Comprehensive sex education can be effective

Comprehensive sex education can be effective


“Don’t have sex,” the coach in the movie Mean Girls cautions a classroom of students, “or else you’ll get pregnant and die!”

The truth is, having sex doesn’t kill you. But only one-fifth of middle schools are teaching all the sex-education topics recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to a recent report by the agency.

The CDC recommends schools teach a total of 16 topics, which range from how to create healthy and respectful relationships to how to get and successfully use a condom. These guidelines come at a time when teens and young adults account for nearly half of new sexually transmitted infections each year.

While the guidelines cover using condoms consistently, they don’t mention the importance of consent or the effectiveness of intrauterine devices at preventing unintended pregnancies.

Comprehensive sex education programs that cover all the bases have proven effective: A 2008 study found that most abstinence-only programs did not delay the age when people start having sex.

Abstinence-only programs emphasize celibacy as the best way to approach sex, and they don’t always give thorough, medically accurate information about contraception and consent. On the other hand, the study found that comprehensive programs delay initiation of sex and encourage students to have safe sex.

For sex education programs to be comprehensive, experts say they should teach students how and why they should practice safe sex and create a dialogue about related topics.

The fact is, almost everybody has sex at some point in their lives. To have a safe and consensual experience, studies show that young people need to understand what sex is and how it fits into their lives.

And the coach in Mean Girls is wrong: Rest easy knowing that having sex does not automatically mean you’ll get pregnant and die.

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