In today’s ever-changing culture, life as an adolescent is more complicated and confusing than it was for past generations. One of the biggest changes that has occurred is how openly our culture talks about sex. It is virtually everywhere spanning from books, to ads, to T.V., and to music, along with other countless sources. The effect this is having on adolescents is quite obvious, with one million pregnancies resulting in teen mothers and three million cases of STD’s effecting adolescents, results as of 2000 (Thomas). In an attempt to solve these problems, educators have looked to abstinence-only programs as the solution. In general, abstinence-only programs state that simply saying “no to sex”, along with the values that go along with the
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In this paper, I will be arguing that abstinence only programs do not properly educate adolescents on sexual activity because they do not sufficiently impact teen sexual behavior, rates of HIV infection, or young people’s sexual health.
One of the major problems with the abstinence-only program is that it hardly impacts teen sexual behavior. Advocates of the program argue that the adolescents educated using this method will sustain from sex for a longer period of time than adolescents educated using other methods of sexual education; although studies show differently. In writing about the possible change in sexual education teaching methods in the near future, Heather Boonstra says, “A systematic look at the federal abstinence-only effort concluded in 2007 that none of the programs it evaluated were effective in stopping or even delaying sex” (Boonstra). The study Boonstra references clearly points out that the adolescents in the abstinence-only …show more content…
When talking about the problems associated with abstinence-only programs Co-author Hannah Brückner, who is a member of Yale’s sociology department, states that, “7.3% of those who pledged before sex have a current STD infection, in contrast to 6.9% of those who never pledged” (Brückner). Brückner is demonstrating with this data that the percent of young people who pledge, people who vow to follow values parallel to those of the abstinence-only programs, to the values of the abstinence-only program are more likely to receive an STD infection as opposed to those who don’t. SIECUS (the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States) agrees with Brückner and adds another more specific results of another study: “Specifically, in communities where more than 20% of young adults had taken virginity pledges, STD rates were 8.9% compared to 5.5% in communities with few pledgers” (Abstinence). According to SIECUS, adolescents educated by the abstinence-only programs, again, have higher rates than those taught by other methods of sexual education. The majority of parents and today’s modern culture would agree that STD prevention is an important part of sexual education. Due to the fact that STD rates are higher in abstinence-only programs as opposed to other methods of sexual education, it can be said that abstinence-only programs fail
In this paper, I will be arguing that abstinence only programs do not properly educate adolescents on sexual activity because they do not sufficiently impact teen sexual behavior, rates of HIV infection, or young people’s sexual health.
One of the major problems with the abstinence-only program is that it hardly impacts teen sexual behavior. Advocates of the program argue that the adolescents educated using this method will sustain from sex for a longer period of time than adolescents educated using other methods of sexual education; although studies show differently. In writing about the possible change in sexual education teaching methods in the near future, Heather Boonstra says, “A systematic look at the federal abstinence-only effort concluded in 2007 that none of the programs it evaluated were effective in stopping or even delaying sex” (Boonstra). The study Boonstra references clearly points out that the adolescents in the abstinence-only …show more content…
When talking about the problems associated with abstinence-only programs Co-author Hannah Brückner, who is a member of Yale’s sociology department, states that, “7.3% of those who pledged before sex have a current STD infection, in contrast to 6.9% of those who never pledged” (Brückner). Brückner is demonstrating with this data that the percent of young people who pledge, people who vow to follow values parallel to those of the abstinence-only programs, to the values of the abstinence-only program are more likely to receive an STD infection as opposed to those who don’t. SIECUS (the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States) agrees with Brückner and adds another more specific results of another study: “Specifically, in communities where more than 20% of young adults had taken virginity pledges, STD rates were 8.9% compared to 5.5% in communities with few pledgers” (Abstinence). According to SIECUS, adolescents educated by the abstinence-only programs, again, have higher rates than those taught by other methods of sexual education. The majority of parents and today’s modern culture would agree that STD prevention is an important part of sexual education. Due to the fact that STD rates are higher in abstinence-only programs as opposed to other methods of sexual education, it can be said that abstinence-only programs fail