Young adults deserve more than scare tactics in sex education

Sophomores have been told “keep your pants on for safety,” in Comprehensive Health for years. This single phrase implies that once your pants are removed, you’ll be in some sort of life-threatening danger — and scare tactics like these contribute to why teen pregnancy and rape cases are higher in America than anywhere else.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Arizona was ranked 15th highest in the nation for final teen births rates among females aged 15-19 in 2011.

Using scare tactics to keep youth abstinent is the most outdated form of sexual education any program could utilize. Scaring young adults to think that sexual intercourse is the most obscene act that any two people could do together creates a negative stigma around a mutually sensual and not-at-all dangerous activity. Not only does this create a divide between adults and adolescents (because youth feel as if sex is an “inappropriate topic” that should not be discussed) but many go their entire high school careers oblivious to proper contraceptive use or STDs due to this.

The Guttmacher Institute, a non-profit organization committed to advancing sexual and reproductive health, states that “about one in four adolescents aged 15-19 (23% of females and 28% of males) received abstinence education without receiving any instruction about birth control in 2006–2008, compared with 8–9% in 1995.”

This is the problem a substantial amount of unplanned teen pregnancies stem from — inadequate knowledge regarding contraceptives. Teens are not learning the real information that should be commonplace among all adults; most teens do not even feel comfortable asking their parents or close family members about sex, so they need to get the real facts from somewhere other than Google.

Unfortunately, young adults are being desensitized to rape and sexual abuse through the media, music, movies, and the internet. Schools are not addressing these sources and setting teens straight, which is sending mixed messages. These discrepancies greatly attribute to the growing rape culture in America.

The Maine Coalition Against Sexual Assault states that one in five women has been the victim of attempted or completed rape in their lifetime, and nearly 1 in 2 women have experienced sexual violence other than rape in their lifetime. These numbers are too high; yet, instead of teaching young men that no one is asking for sex unless it is explicitly stated, young women are taught to never show their shoulders in school for it might turn someone on, or to never put down their cup at a party unless they want to be roofied, or to not walk the streets without pepper spray.

Schools need to be teaching that students should be comfortable and confident in their bodies.

Schools need to be teaching that it is normal and acceptable to be a sexually active teen, and that contraceptives are a must for those who choose not to be abstinent.

Schools need to be teaching that young women are not prostitutes for showing a little skin, and that sexually active teens are not any less of a person for lacking their “v-card.”

Schools should be teaching adolescents every topic of sex, not preaching abstinence, because sex happens.