Hey, wait a minute!
Abstaining from sexual activity is supposed to be the only fool-proof method of preventing sexually transmitted disease. Isn’t that right?
And when school systems place a heavy insistence on abstinence in their sex education curriculum, then the occurrence of STDs is supposed to decline, if not disappear. Isn’t that also correct?
What’s going on with the Crane Independent School District in West Texas, which — despite its heavy emphasis on abstinence — has seen a spike in cases of chlamydia at its high school campus?
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/abstinence-only-texas-high-school-hit-by-chlamydia-outbreak/ar-BBjf9nM
Oh, I almost forgot. We’re dealing with teenagers, who — and I was one of them myself — quite often don’t heed their elders’ good advice.
You tell ’em not to do something and they, um, do it anyway.
Sex is an overpowering magnet for hormonally charged-up youngsters.
“Honestly this happens in any town,” said Diana Martinez, a Crane ISD parent. “Parents need to be aware of the situation and make sure they tell their kids to be safe and practice safe sex.”
Sure enough, it does.
And parents need to take responsibility for telling their children to behave and to teach them about the difficulties of coming of age at a time when certain unsafe practices can endanger their health.
However, parents also turn their children over to public school systems for many hours during the day. It’s also incumbent on educators to drive home the points about such things as safe sex in addition to abstaining from sex altogether.
Anyone who’s ever been a parent also has been a teenager. There should be little need to remind grownups all around the world that teens do things against the wishes of those who care for them — be they parents or teachers.
I am surprised that we still only present abstinence only programs in schools. I understand educating teens about sex is a touchy (pardon the pun) and it’s difficult to know the right way to do it, in a way that won’t offend/piss off a certain number of parents. It’s like we just bury our heads in the sand when it comes to the reality of teenage hormones and fascination/obsession with sex and their lack of understanding of consequences/impulse control. Where do you draw the line? How do you strike a balance between promoting abstinence BUT… in education.