Over at American Times, LOOG princeps E.D. has a post up about abstinence-only sex education. Specifically, he highlights a recent study that reports on the sexual activity of young evangelical Christians, those who one might presume would be most likely to refrain from premarital sex. According to the study (which he rightly notes is but one), 80% of unmarried evangelicals aged 18-29 have had sex. Considering these data and their implications for abstinence-only sex education, he writes:
Sexual education is an opportunity for kids to think more deeply about the consequences of sex and ways to be smart about their bodies. Abstinence only education relies too much on the fairy tale that all our hormone-addled teenagers and young adults have deep reserves of self discipline. Better to be prepared than to stick to your guns at all costs.
Indeed. Given evidence that the population most ideologically inclined to agree with abstinence until marriage is having sex anyway, it seems reasonable to conclude that giving adolescents information about abstinence alone will leave them grossly unprepared for their real-world behaviors, and will lead to increased risk of unintended pregnancy and sexually-transmitted infection. Abstinence-only sex education policy is unlikely to be effective at preventing any of the undesired outcomes.
Beyond being ineffective, however, it is simply unethical to use ignorance as a means of modifying behavior. Once an adolescent has decided that she wants to start having sex, it is wrong to deprive her of information about how to safeguard her health and well-being simply because you have a moral qualm with her decision. The Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine puts it this way in a position paper on the subject:
Abstinence-only education policies have implications at a public and individual level. Access to complete and accurate HIV/AIDS and sexual health information is a basic human right and is essential to realizing the human right to the highest attainable standard of health. Governments have an obligation to provide accurate information to their citizens and eschew the provision of misinformation; such obligations extend to state-supported health education and health care services.
Even if abstinence-only sex education were effective at preventing premarital sex in a substantial number of adolescents, it would still be wrong. It compels through ignorance a choice made for teenagers by people other than themselves. The moral decision whether or not to have sex is one that should rightly be made by the individuals in question, even if parents and policy-makers would want them to choose against it. That choice should be made with all the facts available, and should be informed by but distinct from education about their health. Keeping them unaware of effective methods of contraception and STI prevention as a means of enforcing behavior modification is coercive and unethical.
It also contributes to higher rates of teen and unmarried pregnancy. After all, their religions also teach them that the use of contraception is morally wrong, and they have been kept ignorant of the scientific information about how to Do The Deed while minimizing the risk of pregnancy.
And sometimes when a teenager falls pregnant, she will marry the teenage father of the child because their religion teaches them that’s the right thing to do under the circumstances. And because this was really just a teen romance that was never built to last, they outgrow one another and split. Witness the tragedy of the broken family and a part of the explanation that evangelicals experience higher divorce rates than adherents of more moderate religions or the irreligious. Which is only relevant because it’s most often the evangelicals saying divorce is a bad thing morally and on a social policy level.
I’ve also heard legends from Mormon friends, who went through puberty with the catchphrase “It’s moral if it’s oral.” Still a risk of STD transmission if that’s your resolution of the tension between religion and sex education. But a lot less risk of pregnancy.
I would draw a distinction between, on the one hand, giving young adults education about safer sex and (preferably) access to contraceptives and condoms, and on the other hand, teaching that contraceptives are wrong or that one must marry the partner when an unwanted/unexpected pregnancy results.
I think the focus should be on education and facilitating access and not critiquing the judgments about what’s right and wrong.
Not that I disagree with your critique (I don’t) or the appropriateness of advancing it here in this blog. But I do think we’ll catch more flies with the honey of education/access than with judging the judgments. Of course, we have an uphill battle either way. (Ouch!….sorry about the horrible, mixed metaphor(s) and cliche(s).)
… i heard that one about Catholics. Except it wasn’t exactly a legend.
The legends of evangelicals I’ve heard is about entire bible camps going bump in the night, because only married people can make babies.
Mr. Saunders,
I agree with your post. I think too often the moral imperative of what it means to encourage by ignorance is too often not discussed.
Ya know what’s worse, doc?
When these self-righteous fools refuse to fund research because it “might encourage promiscuity.” Ya know, the type of research that might save lives.
Abstinence only education leads to more rapes (non-consensual sex), on a general basis. Depriving people of education forces them to rely more on their instincts — and then these gits want to blame the victim for “not being more disciplined.”
Out of curiosity, would you extend this to the teaching of the withdrawal and cycle method of contraception? I mean, assuming that the failure rates and pitfalls were discussed in addition to their likelihood of reducing unwanted pregnancies?
Truly comprehensive sex ed would include these methods, it is true. I’ll be honest and admit that I don’t discuss them in as great a detail as I could, largely because they are difficult to do effectively and have a very high failure rate if done wrong. They also confer no protection against STIs.
I have a lot to say on the subject, if that offer for guest posts is still open.
Mais oui!
I remember the old joke:
Q: What do you call people who use the rhythm method for birth control?
A: Parents.
Even if abstinence-only sex education were effective at preventing premarital sex in a substantial number of adolescents, it would still be wrong. It compels through ignorance a choice made for teenagers by people other than themselves.
I’m all for a libertarian view of adult liberty and choices, but I have a problem with this because teenagers are not adults. I don’t see the same rules.
What occurred to me the other day is that the realistic expectation for abstinence education is to postpone the beginning of sexual activity. Get ’em to 16, anyway. Sexually active 12-16 yr olds miss out on a lot of development: educationally, socially, psycho-sexually, whathaveyou.
There’s going to be a utilitarianism in all this no matter how you look at it. Safe sex instruction and the like is likely going to sexualize 12-16 yr olds more than otherwise. And as we know, safe sex or condom sex still has an unacceptably high failure rate.
There’s no magic bullet for any of this, but I think the “empirical” side is ignoring a lot of factors that should be figured in before treating 12 yr olds like adults.
Ya’ know what’s less effective than condoms and birth control? No protection at all.
In fairness to Tom, I think this is very contextual.
There are 12 year-olds who will not benefit from a frank discussion about sex. There are 16 year-olds who likewise will not benefit from a frank discussion about sex.
There are 15 year-olds who will benefit immensely from a frank discussion about sex as long as their discussion partner isn’t their parents. There are 14 year-olds who will not benefit immensely from a frank discussion about sex if the discussion partner *isn’t* their same-sex parent. Or opposite-sex parent.
I don’t have a problem with sex education programs, and think that they should contain the gamut. Abstinence-only has little evidence to support it as an effective prevention method, and sex-ed programs should have, as a metric, effectiveness.
They should be opt-out, however.
Not “opt-out for anything except abstinence”. Opt-out. You either let a counselor/doctor talk to your kids about sex education because you think your kid will benefit from that context, or you opt-out and teach them yourself, and on your head be it.
… are you really okay with letting households where incest is occurring be the same ones where the girls/boys aren’t learning sex ed?
Not really helping your case with your rhetoric there, Kimmi.
It’s not a rhetorical trick, to be dead honest. It is perhaps a bit outside the norm — but everyone’s gotta know someone, and ya tend to frame things based on the people you know.
I very much agree with this. Keep an eye out on NaPP for a post on the subject.
This less so. The (perceived) normalization of early sexual activity and promiscuity is a product of so many factors that I would be surprised if this made much of a difference one way or the other. Depending at least in part on how it is taught. If taught “you’re going to have sex, so here’s what to do…” you might get a different set of results than “pregnancy and STD prevention starts with abstinence, the most effective manner there is, but if you choose not to, here’s what you need to know…”
Aye, Will: I hedged with “likely” on the 2nd part. But I can question the certitude of the “well, they’re going to do it anyway” claque, and certainly the “choice” aspect of teenagers as though they were adults. I think there’s much more to be examined on this.
Right, well, I will concede that teenagers aren’t adults. Now what? I do not believe that their non-adult status is sufficient justification for depriving them of information about contraception and STI prevention. Do you? If so, why?
In America, we really don’t have normalization of early sexual activity.
In South America, it’s reasonably common practice to see non-consensual sexual activity with preteens in school. Teachers do not stop it. It’s done basically in public.
Thinking, even for a moment, that “use a condom” or “take a pill” sexualizes someone is Boring and Dumb.
I was more fucking sexualized by the portion of class on STDs, and that’s only because everything has pictures online. But nobody complains about that part of the class.
Safe sex instruction and the like is likely going to sexualize 12-16 yr olds more than otherwise.
Sorry Tom, I do not agree with this at all. There is no evidence that teaching adolescents about safer sex induces them to become sexually active if they are not otherwise inclined to be.
And as we know, safe sex or condom sex still has an unacceptably high failure rate.
Well, it has a significantly lower failure rate than using nothing. Further, a lot of condom “failures” are related to incorrect use, which could be obviated by more effective education.
There’s no magic bullet for any of this, but I think the “empirical” side is ignoring a lot of factors that should be figured in before treating 12 yr olds like adults.
There’s a lot of blurring going on in that sentence. Giving teenagers age-appropriate information does not equal treating them like adults. Sex ed classes should be pitched to the developmental level of the audience, and (as Will says downstream) should strongly feature abstinence. But if treating young adolescents like kids means depriving them of information in a benighted quest to keep them innocent, it does them no favors.
I’m not ready for global pronouncements on any of this, is all, Russell.
There is no evidence that teaching adolescents about safer sex induces them to become sexually active if they are not otherwise inclined to be.
No doubt. I do not expect the sex-ed establishment to look for it, and this is my reservation. Nor do I think it’s easily quantifiable, in fairness.
As for condom failures, misuse is part of the equation. So is breaking. “Better than nothing” may be a false choice, I submit.
Yes, indeed, condoms may break. One would hope that a comprehensive sex ed curriculum would also include information about emergency contraception.
And sure, it’s hard to quantify something like “did your sex ed class induce you to start having sex?” when God only knows if teenagers could answer a question so abstract. My gut response is that, between the adolescent’s own hormones and the remainder of our hyper-sexualized society, the contribution of a sex ed class to one’s sexual debut is negligible.
I’m unsure, Russell. I’m allowed to have doubts. It’s in the rules here.
😉
Once officialdom starts making a behavior normative, “you know & I know you’re going to screw around anyway ,” well, I don’t know. I am unsatisfied with the sex-ed claque’s certainty. There are many in it with a social agenda, you know.
I’ve always had reservations about condom use. Yes, it’s better than letting ’em play with a loaded gun, but there’s still a bullet in one chamber. Offering Russian Roulette as an alternative is not a satisfactory strategy.
First, it’s a good thing those asking for abstinence-only education have no social agenda, unlike the great conspiracy of sex-ed activists to make 15-year-old boys want to have sex.
Officialdom didn’t make that behavior normative. 5,000 years of the activities of young people made that behavior normative.
On condom use, as Russell said, that’s why you have emergency contraception. No form of birth control is 100% effective, as should be said in sex ed classes, but doing nothing is far less effective.
I will raise your concerns at the next claque meeting, Tom.
And I most certainly don’t claim to know that my patients ARE going to do it. A great many of them deny that I do, even after I fall all over myself promising them I won’t blab if they tell me. It is plausible that some number of them are telling the truth. In all of those cases, I tell them that continued abstinence is my best recommendation. And then I tell them to use condoms 100% of the time if they change their minds.
I am not entirely sure I think the Russian Roulette metaphor quite holds, but I’ll call it a day and agree that condoms aren’t 100% effective. Which is why I also prescribe all manner of hormonal contraceptives, and recommend using both.
Dr. Wife is very, very big on the “two forms of birth control, every time” sermon. She also has a few things on (a) why not to have sex with people you don’t know very well and other things on (b) why to put off having sex even if you’re in a committed relationship.
Even though I’m going to handle most of the psychological stuff with our future kids, she’s no slouch on the subject.
Jesse, you do realize you douchebagged yet another sincere, heartfelt and principled discussion yet again, don’t you? Butt out, and let the adults talk. That’s the first step to adulthood.
________
Dr. Saunders, I do not say your “gut response” is wrong. I do say I remain unsure. And I will hold to the Russian Roulette analogy, both metaphorically and empirically.
To wit: The condom failure rate is ~15%, rounded off, one-in-six, the odds at Russian Roulette.
Teach that, and we are in agreement, empirically, no moralizing or theoretical BS or whatever it is I seem to be up to.
If only there were a safe way to illustrate that in the classroom with blanks, but there isn’t, if you recall Jon-Erik Hexum…
{Wiki}On October 12, 1984, the cast and crew of Cover Up were filming the seventh episode of the series, “Golden Opportunity,” on Stage 17 of the 20th Century Fox lot. One of the scenes filmed that day called for Hexum’s character to load blanks into a .44 Magnum handgun. When the scene did not play as the director wanted it to play in the master shot, there was a delay in filming. Hexum became restless and impatient during the delay and began playing around to lighten the mood. Apparently, he had unloaded all but one (blank) round, spun it, and in what would appear to be a game of Russian roulette, at 5:15 p.m., he put the revolver to his right temple and pulled the trigger.[6]
Hexum was apparently unaware that his actions were dangerous. Blanks use paper or plastic wadding to seal gun powder into the cartridge, and this wadding is propelled from the barrel of the gun with enough force to cause severe injury or death if the weapon is fired within a few inches of the body, especially if pointed at a particularly vulnerable spot, such as the temple or the eye. Although the paper wadding in the blank that Hexum discharged did not penetrate his skull, the wad struck him in the temple with enough blunt force trauma to shatter a quarter-sized piece of his skull and propel the pieces into his brain, causing massive hemorrhaging.[1][7]
Hexum was rushed to Beverly Hills Medical Center, where he underwent five hours of surgery to repair his wounds.[7] On October 18, six days after the accident, Hexum was declared brain dead.
I hear you completely on this, Brother Russell, and I value our joint moment of clarity. Me, I see no harm in properly scaring the shit out of pre-adults about how they’re about to ruin not only their own lives, but some likely some innocent’s too.
If sex and only those-kinds-of-sex with sperms and eggs present didn’t tend to make babies, I wouldn’t give a good goddamn. It would register even below the Game of Thrones on my interest meter.
The harm is, of course, the demonstrable fact that scare tactics lead to the opposite of the intended effect.
Teens are largely immune to such creepy authoritarian incompetence, if not outright encouraged to rebel against the blatant manipulation inherent in such tactics.
Don’t be a dick, Darren. There are some things that SHOULD scare the shit out of you. It’s not a “tactic” to clue a kid in, it’s education.
Leaving aside the ad hominem crap, you haven’t actually addressed my chief objection, that attempting to scare kids into abstinence is a proven failure.
And no, it’s not scaring them with the truth, as shown in the link above — it’s forcing melodramatic propaganda down their throats to manipulate their behavior, which they either ignore or see through like expensive underwear.
Tom, perfect use failure rates (that is, consistent and correct use) for condoms is nowhere near 15%. For an explanation of the difference between perfect (correct and consistent) use and typical use, here’s a handy reference.
Wait a second? Why are we assuming condoms are readily available? some of these same abstinence only people are actively working to remove condoms and other birth control from their society.
The problem with scaring kids is that when they don’t get pregnant the first twenty times, they tend to relax.
Y’all realize that the pregnancy rates are calculated based on people pretty much constantly (once per week, for a year) having sex, right?
Russell, “typical” use is the real world. from yr link:
Before you put a condom on:
Store condoms in a cool, dry place away from direct sunlight.
I mean, we’re like kidding here, right?
As to my use of “scare,” it does not mean lie or even exaggerate. It means tell the truth about a scary thing. I think the condom rubric is a bit naive and unempirical, and therefore dangerous.
1) People’s typical use would probably be improved by appropriate education.
2) See my above comments re: emergency contraception.
3) The real life failure rate of condoms is still substantially better than no contraception at all.
Whoa there, I’m pretty sure there’s something else that’s going to do pretty much 100% of the lifting in sexualizing 12-16 year olds and sex education, it ain’t.
So it’s Jersey Shore then, right?
We need to look at the unintended consequences from other plans and, if those unintended consequences are regular and predictable, then we know that we can leverage them for the good of the rest of the society.
It is with that in mind that I suggest subsidizing D&D books for the boys in this 12-16 age group.
This certainly removes a certain set of the boys from consideration.
Maybe free porn for the remainder?
I’m pretty sure we have that for everyone already, don’t we?
As if they didn’t have this already.
Home computer access might do more to address this problem than we thought.
Not just with the issue you mention but World of Warcraft is now free to play to level 20…
This is brilliant. The cool kids in south korea are masters at WoW an battlenet. Therefore, they are playing games instead of doing their homework. In america, they are having sex instead of doing their homework. If give the two choices, I would rather any kids I had do the former.
In fact, most of the time it goes beyond willed ignorance (great title, btw; will ruthlessly steal in the future) and into full-blown emotionally manipulative propaganda.
Most abstinence-only programs, like most drug ‘education’ programs, deal not only in ignorance, but actively present misinformation and engage is some of the most ugly, transparent scare tactics imaginable.
The position paper linked above makes similar points.