We'd like to pardon ourselves in advance for the ambiguity of the forthcoming statement, but we hope you'll bear with us to see our point out to fruition. Here goes - sex is a lot of things.
Sex is a tremendously consequential act. It's an essential part of the human life cycle, a natural, gratifying instinct and overall, an enjoyable experience between two consenting individuals. Sex is also one of the most frightening aspects of life. It can bring unwanted or unexpected pregnancies. It can give you sexually transmitted infections capable of lasting a lifetime. Its emotional after-effects can be traumatic enough to alter a life forever.
There are plenty of reasons not to have sex. Abstinence, though, is not reason enough to stop teaching young people the correct, safe way to initiate a sexually-active lifestyle.
Under the agenda of President Bush, public schools face the reality of presenting an abstinence-only approach to sex education. Proponents say that abstinence is the only 100 percent effective method of birth control and the only assured way to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted infections. That particular argument is nothing short of rock-solid, though flawed.
The fatal flaw in that method of sex education, however, fails to account for one thing - reality. Most of us would consider an adolescent to be too young to have sex, as biologically capable as they may be. Logically, though, adolescents that are capable of reproduction have always been having sex, will continue to have sex and somewhere in this world, a pair of young people too emotionally and intellectually immature for sex are probably having sex while you read this. Those are the two surefire realities of sex education - abstinence is the best method of preventing the negative effects of sex, but its ideals are maligned by human nature.
What proponents of abstinence-only sex education seem to discount, though, is that while abstinence is factually foolproof, it's fundamentally ignored. Sex education for young people in public schools is absolutely imperative if we wish to prevent teenage pregnancy or the spread of sexually transmitted infections. If that prevention is meant to actually impact those negative consequences, young people need to know as much about safe sex as possible. The more the world has learned about sex in the past 20 years, the scarier the practice got.
The actual consequences of unsafe sex command more attention than word alone. The best way to prevent teenage pregnancy? Show adolescents how to properly wear a condom or ask parents for a birth control prescription. The best way to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted infections? Let young people actually know their capabilities. Which is worse - a 15-year-old girl asking a parent for birth control, or a 15-year-old girl telling a parent she is three months pregnant?
To be sure, not all adolescents are living a sexually active lifestyle. Many young people have chosen abstinence as their favorite method of birth control, and for that sound judgment they deserve our commendation. Not all teenagers are having sex, but enough are to warrant our assistance in making sure they'll be safe.
