about body parts and the basics of reproduction (boys separate from girls). Then in 8th grade (everyone together) we had the STDs and safe sex and all that. In freshman health, they never really did anything. I'm a sophomore now. I learned most of the stuff I know from my friends, because my parents were not open about this stuff at all!

Hell, I was 16 years old. I have no clue what I would have done if I'd started at 10!

I plan to be very open with my son. I'll truthfully answer any questions he has at any age he asks them. I have a 14 year old niece and I remember my sister blowing off her questions when she was 9 or 10 years old. She finally talked to her at 12, but it was all about abstinence and nothing else. Pathetic. I hope she knows she can come to me with any questions and I'll answer them truthfully. I haven't wanted to tell her that yet because she's still at that age where she tells mom and dad everything and I'm afraid they will shut down her only avenue to get information if they know about it. I'll probably reach out next year sometime. Hopefully, it won't be to late by then.

I never understood this whole "sex is bad!!" teaching technique. Talk about setting up kids for sex issues as adults. It's impossible to view sex as bad and then flip a switch and think it's great as soon as the vows are said. I wonder how the U.S. ranks worldwide for people in therapy due to sex related issues.