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You Learn Something New Every Day

Cara

Were you aware that teaching teenagers that HIV/AIDS can slip through the “tiny holes” in condoms, pre-marital sex leads to suicide, LGBT people don’t exist, girls who have sex are like roses that don’t have any petals, and rape victims shouldn’t be believed is all a part of a “holistic approach to healthy lifestyle choices”?

Well I didn’t either until Why kNOw?, one of the largest providers of abstinence-only education in the country, rolled out its new rebranding effort!

See, because abstinence-only education isn’t about teaching kids that sex is evil and failing to teach them how to protect themselves should they choose to have it anyway — it’s about teaching them to be healthy in a holistic way . . . by teaching them that sex is evil and failing to teach them how to protect themselves!

You’d think they might want to use some of that ability to react to on the ground realities — such as their own unpopularity due to the fact that their programs have been shown time and time again to not work — to recognize that teenagers have sex, and it’s not going to bring about the end of the world, but failing to educate them properly just might make their lives hell.  But nah, let’s just stick with the rebranding.

18 thoughts on You Learn Something New Every Day

  3. I was taught by an abstinence-only curriculum, starting in fourth grade, throughout middle school, and I’m still in the middle of it in 9th grade. I was taught everything mentioned in this article and more. Last year was when I finally realized exactly how stupid it is. My main thought was, How stupid do you think we are?! I couldn’t believe that we were required to learn that crap. My *favorite* part of the whole thing was when they compared sexually active girls to duct tape. Yup. because every time a girl has sex, it’s like sticking the tape to something, then ripping it away, and every time you do that, it gets a little less sticky, so by the time your husband gets to you, you’ll never ‘stick’ to him and have a miserable life. Similar to the rose thing. It’s good to know that i can be compared to duct tape. Of course, it didn’t affect boys the same way, because they’re all man whores anyway, so all sex is good sex to them. The most ludicrous part was the scare tactics. We got to see big, blown-up pictures of STD-infected reproductive organs. THIS IS WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF YOU HAVE SEX!!!!
    umm, okay… Apparently, they think that my IQ is low enough that I’ll actually swallow that. All it did was insult me by calling all sexually girls whores, all guys stupid and horny, and they definitely pissed me off by requiring me to learn stuff that isn’t true, and grading me on it. it just pissed me off.

  4. Hey Jenn,

    In addition to the sticky tape and the rose, they also use a tactic with a piece of candy. They have a boy suck on a piece of hard candy, pop it out and put it back in the wrapper, and ask all of the other boys in the class if they’d like to suck on it now. Obviously, the used candy is a girl who has had sex.

    I’m really sorry that you’re not getting proper sex education. Because you absolutely deserve honest information. If you have questions and want serious, honest advice on anything sex related, I seriously recommend checking out both Scarleteen and Teenwire, and telling your friends about them too. They’re both really great, non-judgmental, medically accurate sites and represent what sex education really ought to be like.

  5. Our tax dollars are going to perpetuate rape myths. how does this happen? Somebody please explain…

  6. So… is the new name, Why kNOw, pronounced “wino”? Masters of marketing, they are.

  7. Wow, I thought there was supposed to be a separation between church and state. What happened to facts?

  8. I came across this with ab-only groups a few years ago – they were already trying a “we’re a counter-culture approach!” tack. Yeah, you mean the totally counter-culture virginity cults that were running our society for thousands of years?

  9. …and there’s some of us, having brushed up close enough to the new age sector to loathe it, distrust anyone who uses the word “holistic”, anyway.
    Sure glad I’m asexual. And thanks for directing Jenn to good info.

  10. I’m in 10th grade. My school does ‘abstinence-plus’, which was basically the whole ‘sex is bad, condoms are bad, birth control fails, and you all have no self control’ shtick. The plus part came from devoting half a period to mentioning birth control and 2 or 3 to the idea that you can stop having sex if you start. No, really? I never would have guessed. {/sarcasm}
    And of course, nothing about the actually process, even something as basic as insert tab A into slot B, repeat as necessary. Nothing on GLBT issues either, or even acknowledgment of our existence. On top of that, there was the incredibly creepy and unhelpful declaration that males can only be raped by other males.
    The most I can say I about the class is that I only got the message that condoms were mostly ineffective instead of completely, and at least they didn’t get into any creepy duct tape/candy/rose metaphors.
    I didn’t even know until recently that my school called its program ‘abstinence-plus’ instead of ‘abstinence-only’. There was no discernible difference in terms of message. Abstinence-plus programs are supposedly more effective than ‘only programs, but that’s only true if they aren’t run in conservative towns like mine, where the ‘plus part is downplayed as much as possible. Of course,abstinence-plus sounds like it’s better, so I’m worried that even if abstinence-only programs somehow get eliminated, ‘plus programs, and their ilk, will get a free pass and keep getting government funding/approval when conservative areas can use them to continue to teach abstinence-only under a new name.

  11. I went to HS in the late 80’s and remember having a comprehensive sex education including–shocker!–where the clitoris is and how it works and that it’s purpose is for female pleasure. Also discussed were all the various types of birth control and how to used them.

    Is this not being taught anymore?? What a shame.

  12. Wow, I thought there was supposed to be a separation between church and state. What happened to facts?

    They were swallowed up by the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives.

  13. The religious right makes me nuts. Plus I live in Texas.

    And as I was reading in Skeptical Inquirer Magazine tonight one of the articles stated how difficult it is to argue with people who do not base their beliefs on reality.

  14. This is so sad. Part of becoming a healthy adult is having an understanding of sexuality. Sex is a healthy thing to do (safely, of course). I cannot believe that they are telling kids that condoms are useless. Not only do teenagers HAVE sex, now many of them have it unsafely. Thanks abstinence educators! I had no idea your job was to promote sex-related guilt and the spread of STI’s and STD’S!

  15. Oh, memories!

    Why kNOw actually provided sex education for the health classes at my high school (and I assume they still do).

    This led to my school being a live action example of abstinence only education fail since, despite the fact that all us girls signed our little “no sex until marriage” cards, my school still had the largest amount of teen pregnancies in our county.

    I also recall that there also happened to be a chlamydia outbreak amongst the students at my former school a couple of years ago. Gee…I guess just forcing us to watch a movie where some doctor showcases loads of icky STI pictures isn’t good enough!

  16. At my high school (late 90s) we were supposed to have comprehensive sex ed. I know a few people who said that their classes were informative, if careful. Mine, however, was hilarious. The issue was that sex ed was taught by whoever you ave gym with that semester. In my case it turned out to be a short, Catholic, ex-marine who was later discovered to be having sex with students (still has his job though, thanks teacher’s union!). We got ten minute of him yelling like a drill sergeant about what words we would be allowed to use, followed by a few questions about sex that made him uncomfortable. He then said, I kid you not, “OK, lesson over, now some sports high-lights.” The rest of the block consisted of him handing out some kind of state-approved literature, then turning on another set of sports high-lights. At one point he used a projector to show us a bunch of Vietnam-era genital horror slides.

    Fuck yeah Chicago Public Schools!

  17. Ooo, in addition to Cara’s story…

    I also saw a skit in which teenage girl was contemplating having sex with her boyfriend. She then asks if she can have some of her friend’s Skittles, and the other girl puts them all in her mouth, chews them up, spits them out on her friend and asks “How does it feel to get something that’s been used?”

    What a fabulous lesson. Blah.

  18. Pingback: Lies my sex ed teacher taught me « Feminists with Female Sexual Dysfunction

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