Teaching teenagers about sex is like handing your car keys to a 6-year-old. He doesn't know how to drive. He can't even see over the steering wheel. But he can hardly wait to get into the driver's seat and put his foot on the gas. You know he's probably going to get into a terrible accident. When he does, it will be your fault for handing him the keys in the first place.
I yelled so loud at the radio that I practically drove off the road myself. Handing them the keys? Lady, they're not only born with the keys, they're born with the car. Isn't a little drivers' ed in order?
The folks who are down on evolution and big on intelligent design tend to be the same ones touting the benefits of abstinence-only sex education. But human sexuality, unlike evolution, can't be spun as "just another unproven theory." We know where babies come from. And if you believe in intelligent design, you've got to give the Big Guy credit for a really clever idea.
Sometime around the age of 13 (if you will allow me to return to the automotive metaphor) our gas tanks are topped off with high-test hormones, and we are ready to go 100 miles an hour, whether anyone teaches us the rules of the road or not.
We can say, "Wait just a minute - you're not old enough to take that thing for a spin," and hope our kids don't drive away while we're not watching. The trouble with this option is that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that around 60 percent of kids have sex by the time they turn 18.
Last year, U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman conducted a congressional investigation into the most popular of these programs. He discovered that the several million students who had sat through these courses had been taught such misinformation as: HIV can be contracted from sweat and tears; condoms fail 31 percent of the time; women who've had abortions are more prone to suicide and sterility.
It was this sort of program that state Rep. Russell Albert, a Republican from Strafford, had in mind when he brought forward House Bill 39. The bill, which defines what should be taught in New Hampshire's sex-ed classes, doesn't concern itself with the mechanics of ova and zygotes. Instead, it promotes scare tactics - teaching kids that if they should have sex outside of "monogamous, heterosexual marriage," terrible things will surely happen to them.
Programs such as the one Albert proposes have poor results at the practical level. Perhaps this is because abstinence-only education stigmatizes sexuality and gives out precious little useful information on where to get birth control and protection from or treatment for sexually transmitted diseases. As a result, while American teenagers have sex about as often as teens in Europe do, we see much worse outcomes in this country.
A recent article in the Journal of Religion and Society noted that the United States, by far the most religious of the Western nations, also suffers from the most social dysfunction. Our so-called red states in particular - the conservative strongholds of the South and Midwest - had much higher rates of "homicide, mortality, STDs, youth pregnancy, marital and related problems" than did the less conservative blue states of the Northeast.
Why this is so is the subject of much debate. But it seems clear that relying upon conservative religious fervor to inoculate our youth against sexual mishaps is both foolhardy and dangerous.
Every one of us is going to drive someday. It can be a wonderful experience, if you know all the rules of the road. Here are the basics. Don't drive until you know them well. Don't drive until you're ready. Wear your seatbelt. Go slow. Enjoy the scenery. And make sure you have someone you truly love, trust and respect along for the ride.
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