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Virulent virqinity: "abstinence-only" sex ed programs are putting youth at risk.
"What does penetration mean?"
The question is not that unusual in my job directing a peer education program for high school students. Yet I was taken aback because the young person who asked is sexually active. This young woman of color is just one of the millions of students misled by the sex education she has received in school.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
The onslaught of federal funding for abstinence-only sex education is perpetuating a troubling trend: the rise of a virginity-based model wherein many teens are having sexual contact but not using protection. They don't think it is sex because, like former President Clinton, they believe sex is only vaginal intercourse.
Funding a Puritanical Silence
Exclusive federal funding for abstinence-only sex education began in 1996 as part of welfare reform legislation. In 2001, the Bush Administration created even more restrictive funding totaling $115 million in the past three years. Bush has requested an additional $186 million for fiscal year 2005. Approximately $100 million is now spent annually by state and federal governments on these programs, which, for lack of other federal funds, end up being the only sex education that students receive in school. States apply for the federal money, agreeing to conform to abstinence-only guidelines. Only three states, California, Arizona, and Pennsylvania chose to not take federal funds for abstinence-only programs.
According to the Department of Health and Human Services, a program is eligible when it teaches that "abstinence from sexual activity is the only certain way to avoid out-of-wedlock pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases and other associated health problems." The program must also instruct students that "a mutually faithful monogamous relationship in the context of marriage is the expected standard of human sexual activity" and that "sexual activity outside of the context of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects."
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Source: HighBeam Research, Virulent virqinity: "abstinence-only" sex ed programs are putting...