Schools are there to teach...the birds and the bees

When I was in elementary school I learned about girl parts and boy parts. When I was in 9^th grade, I took biology and learned about reproduction on a scientific level. When I was in tenth grade, a man from a church came in and taught us the virtues of abstinence.

I’m not in grade school anymore, but there are still a lot of kids who are and someday some of them might be mine. Abstinence only versus sexual education, which curriculum should students learn? Should this subject even be approached?

The first thing I consider is what I learned from my parents. My mom and I were putting up wallpaper when I was 13; my mom dipped a brush into the wallpaper glue and said “This looks like jizzum. Do you know what jizzum is?” Beyond that, I learned the anatomy and basic reproduction from school, and anything else I know about sex from magazines, movies, and my friends. So what does this tell us? That parents are not interested in explaining these things to their kids. And who can blame them? It’s awkward, adults don’t know what to say, they probably don’t have a bounty of information anyway. So, my vote is to leave it up to trained professionals. Schools are there to teach, let them take care of this.

Point-counterpoint: those who advocate abstinence argue that teens having sex has lead to an increase in teen pregnancies and STI’s. We need to encourage kids to not have sex until they are married and the incidences of these will lower significantly. The other side says kids are having sex even if we tell them not to, so we should encourage them to make responsible, informed choices and have all the information necessary to do so. The also say that this list of options should include abstinence as a choice.

My thoughts: This is a quote from the abstinence side, “Schools teach 'no smoking' and 'no drinking.' They don't say 'if you smoke, use a filter' or 'if you drink and drive, wear your safety belt.' Why should sex be treated differently?" Um because the last time I checked, putting a condom-covered penis in my vagina didn’t destroy my lungs or crash my car (although at one point it did almost kill my vagina). That’s not to say that there aren’t risks to having sex, married or not. But kids need to be aware. To hold back information from kids that could save their lives is irresponsible.

But really, I think the idea here is that parents should have three options to choose from: 1) abstinence only, provided by the school 2) sexual education including all forms of birth control provided by the school, or 3) whatever they want to tell their kids about birds and gardens or whatever goofy ass story they can cook up.

— Nikki Todorow