The Sexism Of Abstinence-Only Sex Education

Thanks to a new study, we now have scientific method to back up the logical claim that abstinence-only sex education does not prevent teens from having unplanned pregnancies - teen pregnancies are highest in states with abstinence-only sex education policies. Now those teen pregnancies may be caused by other reasons, such as a higher percentage of teen marriages in those states or limited access to birth control and safe sex devices such as condoms, but the correlation with abstinence-only sex education makes sense: if you don't teach teens how to behave responsibly when it comes to sex, how can they be expected to know how to prevent pregnancies? Indeed, comprehensive sex education would likely lower teen pregnancy rates, although it probably would have little effect on reducing the number of teens having sex, which seems to be, more than preventing teen pregnancies, the goal of abstinence-only education.

Thus sums up a common argument against abstinence-only sex education. But it is also inherently sexist.

A Tennessee bill will revise the state's already strict abstinence law to prevent any education that uses the word "sex," with the idea of keeping teens from knowing sex exists, I guess. This bill's passage would be a terrible blow to women's rights because it would also prevent education students about sex crimes, the vast majority of which claim women as the victims. Under this legislation, who would teach the new generation of men that rape is wrong? That sexual harassment, bother verbal and physical, is unjust? That coercing an unwilling women into reluctant consensual sexual is immoral?

And so on.

It seems to me that eliminating sex education has more of a negative effect on the female population (and I'm not even going to go into how women have to understand the process of pregnancy while men get a free pass because it's not their bodies - but that's a whole other can of worms). Of course, if the right succeeds in getting teens to forget sex exists, there won't be sex crimes to worry about. More likely, I think, teenage boys will increasingly fail to learn how to properly treat women, both in sexual contexts (ie. date rape is wrong) and personal interaction (ie. verbal harassment). By routing the "immorality" of comprehensive sex education, the right fails to address the sexist immorality of the consequences.