My education is not sufficient

[ClaimTheKiller]

Hi, my name is Skyler. I'm 16, and throughout all of my sex education in elementary, middle, and highschool so far has always been "You can have sex, but it's better if you don't until you're married. If you have sex before marriage you'll get STD's." That's essentially all that I've gotten, and I'm going into my junior year of highschool. Now I know this isn't true, because I'm healthy and happy, and I'm in a safe sexual and romantic relationship with only one person. I truly don't understand why so many sex educators don't give us more information.
I heard a story a while back about a middle school sex Ed class going to a sex shop to learn sex education. They learned about consent and that sex was okay before getting married, but it's best safe. They covered up all the explicit items except a dildo or two. They handed out condoms at the end, and every kid went home feeling like they understood better. But the school got under fire after that.
I don't understand why sex is such a taboo topic in schools and in homes. I understand the discomfort it can cause parents to talk about it with their children, but in my experience my mother has never been like that, (granted she works for an OBGYN office) so I'd just like a little insight on why schools push abstinence so hard onto kids.

Thanks for reading!
ClaimTheKiller

[Heather]

Hey there, Skyler, welcome to the boards!

That certainly could hardly be called an education! That's be like saying someone is providing a cooking course who only says, "You should only cook when you have these two ingredients, and if you cook with anything of the other gazillion ingredients there are in the world, you're going to get sick. " Not only would that be false, they would have provided no education about cooking whatsoever. No one would leave there even knowing how to boil water. Someone who took that course to learn to cook would sure want their money back!

Ultimately, abstinence-only has primarily been a political initiative, where -- as is so often the case in American right-wing politics -- the separation of church (religion) and state seems to be a thing some folks just don't care to protect. The most recent iteration of this kind of non-education (really, it's fear-factoring to push a certain belief system) started in the late 1990s, but we've had waves of it before, too. We've also had waves where it's taken a big back seat (which have sure been nice). The fact that it was funded in the BILLIONS this last time around certainly helped it take hold in a huge way. In fact, abstinence-only educators tend to get better paychecks than those of us who provide comprehensive education, and especially compared to those of us who do that and are also inclusive AND also talk about pleasure.

Obviously, that is just the barest of overviews, so we can keep gabbing about it if you'd like. I can also suggest a couple books if you want a particularly rich history with all of this that we obviously can't do in a message board discussion.

[ClaimTheKiller]

Hi Heather, it's nice to be talking to you!

I believe I own one of your books, s.e.x. I think it's called. It's been a great help and a wonderful education experience for my mom and I to read. I would also absolutely love to talk to you more, it'd be a great help for some questions that I have, not entirely related to this subject!

[Heather]

Oh, awesome! As it so happens, a brand new edition is coming out tomorrow! It's on Amazon already: not sure how, but they always get books before other booksellers do.

happy to keep gabbing with you. Whatever those questions are, or however you want to continue the conversation we've already started, lay it on me!

(Your mother sounds fantastic, by the way. So much appreciation and mad props from all our staff here for parents who work hard to do this all well.)