Teaching Kids Sexual Sanity

I strongly suspect Americans are deeply uneasy with adolescent sexuality.

Indeed, that seemed obvious to me yesterday when I spent two or three hours watching the Waxman Committee hearing on abstinence-only sexuality eduction. During the hearing, it was mentioned more than once how eight out of every ten Americans want kids to stay celibate through their adolescent years.

Perhaps just as significant, every politician and witness who spoke at the hearing took pains to point out that he or she adamantly preferred adolescents to remain sexually abstinent until — at the very least — they become adults.

So, I feel almost un-American to suggest the primary goal of sex ed ought to be teaching kids to deal in a responsible and healthy way with their sexuality — regardless of whether or not that means abstinence.

I have nothing against abstinence, but I think it should never overshadow health and responsibility.

Hannah, who once lived next door to me, was 17 when she first had sex. Hannah is the sort of person who marches to her own drummer. She was not pressured into sex. Nor did she lightly decide to have sex. Instead, she thought it through and made a careful decision to have sex with her boyfriend. Then she phoned an older friend of hers — a woman in her twenties — to ask for preparation and advice.

Hannah’s friend scheduled a day off from work to take Hannah to Planned Parenthood for birth control, Victoria’s Secrets for lingerie, and lunch for coaching. Armed by her friend’s support, Hannah then “terminated her virginity”, as she put it, “with extreme prejudice.”

Hannah dealt with her sexuality in a responsible and healthy way, as did another young friend of mine. While in his mid teens, Steve passed up one opportunity after another to have sex. As he put it, he was “following his gut, not his gonads.”

When he was 19, he met a woman in her mid-twenties with whom he felt a strong sexual rapport. It turned out the feeling was mutual, though neither one of them was interested in a relationship. His gut finally told him to go ahead. She introduced him to sex, and Steve found the experience beautiful.

So far as I can see, there is nothing necessarily wrong with adolescents having sex, but there is indeed something wrong with anyone — adolescent or not — having irresponsible or unhealthy sex. I think the focus of sexuality education in the United States should be on preparing adolescents to have healthy and responsible sex lives. In other words, rather than focus on teaching sexual abstinence, I would prefer we focused on teaching sexual sanity.