Shades of Mediocrity

When "Because I said so" isn't good enough

Not only are abstinence-only sex ed programs rife with scientific inaccuracies and ridiculous generalizations, but as it turns out, they also don't work very well. The headline of this Reuters story pretty much says it all: in Texas, teenagers who had abstinence-only sex education became increasingly sexually active at the same rate as their peers who did not take abstinence-only classes.

I don't know about the rest of you, but this finding doesn't strike me as terribly surprising. Social pressures and teenage hormones being what they are, it seems obvious that simply saying to teens, "you really should wait" is unlikely to change their behavior. Even as adults, our best intentions can disappear in a cloud of emotion and instinct during the heat of the moment. Expecting teens to have better self-control than adults just isn't realistic. Plenty will abstain, for a variety of reasons, and I don't think there's anything wrong with presenting abstinence as the safest and wisest choice. But many won't abstain no matter what they're taught. It seems almost criminally negligent in this day and age not to inform teens of how they might reduce their chances of contracting a sexually transmitted disease and/or becoming pregnant. This is hardly a new insight for those of us living in the reality-based world -- but maybe studies like this one can change the minds of a few of those who've drunk the social conservatives' kool-aid on this issue.