One Utah

As someone who teaches comprehensive sexuality education, I particularly enjoyed Jane Jimenez’s recent delusional stream of consciousness everything has gone to hell op-ed.

Jimenez (who for reasons that are obvious only to wingnuts) has a national platform from which to speak, blathers that

Abstinence education shines a light on the problems inherent in promoting sex as entertainment without rules, seeking gratification for one’s own pleasure without concern for those we impact as a result. Abstinence educators are not afraid of acknowledging the life in the womb created by the union of egg and sperm.

It restores a line in the sand. It dares to stand up for true medical accuracy. It is supported by a growing body of research about the foundational needs of humans. It embraces the impact of sex on the welfare of a human being in holistic terms, not only just physically, but emotionally, socially, financially and spiritually.

I’ve long said that one of the problems with sexual conservatives is their refusal to see sexuality as anything other than chaste, prim, missionary position married sex or a Roman orgy. The idea that an unmarried couple, a same sex couple, a young couple, even teens can have fulfilling, rewarding and non-exploitive sex lives doesn’t enter into Jimenez worldview. It’s difficult to miss her sentence “It restores a line in the sand.” IOW, it teaches that only married sex is right and everything else is wrong (and you sluts who think otherwise should be ashamed!).

Jimenez objects that comprehensive sexuality education teaches an array of options, arguing that “Abstinence education does not suggest that outercourse, petting, or naked showers together are several of many healthy and satisfying options to abstinence that teens can choose from when they ‘are ready.’” But of course, those things are true - not just teens but anyone can choose from a wide variety of sexual behaviors other than intercourse that are fulfilling, healthy and satisfying. For sexual conservatives, sexuality is all about the loss of innocence, but they seem to never ask - what is wrong with not being innocent? Why is sexual knowledge, why is sexual behavior harmful? There are risks to sexual behavior, but there are risks to pretty much everything.

In recent weeks, there have been articles in the Tribune about the U of U finally offering a regular curriculum course on human sexuality to students. One article had this great quote

“Everything I knew I learned in my sorority. And half of it was wrong,” said Allison Frost, 25. She and several other students agreed that what they learned in Utah public schools and from their parents was inadequate.

Consider this is a 25 year old speaking; by age 25 a person should not need a college level course to disabuse of them of their false notions about sexuality.   The Trib also had an editorial on the 15th that said,

teachers are forbidden by law to delve into the topic much beyond advocating abstinence. That amounts to promoting ignorance about sex and can have dire consequences.

The Utah Health Department reported earlier this year that, between 2001 and 2005, Utah recorded the largest increase in rates of sexually transmitted chlamydia and gonorrhea in the nation, mostly in youth age 15 to 24.

A health department specialist blamed unprotected sexual activity for the increase. Our youth too often don’t know what “protected sex” means, let alone how to take precautions. Teaching abstinence should be part of any public school sex-ed class, but assuming young people need nothing further is naive and dangerous. They should be armed with accurate information that can protect them when “just say no” isn’t enough.

The prevailing cultural attitude toward sex education in Utah seems to be that talking about it in school will whet teens’ interest, leading to more sexual activity. But research has shown just the opposite.
When teachers explain the mechanics of sexuality, encourage abstinence, treat the emotions of intimacy with respect and outline the dangers of casual sex, teens often decide to wait until they are ready for the responsibility. Utah’s increase in sexually transmitted diseases is evidence that ignoring sexuality doesn’t make sex less appealing.

I agree with the Trib’s editorial board - teaching ignorance clearly isn’t working and cheap moralizing about abstinence isn’t working. Other nations have far more effective sexuality education programs becuase they don’t let themselves get squeamish about the topic.

To get back to Jane Jimenez, a great proponent of the “keep your knees glued together” school of thought, she asserts that the problems in society are all about not having good enough morals.  Her stream of consciousness list of the sexual ills of society includes the reality show The Girls Next Door - the name of which Jimenez gets wrong and calls Girls of the Playboy Mansion, Redbook Magazine, anecdotes about AIDS activists, claims that college health centers are actually “pass through” locations to abortion clinics and a slam at Hollywood.  Everything from Redbook’s articles on good sex to movies to college health centers distributing contraception are part and parcel of the same problem.  Abstinence only curricula are notoriously bad - filled with inaccurate information, negative stereotypes, and delivering bad outcomes - but all those things are ancillary - as Jimenez says, they draw a line in the sand.  They use their bad information, their misleading lessons, to scare teens chaste - to teach conservative Christian sexual morality.

Jimenez repeats the mantra that abstinence works, but ignores, for instance, conclusions of groups like the Society for Adolescent Medicine which last year released a statement opposing abstinence only education and concluding that the “real world efficacy of abstinence approaches zero.” She ignores the Mathematica report, the reports from states such as Minnesota that found that abstinence only education has few if any positive, real world effects.  Instead, she hysterically asserts that abstinence works - an abstract statement that in its broadness is both true and misleading. Yes, it’s true that abstinence results in no pregnancies or STIs, but it ignores the reality that people don’t remain abstinent.

When Guttmacher released their report showing that 95% of Americans have engaged in premarital sex, sexual conservatives denounced it but couldn’t disprove it. Abstinence may “work” but in a world where damned few people are choosing it, it’s not realistic or honest to expect people to be abstinent.  For Jane Jimenze and other sexual conservatives, it is not human nature which is blessed by sexuality, it is liberal indoctrination that makes people have sex.  And in Jimenez’s world, it is comprehensive sexuality education that leads people astray, that “indoctrinates” them to have the sex.

In a perfect example of the way in which misidentifying the problem leads to embracing the wrong solution, conservatives have determined the problem is sexual activity outside of heterosexual marriage.  Their solution is to keep people from having sex outside of heterosexual marriage; this model sees education as indoctrination.  Graduates of the programs that “draw a line in the sand” engage in the same behaviors as their peers, they just feel guilty about it.  Comprehensive sexuality education, which teaches that sexuality is a natural part of life, does not stigmatize people for the sexual choices they make.  Comprehensive programs seek to provide individuals with the tools necessary to understand their sexuality, to communicate with their partners and to make the choices that are healthiest for themselves, choices that for 95% of Americans include sex before marriage, and contracpetion for 98% of sexually active women.  Because we refuse to stigmatize people’s sexual behavior, because we refuse to lie about contraception or to guilt people into making the choices we as sexuality educations believe are “right”, because we refuse to worship at the altar of virginity, comprehensive sexuality educators are, for abstinence only advocates like Jane Jimenez, the grinches who steal virginity. 

This entry was posted Sunday, August 26th, 2007 at 7:23 am and is filed under Bigotry, Conservatives, Contraception, Homophobia, Privacy, Religious Fundamentalism, Sex, This Blog, censorship. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.