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BY SUSIE WILSON
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
SEX MATTERS
Most people understand the meaning of the words "don't ask, don't tell." It's shorthand for current federal policy about gays and lesbians in the military. I'm pleased that President Obama, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen support the recession of this policy. It is highly discriminatory, hurtful and antithetical to our country's best values.
Yet I doubt most people will be able to identify the place about which the following words were written:
Sex education hardly exists. By law, counselors may discuss condoms in high schools, but not demonstrate or distribute them.
The place in question is the African nation of Uganda, and I read these words in a frightening series of articles titled "At Front Lines, AIDS War Is Falling Apart." Times reporter Donald G. McNeil, Jr. writes that the AIDS crisis in Uganda "seems hopeless because of the new infection rate. For every 100 Africans put on [lifesaving drug] treatment, 250 get infected."In a second article, he writes: "Casual sex is on the rise [in Uganda] epidemiological surveys say. Condom use, never high, has dropped and even among people who know they are infected, only 30 percent consistently use condoms."
If the situation is so dire in Uganda, why does its government put restrictions on what is taught in classrooms about condoms? Why is it wrong to teach teens how to put on a condom (using a penis model)? Why is it wrong to distribute free condoms to teens in a nearby clinic, or school counselor's office? Wouldn't these actions save lives and lower the nation's skyrocketing infection rate?
Should a student ask a teacher how to put on a condom, the teacher could try to describe the process with words, but might find it more difficult without a visual aide. With restrictions on what a teacher can do, the atmosphere in the classroom might well inhibit Ugandan students from asking critical questions about how to prevent HIV/AIDS, or use a condom consistently and correctly. I doubt that many teachers, because of government policy, tell students what they really need to know.
But then I realize that here in the U.S., many sex education programs in high schools are as restrictive as those in Uganda. Until very recently, the favored sex ed policy of the former administration and Congress was to fund abstinence-only-until marriage programs. School districts that accepted abstinence-only money could only teach about the negative aspects of sex and condoms, such as condoms' failure rates. Certainly, very few districts allow health teachers to educate students on correct condom use. And even fewer make condoms available to them in school nurse's or counselor's offices.
I know that because of state regulations, New Jersey's otherwise valuable School Based Youth Service Program sites are forbidden from distributing condoms – despite the fact that most of these sites are located in high schools with high rates of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. The former director of the program told me that she knew that the boards of education making policy for Camden and Atlantic City High Schools "almost voted to [distribute condoms], but failed to do so."
In most school districts, students probably don't ask and teachers probably don't tell when it comes to getting condoms and how to put them on -- despite the fact that one in four adolescents has a sexually transmitted disease. All one can hope is that teen education websites like Sex, Etc. and Act Youth Network fill the gaps with much-needed honest information for teens.
It's always troubled me that many adults refuse to give teens sexual health information that will protect them. This approach stems from the mistaken belief that if you talk openly and honestly about sex with young people, you will encourage them to engage in it.
Our government is moving in new direction, to which I say, "Halleluiah!" Our new health reform law "pours hundreds of millions of dollars, [$375 million to be exact] into sex education programs that aim to provide teenagers with comprehensive information about protecting themselves from pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases," reports The New York Times.
But abstinence-only-until-marriage proponents are attacking the new approach with scare tactics. In the Times article referenced above, Robert Rector, senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based conservative research group, says that comprehensive education curricula don't emphasize abstinence: "They pretty much normalize teen sexual activity," he claims, and then adds darkly, "They contain very explicit sexual material."
Sounds to me like a sex education warning one could probably hear from public officials in Uganda.
This recent phrase resonated with me: "the politics of cruelty." I think it applies pretty well to the Ugandan government's sex education policy and to conservative sex ed policies here in the U.S. These are cruel policies, because they put young people at risk.
We need the politics of kindness, not cruelty. This would mean that public officials and educators would encourage young people to ask any and all questions about sex and provide them accurate and complete information in sex ed classes. It would require a sea change in current policy -- but what a difference it would make in the lives of young people.
Susie Wilson, former executive coordinator of the Network for Family Life Education at Rutgers University's Center for Applied and Professional Psychology (now renamed Answer), is a national leader in the fight for effective sexuality and HIV/AIDS education and for prevention of adolescent pregnancy. She can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
