I went to high school in East Tennessee, in a predominantly conservative, predominantly Christian county. Rev. Billy Graham dedicated our school chapel in 1991, if that gives you any insight into the culture. Perhaps surprisingly though, my sex education class was comprehensive, informative and thought-provoking.
The head of our health program was also my adviser and one of my dorm parents. That meant for those of us in the boarding student community, at least, Lisa was frequently available outside the usual hours and environments of the classroom. I ate meals with her, babysat her children, cooked in her kitchen and asked her all of my questions about sex and sexuality.
Lisa Drew is from New York; she’s a realist, and she isn’t naive enough to believe that an abstinence-only program is going to be enough to protect her students. So, unlike many of the programs in surrounding schools, we learned about rape culture and using protection in same-sex practices. We even went around the classroom and all had to say the words ‘penis’ and ‘vagina’ out loud.
Lisa’s approach was to normalize sexuality, even for us as teenagers, and she was right to do so. Many high school students are at least sexually mature, even if their brains and emotions haven’t caught up yet. Teenagers are sexual beings. By normalizing and validating our feelings, Lisa gained our trust and normalized us asking questions.
People would text her, or come into her office during a break, or find her outside walking her dog and ask questions like “Can I get herpes from kissing?” or “Can I get pregnant if I have sex on my period?” Lisa always answered matter-of-factly and calmly, and made sure to check in and size up the entire situation.
This is the sort of sexual health program that schools need to invest in. Sexual health is not just about preventing pregnancy; teen pregnancy rates are the lowest they’ve ever been, but there’s still lots of work to be done. Abstinence-only education doesn’t work. In fact, all of the evidence shows that abstinence-only education is ineffective at best, but also that it potentially contributes to higher teen pregnancy and birth rates.
So, why do 29 states mandate that abstinence must be "stressed" during sex education, while only 20 states require that contraception be taught at all? Furthermore, 7 states require teachers to portray all information regarding homosexuality negatively.
Our current sex education curriculum crisis is not from lack of information; the CDC provides age-appropriate benchmarks for what students should be learning at each development level. Looking outside the U.S., other nations have extremely successful school programs.
There’s no excuse for Americans not to receive adequate sexual education. No matter your religion or moral code, what we have now isn’t working, and it’s time to try something else. If any Department of Education people need help, they can always ask Lisa Drew.
