Uneducated sex leads to worse things than educated sex

Posted by Lily Palmer in English 1 - Giknis - A on

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I am passionate about sex education. Teens need to be taught about the dangers of       sex but also that sex is a natural thing. I’m connected to this topic, because I didn’t learn  much about sex in middle school, just abstinence. I went to a private school, so it was their choice to educate us about it or not. I think teens these days should have the right to be educated in a safe setting about a natural occurrence. 

 In most states, sex education is not mandatory. It is required in 25 states & Washington DC. Most of these courses are abstinence only anyway. Teens are already having sex, I doubt any type of course is going to change that. But what we can do is make sure they’re safe while doing it. That could mean giving them condoms, or telling them the dangers of unsafe sex. Of course abstinence is the only way to make sure of being safe, but do teens really care nowadays?



abstpiechart1.jpg

A pie chart about Texas sex    

education in 2009. Almost all

abstinence only. Abstinence plus

should be required in schools as well.


In a research done by Columbia University, virginity pledges increased the risks of STDs or pregnancy since those taking the pledges did not know how to have safe sex. Even 88% of those that took the pledge, had premarital sex. There are articles saying that abstinence pertaining to god forces you into marriage



In the state of Pennsylvania, sex education is not required. The state actually received over a million dollars in 2010 to teach abstinence until marriage courses. Even though the age of sexual consent in Pennsylvania is 16, so many kids aren’t taught safe sex at all. Most private schools don’t choose to teach sex education as a whole, because most private schools are religious & think sex before marriage is sinful. So if most public schools & practically all private schools are rejecting sex education, how do teens find their information? The internet is a fairly reliable source, but sometimes they learn some things that aren’t quite true. Most articles about abstinence make it seem awful if you have premarital sex. Nowadays people staying abstinent for god are more believing that its sinful and they’ll be punished instead of doing it for themselves.




3040-08-figure-6.png
A survey teen girls took about how they got educated
about sexual health. Only 4% say they became educated
from a teacher!                               



In conclusion, I believe that all states should be required to teach sex education in public schools. Teach them the bad, but also the good. Teens probably aren’t going to stop having sex anytime soon, so why not express that its a natural thing, though illegal at their age. I just believe that we should be given proper education on important things. Like which STDs are the worst for you & and how to cure them, how to properly put on a condom, where the nearest clinic is, where to buy condoms, or how to ask your doctor about birth control. These things are so important to know, not just now, but for the future as well.


Comments (5)

Aniya Linder (Student 2018)
Aniya Linder

I think that the content of the posts very cool because teenagers not being educated about safe sex is an important topic but not discussed about enough. The thing that stood out to me the most is when there was a hyper link that takes you to a website where it actually tells you that if you have sex before marriage then you have sinned. This post kind of reminds me of a reality t.v. show called ¨Preachers Daughters¨ because the fathers on the show were pastors and they are had all had daughters that were wild. The fathers would tell the daughters that they would not accept them if the had sex before marriage , did drugs, or went to parties. I am really excited to see what you plan on doing to help change this.

Sopheary Sok (Student 2018)
Sopheary Sok

I was glad to see that someone was working on this topic because recently, I have seen a video about a girl who became pregnant at thirteen years old. She never received sex education and was only taught abstinence in the area she lived in. I felt lucky after reading this because I was educated about sex, STD's, pregnancy, etc. throughout middle school which became very useful knowledge. The statistics of Texas sex education really stood out to me because the percentage of abstinence-only sex education is overwhelmingly high which leads me to wonder about all the teenagers who would have found abstinence-plus education very useful, but knew about it when it was already too late. Another thing that stood out to me was, ¨The state actually received over a million dollars in 2010 to teach abstinence until marriage courses.¨ This bulged out to me because when you think of it, teaching abstinence is really just telling students, ¨Just don't have sex.¨ The million dollars could have gone towards a better cause like teaching abstinence-plus education because teens are going to have sex regardless. I look forward to reading about what you are going to do for the agent of change part. Maybe you can convince the principle of your old school to begin educating students about abstinence-plus sex.

J'Lynn Matthews (Student 2018)
J'Lynn Matthews

Hey Lily, I love your topic. Your title is a little confusing, but I think pretty funny. It's a great topic to work on and it is different from others. I'm curious of how you are going to conduct original research.