The Other Side: The Importance of Sex Education in High School

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Recommended: Comprehensive sexual education program versus abstinence

High school years are generally the years people talk about when reminiscing. Many things happen in high school that are a milestone in a teenager’s life. Their first varsity basketball game, getting a class ring, and even maybe their first love. Along with their first love comes the topic, pressure, and even attraction, to sexual behavior. It is an inevitable feeling that all teenagers will feel at one point in time. With media today forcing sex in almost everything, adolescent sex is becoming a bigger problem. How it is handled on the other hand is a completely different topic. Parents are not educating their teens on sexual behavior and the consequences are not to be preferred. On the other hand, schools do not want the responsibility but are forced to take matters into their own hands by teaching abstinence only so that they are not blamed for risks of premarital sex such as AIDS, pregnancy, or STDs. Comprehension teaches kids about safe sex and the proper safety and precautions to take if sex is desired, whereas “abstinence-only programs are inaccurate, ineffective, and may even cause harm” (Advocates for Youth). Ones who believe abstinence only is the route to take must consider the ramifications of teenagers being poorly informed about sexual education.
The long debated issue of teaching abstinence or contraception awareness is an inevitable topic that has and will continue to linger in school board meeting rooms for years and years to come. Parents are not talking to their children about sex because some deem it as awkward or uncalled for, leaving it to the schools to teach the little education they have. “This take on sex education is known among educators as the "abstinence-only approach," in which totally refraining fr...

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...sex education in the massive welfare overhaul in 1996, abstinence became the mandatory national sex education policy in America for more than a decade” (Wess p4). Parents should, even with in school sexual education, talk to their teenagers not only about no sex but about safe sex. The time will come along when temptation will strike and knowing proper safety measures could, in extreme cases, save a life.

Works Cited

"Abstinence V Sex Ed." WebMD. N.p., 14 Aug. 2010. Web. 2 Dec. 2013. http://www.webmd.com/parenting/features/abstinence-vs-sex-ed?page=2
"Advocates for Youth." Abstinence v Comprehensive Edu.. N.p., 9 Sept. 2009. Web. 2 Dec. 2013.
Hess, Amie. "The Politics of Virginity: Abstinence in Sex Education." MuseJHUEdu. N.p., Mar. 2011. Web. 1 Dec. 2013
Maynard, Missi. "Religious Beliefs on Abstinence ." Demand Media. N.p., 5 July 2012. Web. 4 Dec. 2013

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