7 Things Sex Education Should Have Taught Us But Didn’t

It’s the 21st century and two things are abundantly clear: 1) sex education matters and 2) cultures that believe sex is shameful screw everything up.

The statistics are glaring. More pragmatic approaches to teenage sexuality (i.e., “Hey, you’re going to do what you’re going to do, but here’s how to be responsible about it”) outperform strict abstinence/religious forms of sex education (i.e., “Don’t have sex until you’re married, or else”) by almost every statistical measurement including teenage pregnancies, abortions and HIV infections.

By the way, the United States is the worst offender in all of those categories. And we all know how comfortable we are with our own sexualities. (Hint: We’re not at all.)

The recent government-funded “abstinence only” programs have been found to actually increase teen pregnancy and STI rates in states where they’re implemented, proving, yet again, that teenagers will always do exactly what you tell them not to and screw themselves up in the process.

Nope, purity rings don’t do a damn thing. Biology wants what biology wants. Yet, only 11 US states require sex education to be based on medical science and most other states require no sex education at all.