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My sex education blog has moved to www.joyceishere.com.  Please feel free to check it out…

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How young is too young for birth control and sex education?

Several news stories this week highlighted the issue of whether middle schoolers should have access to birth control and sex education. CNN reports that a middle school in Maine approved plans to offer access to birth control at its health center, perhaps prompted by an “outbreak of pregnancies among middle school girls.”

Portland’s three middle schools reported 17 pregnancies during the last four years, not counting miscarriages or terminated pregnancies that weren’t reported to the school nurse.

King Middle School will become the first middle school in Maine to make a full range of contraception available, including birth control pills and patches. Condoms have been available at King’s health center since 2000.

While supporters said kids need better access to birth control, some opponents cited religious and health objections.

“We are dealing with children,” said Diane Miller, a former school nurse said. “I am just horrified at the suggestion.”

Another opponent, Peter Doyle, said he felt the proposal violated the rights of parents and puts students at risk of cancer because of hormones in the pill.

The Kaiser Network published a good overview of this topic, as well as links to additional print and broadcast coverage of this. The Huffington Post offers blog discussions of this.

On a related note, even if schools aren’t willing to go so far as King Middle School and offer birth control, some schools don’t even want to offer basic sex education. The Southeast Missourian wrote this week that middle school students being taught sex education by high schoolers through a program called “Postponing Sexual Involvement” reported a lack of sex education up to this point.

When Hileman asked how many students had enough information about sex, no one raised their hand. One student suggested the Internet as a source of information.

The leaders weren’t surprised by the lack of information; many local schools, especially at the junior high level, actively avoid sex education and refuse to discuss contraception.

Schools get away with not discussing the issue at all because “that’s a real hard thing to monitor,” according to Steve Williams, a health consultant for the state’s department of education.

 

 

NYC high schools considering new sex education program

After recently declining federal and state funding for abstinence-only sex education in favor of more comprehensive programs, New York’s Department of Education is standardizing its program at all city high schools by recommending a “research-based” curriculum called Reducing the Risk.

Unlike the abstinence-only programs which New York state has rejected, Reducing the Risk is designed to encourage students to delay sexual activity while at the same time providing information about contraception and disease prevention.

Minnesota joins states declining federal funds for sex education

Minnesota is joining at least eleven other states that have rejected federal funding for abstinence-only sex education, according to the Star-Tribune.

Last month, for the first time in a decade, Minnesota officials quietly said no thank you to $500,000 in federal abstinence-only money. That leaves a budget of only $331,000 for a statewide program that as recently as 2004 received $2 million.

The federal government recently changed the requirements for Minnesota Education Now and Babies Later, a statewide program aimed at 12- to 14-year-olds. The program, administered through the Minnesota Department of Health since 1998, uses both state and federal funds.

That program provided grants to educators, community organizations, churches and other groups to teach some aspects of abstinence, but not all. They emphasized the social and psychological advantages of abstinence, how to reject sexual advances and self-sufficiency.

But the federal government changed the rules:

Among other things, it required all such programs to also teach that sex outside of marriage was psychologically and physically harmful.

This article brings up several interesting points. States that used to be willing to accept federal funding for abstinence-only programs have increasingly rejected the funds, as the federal government tightened the requirements. This happened all the way back in 2005 in Maine’s case. The government also stated that its policies would now focus on unmarried adults up to 29 years in age. Before this, according to an article on BMJ’s site, published by the British Medical Association, the U.S. government used to require that educators could just focus on some of the following main points, but did not require them to teach all of them. Now the government pushes states to teach all of these points.

The rules to be taught about sexual abstinence outside marriage are:

 

• Abstinence provides social, psychological, and health gains
• Abstinence is the expected standard for all school age children
• Abstinence is the only certain way to avoid pregnancy out of wedlock, sexually transmitted diseases, and associated health problems
• Mutually faithful monogamy in the context of marriage is the expected standard of human sexual activity
• Sexual activity outside marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects
• Bearing a child out of wedlock is likely to have harmful consequences for the child, its parents, and society
• Lessons must also teach young people how they can reject sexual advances and how consuming alcohol and drugs increases their vulnerability. They must also teach the importance of “achieving self sufficiency” before engaging in sexual activity.

Another interesting aspect of the Star Tribune article was the claim that state school districts, after meeting basic state laws, have ultimate control over what is being taught and that there may be great differences between schools.

Despite the controversy over sex education, no one really knows what Minnesota students are learning, said state officials and advocacy groups. State law requires that schools include information on HIV and other sexual diseases in health classes, and encourage abstinence, but nothing more.

“Each school district is different,” said Brigid Riley, executive director of the Minnesota Organization on Adolescent Pregnancy, Prevention and Parenting. “It comes down to each building and each principal and each teacher.”

But she said when budgets are tight, health education, which includes sex education, is often among the first things to go, so many children may be getting little sex education.

Some sex ed funds are better used for children’s health, op-ed argues

A New York Times op-ed columnist is arguing that abstinence-only sex education funding, which was recently expanded in a “bipartisan compromise,” could be better used to pay for children’s health insurance.

DEMOCRATIC leaders are right to contest President Bush’s veto of their bill to expand the State Children’s Health Insurance program. But sadly, their “bipartisan compromise” will leave millions of young Americans vulnerable to sickness and suffering of the most preventable kind.

To entice Republicans to support the bill, the House of Representatives agreed to increase money for abstinence-only sex education by $28 million, to a total of about $200 million a year…By dropping the financing for abstinence-only sex ed, Congress could save enough money to insure 150,000 children a year. And it would also demonstrate much needed resolve to protect all aspects of children’s health.

The Kaiser Network provides additional background and coverage of this topic.

The House in July voted 276-140 to approve a $152 billion fiscal year 2008 Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill (HR 3043), which includes a $28 million increase from $113 million for HHS’ Community-Based Abstinence Education Program.
CBAE gives grants to groups that teach abstinence but not how to use contraception (Kaiser Daily Women’s Health Policy Report, 10/15).

I wrote a related post last week about the persistence of abstinence-only sex education funding despite the Democrats’ control of Congress.

Does sex education lead to more sexual deviance among offenders?

A Newswise press release reported today that Canadian research in the June 2007 issue of the Journal of Intellectual & Developmental Disability has found that male sexual offenders may commit these crimes because of exposure to “corrective” sex education, “contrary to the common thought that men with low IQs sexually offend because of a lack of knowledge or sexual deviance.”

A team of North American researchers compared two samples of individuals with and without an intellectual disability and a history of sexual offence and found that sexual offenders with intellectual disability who had committed a serious sexual offence, such as rape or pedophilia, actually demonstrated a greater sexual knowledge than non-offenders. This increased sexual knowledge may be from “corrective” sex education that the offender was given in the past. It can then be concluded that the higher level of knowledge of those who had committed some form of sexual offence was the direct result of their exposure to formal or informal sex education.

The data indicates that there may be two categories of persons with intellectual disabilities that sexually offend: Individuals who are knowledgeable and who offend in more serious ways and Individuals who appear to have a lack of sexual knowledge and whose offence may be the result of that lack of knowledge. The latter is termed counterfeit deviance.

“This study provides support for the need to assess sexual knowledge, sexual attitudes and prior sex education when an individual commits a sexual offence,” says Watson. “Only a careful diagnosis will reveal whether the offence is motivated by sexual urges and fantasies consistent with serious sexual offence or by other factors.”

I thought this article was interesting because it links sex education, which is usually associated with uncomfortable discussions or videos for middle or high schoolers, with criminal sexual offenders. One unanswered question was how researchers were able to establish that there was a causal relationship – that greater sexual knowledge actually leads these offenders to commit sex crimes, which is what the press release’s language seems to suggest. The release seems to approach the issue from the standpoint of the best way to treat sex offenders and to help prevent recidivism. What content is in current “corrective” sex education programs for offenders?

You can view the U.S. Department of Justice’s Center for Sex Offender Management curricula for learning to treat sex offenders. Beyond sex education, many of these rehabilitation programs utilize cognitive behavioral therapy and stress positive relationship building. For more information, you can also view the Colorado Department of Corrections’ survey released in 2000 that surveyed sex offender treatment programs in prisons by state.

You can also read a related article, “Research and Literature on Sex Offenders with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities,” from the Journal of Intellectual Disability Research.

Do sex education programs frame women as gatekeepers of all sexuality?

A recent blog on the New York Times’ site about a discussion of “gray rape” includes a panelist’s quote that suggests some sex education messages may influence how women perceive this phenomenon.

The New York Times post focuses on “gray rape,” which was recently discussed at a John Jay College of Criminal Justice event. The discussion was fueled by an article in the September issue of Cosmopolitan magazine, “A New Kind of Date Rape,” which defined “gray rape” as the following:

“Sex that falls somewhere between consent and denial and is even more confusing than date rape because often both parties are unsure of who wanted what.”

The author of the Cosmopolitan article, Washington Post writer Laura Sessions Stepp, didn’t believe in “gray rape” when she began writing the article.

But in the course of her reporting, Ms. Stepp said, she came across descriptions of “sexual encounters where usually both parties were very drunk and really didn’t know what they had said to each other the next morning.” In such cases, consent is uncertain. Such cases are more likely to emerge today, Ms. Stepp argued in the article, in an era when sexual boundaries and rules for women have loosened and when it has become socially acceptable for women to pursue casual sex.

This relates to sex education because curricula often suggest women are accountable for men’s sexuality and actions in these situations, according to Katie Gentile, who directs the Women’s Center at John Jay.

The message in most of these educational materials, Dr. Gentile said, is: “Girls, you better be careful, because you’re in charge of the sexuality of men and you’ve got to control them. Across the board in these curricula, they are not taught sexual responsibility in these relationships.”

The idea that women are blamed in date rape or gray rape situations is not entirely new. Feminists have argued for years that women are unfairly viewed as the gatekeepers in society, in charge of both their own sexuality and that of males. But Gentile ties the view of women as gatekeepers with sex education and, in her view, sex education’s inadequacies in teaching sexual responsibility.

Abstinence approach gets an unlikely ally…a Democrat

The content of sex education programs can be a tricky issue for politicians, who risk alienating their political base by supporting federal funds for programs that their constituents object to.

The Los Angeles Times reported today that abstinence-only sex education, which has traditionally drawn most of its support from Republicans, continues to survive even though Democrats now control Congress.

Expectations that a Democratic-controlled Congress would gut abstinence-only education rose this spring after a major federally funded study concluded that such programs do not appear to have any effect on sexual abstinence among youth, nor on age of sexual initiation or number of sex partners.

Democrats have generally criticized abstinence-only sex education as ineffective, but David R. Obey, a Democrat from Wisconsin and House Appropriations Committee Chairman, has departed from his party’s stance by supporting the abstinence-only approach.

Robert Rector, a senior policy analyst with the conservative Heritage Foundation, said he believes the Democratic party as a whole will strategically try to until after the 2008 presidential elections to revive the fight against abstinence-only education.

The Kaiser Network reported on the L.A. Times story and also provided some related content.

Does sex education lead to intolerance of religious conservatives opposed to gays?

Conservative groups recently fought a Washington county’s revamped sex education curriculum, but a circuit court judge ruled this week that schools can begin teaching the new curriculum to high schoolers this month.

Conservative groups, lead by the Citizens for Responsible Curriculum, tried to get the court to block the classes until after it can hear their arguments against the curriculum in January…The CRC has argued the revamped classes, approved by the county’s Board of Education this spring, would lead to intolerance against those who oppose homosexuality on religious grounds. They also argued the curriculum fails to fully teach the limitations of condoms in protecting against sexually transmitted diseases.

I think it’s interesting that the debate over sex education extends into discussion of sexual orientation and religious faith. The article left some questions unanswered, such as why the conservative groups believe the revamped curriculum would lead to discrimination against them. Are they saying the new sex education curriculum is pro-gay (and that they’ll thus be marginalized because they oppose homosexuality on religious grounds)? Or is it more nuanced and just the fact that the discussion will include homosexuality, something the religious conservatives are opposed to, makes them feel they will be unjustly targeted?

Do sex education curricula traditionally even extend into discussion of sexual orientation, identity and gender? My own experience with sex education in an Alabama middle school barely dealt with the human reproductive system, much less with sexual orientation.

I think it’s interesting that homosexuals, who have traditionally been marginalized in society, are now ostensibly being blamed for intolerance against the religious conservatives who are opposed to them. Many would argue that religious conservatives have also been marginalized, but it’s interesting that this is also playing out in the debate over sex education.

The Washington Post also invited readers’ comments on this issue.

Jenna Bush writes about safe sex

President Bush’s daughter Jenna appears to advocate comprehensive sex ed and contraception usage in her new book, despite the president’s support for abstinence-based sex education programs, according to The Drudge Report. Jenna’s new book, Ana’s Story, is a biography of a 17-year old HIV-positive mother.

There’s no pabulum about abstinence-only education from the young author whose dad funneled $50 million annually to such programs, despite a complete lack of evidence they work.

“Children need to be free to discuss all of life’s issues … with safe and trustworthy adults,” Jenna writes. “Equipped with information and knowledge, children can then take the steps necessary to protect themselves and to break the cycle that perpetuates abuse and spreads disease from one generation to the next.”

The Drudge Report’s review raises some interesting issues, including the question of whether children must necessarily adopt their parents’ views on social and moral issues. This reminds me of all the media attention several years ago surrounding the revelation that Mary Cheney, Vice President Dick Cheney’s daughter, is gay, despite her father’s and the president’s opposition to many gay rights measures.

Is there any chance that Jenna Bush’s views on sex education would influence the president, or vice versa? If you’ve read Ana’s Story, do you agree that Jenna Bush seems to advocate comprehensive sex education?