A favorite tactic of conservatives is to craft public policy not in response to the world as it is, but the world as they'd like it to be. Case in point: abstinence-only sex education. Close to 100 percent of Americans have pre-marital sex -- and research shows it's been that way since our grandparents were young! In 2003, 62 percent of high school seniors had lost their virginity.
But we should ignore all this and tell kids they'll ruin their lives forever if they have sex out of wedlock, right?
Via Violet Blue's San Francisco Chronicle Open Source Sex column, I've been alerted to a much smarter way for sex-ed curricula to be built. It's happening in Australia, where researchers went out and actually asked adolescents and young adults what they were looking for from sex-ed. The answers show young people are a lot smarter than they're usually given credit for -- they said they want to learn how to communicate about sexuality, how to say "no," and how to interpret messages of rejection and consent.
The Australian program was manufactured with an eye toward avoiding date rape situations in bars and clubs, but the approach -- asking teen students about their sexual experiences and then giving them information that helps them navigate their real lives -- is one that makes absolute, perfect sense. The Australian Parliament is considering nationalizing the program. But I'm not holding my breath waiting for our Congress to seriously take up sex-ed. After all, even under the Democratic leadership, the House continues to funnel millions of dollars annually to abstinence-only.
--Dana Goldstein
