Sex Education - What is the Best Course?

In the argument for and against abstinence based instruction for teens, there have been a lot of emotional and illogical arguments made. Who should teach sex education, parents or schools? Should abstinence be taught? Let's look at the issue logically.

First of all, does abstinence work to prevent pregnancy and disease? Well, just by definition, we can see that it must. If unwed teens don't have sex, the girls can't get pregnant and none of the teens can get sexually transmitted diseases.

People who say that abstinence doesn't work usually really mean that teens won't be abstinent. But even if this is true, it remains also true that if they would be abstinent, abstinence would work.

If they won't be, then we need to concentrate our efforts on finding out why they won't, helping them overcome those obstacles, and educating them as to why abstinence is worth the sacrifice.

There are people who believe teens do not need to be instructed in any way about sexual relationships. These people say that teens will figure it out on their own eventually and their way will be natural, i.e. the right way for them.

Let me ask you something? Did you potty train your children? Why? Wouldn't they have eventually figured it out for themselves? Of course they would have. But you probably felt the cost was too great, and the effort of training them was worth it. What would have happened if you had left them to their own devices? Most likely they would have been socially ostracized, you would have had quite a mess to contend with, and the expense of diapers is pretty substantial, especially larger ones. Plus you could not have gotten them in to any preschool, let alone kindergarten or elementary school.

It is that way with teens and sexual relations also. Teens can get themselves in a lot of trouble while they are figuring things out. They can get a bad reputation, bear a lot of children, suffer disease and be crippled emotionally if they are not given some guidance.

So if it is true that they need guidance, then the questions are who is to guide them and what will they teach?

Let's go back to that preschool your diapered child can not get in to. Why not? Because the teachers do not want to potty train your child. They have a lot of children to deal with, and potty training is time consuming, messy and very personal. They do not have the kind of relationship with your child that makes such training feasible. Quite frankly, it is nothing to them whether or not your child is potty trained. They do not care for your child in that way. They don't expect to be directly affected by your child's decisions for their entire lives. The way you do, for instance.

So it is safe to say the parents should potty train their own children. Well, how much more the sexual training of attitudes and behaviors that will affect your child's health, relationships, and your grandchildren? Surely it is up to the parent to teach their own children such delicate, personal, essential attitudes and behaviors?

How does a parent teach their teenage child about abstinence, sexual relationships and moral responsibility? Different parents will choose different methods, but I will share with you some examples of methods that are fairly effective. My own mother, for example, answered any questions we asked, honestly and as thoroughly as she could for the age we were. But from the very first question/answer session at the age of 5 years old, she also said that sex was something that married people got to do; that sex was a gift of God to married couples for their pleasure and so they could have children. This was a part of every discussion. Later she elaborated by telling me that my virginity was a gift to my husband that was given to me in trust; it was my duty to guard this gift of purity until I bestowed it on my husband on our wedding night. I never from my earliest memory thought of it as "losing" my virginity; I thought of it as a beautiful ceremony of giving my whole self to my chosen companion for life. Sex was never presented to me as a game, sport or casual thing that belonged solely to my discretion. This made a huge impression on me and kept me safe many times. I was a virgin on my honeymoon, and I have been very happily married for more than 30 years.

I realize not everyone has a mother who will teach them properly, but that doesn't excuse the schools for teaching it as a given that "kids will have sex." They don't approach any other thing this way. A prime example is smoking. The schools have waged an all out war on smoking. They educate actively against it, discourage and disparage it, warn against the health effects, make it appear as uncool as possible and spend time and money to eradicate smoking. Yet smoking is legal, and many, many kids smoke anyway. However, far fewer smoke than would if schools did not teach against it. Abstinence and monogamous marriage can be taught and advocated to children quite easily and many of them will at the very least delay sexual activity; many will no longer feel pressured in to sex by having even the teachers assume they are engaging in it when they are not, thereby making them feel somehow inferior if they are "still" virgins. A society owes their children protection and guidance and the current teachings on sex are irresponsible and I would even say immoral.

If schools are put in to the position of feeling they have to teach children sex education, they should be more responsible in what they teach. For the children whose parents are up to the task, parents are by far the best teachers of sex education, and teaching abstinence until marriage is the ideal.

Sources: Personal Experience