The state of America’s sex education is monumentally sad, even more so in Texas. Children are taught to be afraid of their bodies and to resent any physical attractions, which can lead to psychological problems later in life. Being taught abstinence and to wait for marriage can be damaging in several ways; it can produce a lack of comfort with one’s own body, it can build a general distaste for relationships, and it can create trust issues Being taught abstinence impresses upon a person that sex is wrong or immoral when it is a natural process that has a multitude of health benefits. People may become uncomfortable in their own skin because of the oppressive methods of abstinence teaching. Many lessons in abstinence say that you should “respect …show more content…
Author Margaret Blythe of Comprehensive Sex Education is Effective wholeheartedly agrees that America needs to up its game in the sex education department.
Statistics show that states that offer abstinence teaching actually have higher pregnancy rates that states that teach comprehensive Sex ed. Those states also have higher percentages of STD’s because instead of learning to use a condom to prevent infection, students were taught to ignore their bodies until the right person came along.
Speaking from personal experience, many abstinence teachings also ignore any relationship that isn’t heteronormative. Abstinence programs frequently talk about relationships between a man and a woman, but fail to elaborate on the many types of relationships present in today’s society. What, then, are non-heterosexual people supposed to do in a relationship? Since the greatest consequence of sex is a non-curable STD, not teaching everyone about protection and STD prevention means they don’t know how life-threatening unsafe sex can …show more content…
Our youth haven’t grown up yet, so we can’t say this definitively, but research indicates that the majority of young adults are attending college despite massive amounts of student debt. This goes to show that even though we are becoming a little more progressive, it is not negatively effecting the population. “Not a single CSE text encourages teens to delay sex until at least out of high school, much less, waiting until marriage.” (Fisanick, 3) this point from a pro-abstinence arguer suggests that sex is not a natural process, but instead a reward of marriage. AAssociation sex with marriage comes from the belief that sex is only for procreation, which, in turn, stems from religion, which is illegal to teach in schools. Saying that CSE programs do not encourage teens to wait until at least after high school is very misleading because the CSE programs have figured out that teens have a way of thinking and they will act based on their own decisions regardless of what someone else tells them, so instead of trying to completely change their mindset these programs just provide information on how to go about it