8 most absurd lessons Americans teach kids about sex
This article originally appeared on AlterNet.
Despite the fact that 95 percent of Americans have premarital sex, and that this has been true for decades, abstinence-only education continues to be taught in classrooms across the U.S. Abstinence programs have received $1.75 billion in federal funds since the creation of the Title V abstinence-only-until-marriage program in 1996, and that’s not including the Adolescent Family Life Act, created in 1981. What, exactly, are your hard-earned tax dollars teaching America’s youth about sex? Oh, just that it’s dirty, disgusting, shameful, and worthless, at least according to the following abstinence messages.
1. Sexually active girls are like used chocolate.
Before a group of parents forced a change, a school district in Oxford, Miss. taught the evils of sex by passing a Peppermint Pattie around among the students to prove how filthy sexually active girls can become. “They’re using the Peppermint Pattie to show that a girl is no longer clean or valuable after she’s had sex—that she’s been used,” Marie Barnard, a parent and public health worker, told the L.A. Times. “That shouldn’t be the lesson we send kids about sex.” Indeed. Also, this seems more like a lesson of “wash your hands, children!” than anything sexually useful. And hey, here’s an idea, while we’re ruining desserts: Put a condom on that chocolate and see how it remains protected.
2. Sex is like backwash.
One of the exercises recommended by Free Teens (and not Gwar, as first suspected) is to have students spit into a cup, trade cups with someone else, and then drink from that cup. Because that is what you are doing by slutting it up, becoming used and “unclean!” Another spitting variation involves regurgitated food. The message being that sex is gross—until you get married! Then it’s fine, and semen tastes like a strawberry daquiri.
3. Kissing gives you AIDS.
While we’re on the topic of spit, other abstinence programs wrongly teach students that HIV can be spread through kissing. Others have tried to to demonstrate the ineffectiveness of condoms by dropping Skittles through a tennis racket. I played that game once. The lesson learned was how ineffective it is to try to play tennis with Skittles.
4. Sex is like duct tape.
And by duct tape they don’t mean “useful, versatile, and everyone has it.” Sex Respect uses duct tape to “help the students better understand the painful emotional consequences of broken sexual relationships.” Teachers ask for a volunteer: “preferably a boy with a hairy arm” and stick a piece of duct tape on his arm. “Tell the class that this only weakly resembles the natural strength of the sexual bond, but it will still help them see.” The teacher then asks for permission to rip the tape off of the young man’s arm: “It will hurt. The class may laugh, and you may tell him you’re sorry, but the pain is still apparent. The same is true with sex.” This is only true if you’re heeding Cosmo’s sex advice involving snorting pepper and forking your lover.
Anna Pulley (@annapulley) writes about sex and social media for SF Weekly, AlterNet, After Ellen and the Chicago Tribune. She’s also attempting to lead a haiku revival on her blog, annapulley.com.