Amanda Huelskamp
UNIV 112 Ethical Argument Paper
Across the United States, the majority of adolescent children receive some
form of sex education before graduating high school. Sexual education units of
classes are taught in two ways; comprehensive and abstinence-only. Comprehensive
sexual education covers abstinence as an option, but teaches a generally wider array
of sexual health options, like contraceptives and ways to avoid sexually transmitted
infections. Abstinence-only education, however, teaches a student that engaging in
sexual activity prior to marriage is morally wrong, and students are generally not
informed of contraceptive options. Abstinence-only education is frequently backed by
religious groups and taught in states where religion is dominant within school
systems. These practices enforce the religious myth of “sexual purity” and the notion
that any sexual thoughts or actions leading to arousal are immoral and unhealthy.
Abstinence-only education in the United States is not only ineffective and
unproductive, but is generally “medically and scientifically inaccurate” and thus a
failure to our nation’s youth (Lin, 60). The power that Rightist groups have over sex
education and the discourse about sex in our nation is also fundamentally unethical,
dated, and disproportionately oppressive to the sexualities of young women.
Abstinence education programs were introduced under President Ronald
Reagan in the 1980s, but did not gain momentum in popular culture until 1993 when
the “True Love Waits” campaign began to hold “abstinence rallies” and released
statements to the public about the high rate of teen pregnancies (Browning). Under
President Clinton in 1996, Congress approved federal funding for the “Abstinence
Education” provisions of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity
Amanda Huelskamp
UNIV 112 Ethical Argument Paper
Reconciliation Act with the “exclusive purpose” of teaching abstinence. Parts of this
legislation even read that this education is meant to “teach that abstinence from sexual
activity outside marriage as the expected standard for all school age children” and
“teach that a mutually faithful monogamous relationship in context of marriage is the
expected standard of human sexual activity” (42 U.S. Code § 710). State-funded
abstinence-only education is so inefficient that in 2006, the Society for Adolescent
Medicine asserted that abstinence-only programs “threaten fundamental human rights
to health, information, and life” (Santelli). In fact, across the United States there is
little evidence that teens who participate in abstinence-only education and pledge to
remain abstinent actually abstain from intercourse longer than their counterparts who
did not pledge. According to a study published in 2001 in the American Journal of
Sociology, 88 percent of students who took chastity pledges in secondary school still
engage in premarital sex (Bearman & Brueckner). Further, in the past half-century,
the age at which average Americans first engage in sexual intercourse has lowered. In
1960, the median age at first sexual intercourse among men and women in the United
States was around age twenty. The age at first sexual intercourse is now around age
seventeen for both men and women (Alan Guttmacher Institute, 2).
Along with other issues, abstinence programs encourage and enforce the
“purity myth” in which virginity is a virtue and chastity is the only moral option when
it comes to sex. Girls are taught far more than boys from a young age that their worth
is based on their sexuality and that their sexuality ought to be limited and their sexual
thoughts nonexistent. Jessica Valenti, author of The Purity Myth and founder of the
popular feminist blog, Feministing, says in her book that the “...idea at play here is
Amanda Huelskamp
UNIV 112 Ethical Argument Paper
that of ‘morality.’ When young women are taught about morality, there’s not often
talk of compassion, kindness, courage, or integrity. There is, however, a lot of talk
about hymens” (x). As a society, we teach girls disproportionally to men that their
value and their “self respect” should not be based on the content of their characters
but rather their decision to abstain from engaging in sexual behavior.
In her novel “Talk About Sex”, sociologist and professor at the University of
Massachusetts Janice Irvine discusses the disputes in popular culture over sexual
education and analyzes the affects of the “Religious Right” (as she calls it) on sex
education and the national discussion about sex. Irvine suggests that since the 1960s,
Christian interest groups have dominated public and even political discussions about
sex, namely when it comes to sex and children (Irvine, 18). According to Irvine, the
“New Right” has societally deemed sexual acts and thoughts to be immoral, dirty, and
unethical. The campaign has successfully used “scary rhetoric” about sex, which has
convinced parents that their children’s characters are in danger (Bates). This has
contributed to influencing public opinion on the nature of sex, and influencing parents
to keep their young daughters specifically away from it for as long as they can. On the
other hand, parents who openly discuss sex with their children help to influence them
to make less risky decisions when they do decide to have sex, like having fewer
sexual partners, delaying first sexual activities, and using contraceptives (Planned
Parenthood).
Similarly, Linda C. McClain, a professor of law at Boston University and
well-published feminist legal theorist, wrote an essay entitled “Some ABC’s of
Feminist Sex Education” in which she sets forth “basic liberal feminist framework for
Amanda Huelskamp
UNIV 112 Ethical Argument Paper
sex education” and “contrasts such a framework with the conservative sexual
economy of ‘abstinence-only’ sex education” (McClain, 63). McClain suggests that
liberal feminists should combat the ritualized, religious chokehold on public policy by
educating the nation’s youth comprehensively. She suggests that we focus on
“capacity, equality, and responsibility” in order to educate adolescents about sex,
rather than imposing a restrictive national standard on the discussion of sex and
giving funding to abstinence-only education. Similarly to Irvine, McClain asserts that
the religious narrative of sexual education has perpetuated the stereotype of women as
“gatekeepers” of sex and that society’s narrative of sex also denotes sexuality to
danger and immorality.
Linda C. McClain’s proposes to educate the nation comprehensively on sex
education responsibly by considering factors on various levels. McClain suggests we
teach the nation’s youth that sexuality is healthy, and allowed outside of the confines
of marriage. She suggests we also teach on intimate homosexual interactions.
McClain focuses on criticizing the governmental approach to the “conservative sexual
economy” (67), which objectifies women based on their sexual experience and places
their self worth entirely on their purity.
In order to protect the rights of our nation’s youth, we need to educate
children comprehensively on sexual education. In order to make the best decisions for
their own personal sexuality, people must be educated on all of the options available
to them including contraceptives, abortion, and even alternatives for people engaging
in homosexual relationships. Current systems of sexual education do not educate
Amanda Huelskamp
UNIV 112 Ethical Argument Paper
students on the full truth about sexuality, which limits our society as a whole from
maintaining a healthy discourse about sexual health.
The issues with abstinence-only education and purity are dated and oppressive.
Denying and placing social stigma on the natural, innate sex drive in the name of
religion or purity safeguarding is unethical, overrated, and disproportionately
oppressive to women. Women are taught early on that their bodies go from being
owned by their fathers, to God, and then to their husbands- their sexuality is never
their own, and never explored. Comprehensive sexual education would allow for
teaching abstinence as an option, but would also serve as encouragement to teens to
use contraception and to have healthy discussions and choices when it comes to their
experience with sex. A nation with a healthy discourse on sex may not be religiously
kosher, but it would allow for far less teen pregnancies, instances of contractions of
sexually transmitted infections, and would aid in the process of equalizing the socially
acceptable sexual lives of women to that of their male counterparts.
Amanda Huelskamp
UNIV 112 Ethical Argument Paper
Works Cited
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