Should sex educators teach kids about pleasure?

Abstinence-based sex ed has failed, argue some parents. It's high time we started being far more honest about the birds and the bees

A more traditional sex ed classroom in 1948: Some teachers today are revolutionizing the birds and the bees talk for their students.
(Image credit: CORBIS)

The cover story in Sunday's New York Times Magazine profiles a Pennsylvania sex-ed teacher who has abandoned the usual "sex is dangerous, don't do it, but if you must, use a condom approach." Instead, Al Vernacchio aims for candor, telling tells his ninth- and 12th-graders that sex can be pleasurable. For homework, he has even asked students to interview their parents about how they learned about sex. Meanwhile, a University of Massachusetts professor is making news with a study comparing American and Dutch teens. The Netherlands has one of the lowest rates of teen pregnancy in the world, and parents there tend to have more open attitudes about teen sexuality. Is it time the U.S. stopped focusing so much on abstinence?

Focusing on abstinence is still best: "It's appalling" and "incredibly sad that these young people, with the connivance of parents, apparently, are being schooled in a sexual repertoire and vocabulary that would not be out of place in a brothel or on a porn set," says Carolyn Moynihan at MercatorNet.com. These misguided educators are showing kids pictures of genitalia, supposedly to help "desensitize" them. But what kids need is a "strong message" that they should wait until after high school for sex — or better yet, until marriage.

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