Reflections on Sexuality Education and Desire: Still Missing after All These Years by Fine and McClelland

While the authors discussed a variety of topics in Sexuality Education and Desire:  Still Missing after All These Years, the bulk of the article focused on a specific part of a 1981 federal law called the Adolescent Family Life Act that introduced funding for educational programs advocating sexual abstinence only until marriage (AOUM).  While I have certainly been aware of this campaign by Christian churches over the years, I had no idea that AOUM was a well-defined program—funded by nearly a billion federal dollars—taught in public schools across the entire country.  No wonder why the Jonas brothers got themselves abstinence rings; virginity pledges are big business!   

                The original AOUM curriculum set out to educate and motivate adolescents of the eight central tenets—all of which promote monogamous marriage as the only safe context for sexuality.  A congressional -commissioned review of the program in 2004 revealed that the AOUM curriculum had morphed into distorted scare tactics including inaccurate and often misleading information about birth control reliability, transmission of STDs, and the life-threatening consequences of sex (p. 309).  Further, many school districts abandoned broad sex education altogether leaving adolescents ill-advised on contraception use.  Additionally, AOUM not only abandons the support and education of the LGBTQQ community with an enforced heterosexual marriage model, one could easily argue the program inherently promotes homophobic intolerance.  

                Interestingly, the numbers of unwanted pregnancies did go down from 1991 to 2003 (21%) despite the limitations of our public sexual education programs.  However, the authors make a convincing point showing teen pregnancies are three to four-fold higher among African-Americans and Latina, as compared to White teens.  This suggests that the lack of sex ed is unfairly affecting minorities.  Perhaps most convincing is the comparison to international teens.  The average age when European teens become sexually active is remarkably similar to the U.S. yet the pregnancy rate is two to four times higher here.  Clearly the use of contraception by European teens is more widely adopted.  It is not clear to me if this is a function of their sexual education, contraception availability, or both.  

                The authors then describe two distinct positions in America to teen sexuality education including the common ground between the two.  Below is my understanding of their summary.

                From my own perspective, as a parent of teen daughters and as an educator of high school teens, I would certainly put myself into the majority group as described.  However, I do not believe the complexities of the topic so neatly bifurcate as proposed by the authors.  When you peel back the onion there are intricacies with many issues surrounding sexual education and the roles of parents and public educators in the context of reproductive and religious/cultural freedoms.  The authors seem to believe that a small, yet powerful minority group of religious conservatives dominate the decisions, but I am not so sure it is that easy.    I believe that many Americans understand these complexities and do not view the issues with the same “black and white” lens used by the authors.   Notwithstanding the surprising persistence of AOUM supporters,   I certainly believe that most Americans support comprehensive sexual education in public schools and teen access to contraception.  However, the authors capture several other related issues in the same net; ones that I am not so sure the majority would agree with.   For example, they mention that schools are violating female students’ privacy by telling their parents of a pregnancy.  While it is true that Americans are afforded privacy rights on their personal health matters, I do not believe that privacy should include withholding information to parents or guardians of a minor and I suspect I am not alone in this view.   Similarly, the authors intimate that they believe the requirement of parental notification by abortion providers is a violation of the minor’s reproductive freedoms.  Again, I think there are many “adult” freedoms that should not be extended to minors and this is one of them.  I am not in favor of any surgical procedures done on a minor without notification to the parents.  Here, I believe the authors unintentionally lose support of a large, moderate audience.

                Overall, the authors made a compelling case that the current condition of America’s sexual education is woefully lacking, one-sided, and dangerous for our teens.  Further, they provided substantial research showing how some of America’s youth can obtain this needed information regardless of the limitations, but the under-served adolescent segments—minorities, low-income, and LGBTQQ—suffer the most.  As with most “lightening rod” issues, I believe that progress is generally made when common ground and compromise are emphasized and, as a mother and educator, I am optimistic that we can substantially improve on our current sexuality education policies.