How do you feel about teaching abstinence as opposed to sex education (for teens)?

Abstinence only education is the same thing as not teaching teenagers how to safely drive while leaving them the keys to a nice, shiny car and constantly throwing messages at them about how great driving is. People will get hurt.

Teenagers need to be taught respect for themselves, how to say no to sex, and how to do it safely if they’re gonna do it anyway (which they will, and which isn’t always a bad thing).

Teaching abstinence isn’t so bad either, I mean trying to inform teens that they should wait until they get married isn’t the worst thing they could be doing, Not that it really matters, I don’t know the percentages but I’m pretty sure at least 50% of teens these days aren’t waiting for anyone special to give it up to, sadly. In my opinion because I do have a younger sister and want nothing for the best for her, I say teach them abstinence and respect.

My school district gave us every little peice of information they could. For about 5 years of your education, there is about a week of school where there is a Sex Ed course. You start of learning anatomy and make your way up to sexual intercourse and STDs. They also through in some anti-drug classes in there and top it off with 2 required semester courses; Home Ec. and Health Education, both which have large units on sexual education. Has it work? Well, I really don’t think so, but we also don’t have any students walking around pregnant, so that has to be a good sign, right?

Teaching the value of abstinence is a good thing, as are making condoms and birth control readily available. The absence of birth control is not going to stop a teenager from having sex, or prevent pregnancies.

I think that the message should be sent that you should wait, but proper education should be given since there is a very very high chance that they won’t wait. Teaching only abstinence just causes problems. Education is always the best answer…in any situation. Teenagers, just like everyone else, should be making informed decisions.

I wouldn’t hand a loaded gun to a teenage boy without him knowing how to use it and what the repercussions of using it wrong are. Same thing with his dick.

In our district kids are taught everything age appropriately. They are taught that abstinence is an option and given the tools to counteract peer pressure. Some kids know they are not ready. We teach about effective forms of birth control. We also provide condoms although we see some of them used as water baloons during warm weather. We teach sex is sex no matter what goes where so everyone has all the information they need. We teach the consequences of unprotected sex and there are many professionals available for individual discussions. We also have a very low teen pregnancy rate (as opposed to a baby boom among staff).

As much as we’d like teens to wait, the biology is in gear to make them gogogo! and reproduce when the new hormones kick in. We remember being teens, don’t we? Whether or not we gave in to our hormones, they were there. Regardless of how we feel about it, people are wired to have sex. That’s just how it is. I feel a lot of people remember their mistakes as they grew up and want to protect their kids, when the truth of the matter is they’re going to make mistakes, too. Teaching only abstinence is almost denial of that fact, to me. May as well accept it that your kids will have sex someday. But we can help so that they have the tools to make better decisions than we did.

I believe there ought to be a full spectrum of information given to young people from abstinence to responsible, considerate and healthy sexual behavior, whatever orientation they happen to be: The basics of their biology and how children are conceived in 4th or 5th grades and the emotions, orientation, responsible behavior, being considerate of their partners, consequences of irresponsibility, etc., as they get into 10 and 11th grades. At least in the US. I imagine other countries have their own ways of teaching their children.

It’s not like we’re going to be pairing kids off at 15–16 years old as in the old days, so we as adults have a responsibility to help them deal with all these new (legitimate) feelings and desires in a safe, healthy and responsible way.

We had a sex-ed class when I was a freshman in high school (gawd, that was over twenty-five years ago!!). I dont remember exactly what was taught but it seems like I remember that most of the class already knew what was trying to be taught. I ended up getting pregnat over the summer before my senior year. The teacher came to me and asked if I would do a Q&A session with the other classes. I did, and several of the people in the class told me that I gave them more information that one day than they got out of the whole class.

I’m not sure why abstinence is such a good thing. It seems to me that sex ed classes should really be sex ed classes. As in, how to be a good and safe lover. Not that this will ever happen. It’s just a science fiction idea.

As a High School student, I can say that Sex-Ed did every little to prevent me from having sex. It’s more my morals at this point. I think a lot of kids just don’t care however.

Perhaps Sex Talk With Sue Johanson on Oxygen should be homework.

Worked out well for Bristol Palin.

@daloon It is a good thing if you are a young woman who wants to have a promising future and you are surrounded by horn dogs who have nothing to lose if you get pregnant. It is also a good thing to have the tools to do what you want instead of what your peers want. Kids should be taught the facts about everything, including abstinence.

Abstinece, is pretty much like trying to hide an elephant beneath the bed, is not going to work, talking about sex and all the related stuff works a lot better I think…

Girls as young as middle school who are not interested in sex are often labeled as lesbians by boys. We know girls in 7th grade who were giving 7th grade boys blow jobs at the movies on a Sunday afternoon, and contracting STDs.

For a lot of girls, the idea that they don’t have to have sex if they don’t want to, is a novel idea.

@galileogirl. You have one way of looking at it. I wonder if we had real sex education (which is really relationship education), then maybe those “horn dogs” would have a better idea of how they are objectifying women when they only want sex, and they might be more interested in relationships. The woman, of course, would learn about birth control, so if she wanted to have sex, she would reduce her chances of getting pregnant.

Peer pressure is an issue that all schools should teach, starting in grade school. This helps not only with sex, but with drugs and bullying, as well. As I say, all these issues relate to each other, and all are pretty touchy areas when it gets to ethics, morals, and religion. So there never will be real sex education, and we are left with paliatives like abstinence. Sad. Very sad.

There is a need for education both in the facts as well as the realistic possible consequences of sexuality and various reasonable ways to approach them. “Teaching abstinence” is not effective because it tends to be moralistic lying and kids can tell.

They need examples of real stories of real mistakes and real consequences, including that it’s their choice (just like it’s their choice to screw up their lives in various other ways which also need honest education – drunken driving, hard drug abuse, crime…) so they will have a chance to choose not to go create more such examples.

@daloon As I said WE do teach it in our health education class that is required. We don’t just teach the mechanics we demystify a lot of misinformation. (Oral sex is sex and can spread disease. Pregnancy can occur the 1st time and even if the act is not “complete”. ETC) However like every other topic, you can take a kid to knowledge, but you can’t make him think.

I am sure there is a lot more education available than most people think. I went to a Catholic high school in 1961 in the South and we had a pretty good education. The nuns turned us over to a nurse who explained the mechanics and possibilities. Of course that was pre-birth control pill but she explained about condems and answered all the questions.

Of course it shouldn’t wait until high school and it shouldn’t be all placed on the shoulders of the schools. Everybody who is the parent of a 12 year old has been around since the age of Madonna through the era of Bill and Monica and knows all of the sexual messages out there.

Every responsible parent should be explaining the real facts of life before their kids pick it up on some commercial for Burger King or prime time teen sex-opera. (and yes they do watch it whether you allow it or not)

Whether soon or late, most people do eventually end up having sex. Perhaps they wait until they get married, perhaps they don’t. Either way, being properly educated about the realities of sexual interaction (physical, emotional, familial and societal) is definitely a good thing. I don’t believe that providing sex education is promoting sex and downplaying abstinence: it’s arming a person with information. The idea is to prepare young people for the world. Ideally, all parents would be well-informed themselves and would have great relationships with their kids and be able to openly discuss these things with them, but that is often not the case. Hence, sex ed classes.

Every day, I see far more people getting into serious trouble through making poor decisions based on ignorance and/or fear than I do making poor decisions based on complete, accurate information. Promote abstinence all you like, if you like, but do it on a foundation of truth and information, not of ignorance and fear mongering.

As a teenager i think that if Abstinence was taught rather than Sexual Education students would be less informed about sexual relations. Sexual Education provides a better understanding of sex, however Abstinence is a lesson to be taught as well.

i think that abstinence should be taught as an option, but not as the only way. many teens will have sex regardless of whether they were taught abstinence, so it would make sense to teach for a reality in which teens do have sex, and not for a utopian world where they don’t. i think that there should be genuine sex education. most teens are going to have sex eventually, even if it’s not when they’re young. they should have accurate information, because even a lot of adults aren’t clear on a lot of information on sex.

Abstinence only programs are not what children need. I have no issue with my son being taught about abstinence, but I would hope if he has sex-ed, that they also teach about STDs, pregnancy, proper birth control, etc.
But, I will not rely on my children’s schools to provide all the information. It is my job as a parent to be proactive and at least talk to my child and let him know the risks of having sex. If he’s going to have sex, even using protection, the girl can still get pregnant and he can still get an STD. I want him to fully understand that if he chooses to have sex.
That was something I was not taught in school, and ended up pregnant at 16, while on the birth control pill. I will have no problem telling my son about my past experience to let him know that it can happen to him.

There are some interesting statistics here, though sadly they don’t include what sex ed is used in which states. I think Texas and Mississippi are supposed to the leaders in abstinence only, if that’s the case it doesn’t seem to be doing them much good.

Check it out

of course if you look at their map it looks like which side of the Mason Dixon line you live on has a strong effect on the rate of teen pregnancy.

Parents! Go North!