EDITORIAL: Teens choosing abstinence now
Monday, September 08, 2008 — Windsor Star (Ontario)
A StatsCan study showing fewer Alberta teens are having sex than they were a decade ago appears to show that including abstinence in school sex education courses works. The study revealed that among teens between the ages of 15 and 19, the percentage who report they've had intercourse at least once was 39 per cent in 2005, down from 44 per cent in 1996 to 1997. StatsCan says that girls are responsible for the lower figures — from 51 per cent down to 43 per cent in the same time period — which also suggests a quiet revolution is being fomented in the way girls' values and images of themselves are changing.
Abstinence has been part of the Alberta sex ed curriculum for a number of years, and is an essential component of any sex education program. Focusing exclusively on the clinical aspects of sex, threatening kids with gruesome diseases — as was done 30 years ago — or dwelling overlong on the mechanics of, for example, putting on a condom, do not give kids a context in which to place their sexual relationships. The message in the lesson of pure mechanics is that sex is an entity unto itself, divorced from the realm of feelings and self-respect, and reduced to the level of purely a physical function. Kids need to be taught that sex is something intricately bound up with love, caring, commitment and mutual respect. Instead, for decades, school sex ed classes tended to focus on the clinical aspects of sex.
The emphasis in those classes was on safe sex, but that really meant safe for physical health, in terms of sexually transmitted disease and preventing pregnancy. Teaching abstinence goes further, because it is about what is safe for the mind, the self-esteem and the heart.
The pendulum is swinging back in other ways, too, as Wendy Shalit documented in her book, Girls Gone Mild. She reported that teen girls who are sexually active are much more likely to bully and be bullied, suffer from depression and low self-esteem, and engage in self-injurious activities, including attempting suicide. Shalit noted that girls themselves are in the vanguard of change, whether it's insisting on dressing more modestly or abstaining from sex — and much of this has happened, not just because of peer pressure, but in response to pressure from adults to be more sexualized at an earlier age.
Children themselves are saying "enough!" and the adults need to listen. Teens want and need the adults in their lives to set boundaries, to establish rules and guidelines for behaviour. Teaching abstinence in sex ed classes is one of the most important ways this need can be met -- and the efforts have begun to bear fruit.
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