National Abstinence Lobby Day? We're Abstaining.

The National Abstinence Education Association has picked today as "2009 Abstinence Day on the Hill." Abstinence on the Hill? That'll be a trick. As organizers bring carloads of youth to the Capitol, to sing the praises of abstinence (literally--there will be dancing, bands and some sort of 'drama teams'), a few thoughts:

On Monday, Barack Obama issued a Presidential Memo to  restore scientific integrity in governmental decision-making. He decried the past goverment's "false choice between sound science and moral values" and said that science must inform our policies. Barack Obama has made the connection; now it is time for the ab-only folks to make it, too: science shows that abstinence only education doesn't work. Want proof? Read the overview from our Fall 2008 Sexuality Research and Social Policy issue, which published articles from Doug Kirby, John Santelli and others showing that abstinence programs have been a failure. Can I boil it down for you?

If science must inform policy, and science shows that abstinence-only education doesn't work, then our abstinence-only policies must be defunded and something new put in their place. So stop right now and send an email, from the folks at Advocates for Youth's Amplify, to ask that the govt get rid of ab-only policies. Especially if they involve abstinence clowns.

Thanks.

Now, while you're envisioning the end of girls quasi-marrying their fathers at purity ceremonies, and no more STI-juggling clown interventions, let me ask you to dream a little bigger.

Let's excise the word abstinence from our vocabularies--call it an abstinence abstinence, if you will. And not just for lent. As our cognitive linguist friends at Real Reason have pointed out, the term abstinence casts sexuality as something negative, dangerous and dirty--something that we must fight against. When we use our opponents' language, we end up giving credence to their position. And we don't want our young people to see sex as negative and scary, we want to support them in making positive, healthy sexual decisions. Including the decision to wait to have sex. So let's say it like that.

Which means we don't talk about our new 'abstinence-plus' curriculum, we talk about a 'healthy sexuality' program. And to take it one step further, we don't just talk about our 'comprehensive sex-ed program', which talks about the medicalized issues of STIs and pregnancy, we talk about truly comprehensive programs that allow our young people to make sophisticated, self-aware sexual choices. How about, "I don't want to have sex--not because I'm afraid of pregnancy or getting an STI, but because I don't feel like it."? Or "I do want to have sex and let's figure out a way that it feels good to both of us, which includes using a condom." Scary, huh?

The fact is, we as a society are more afraid of our young people wanting to have sex (and, god forbid, enjoying it) than we are of them having STIs or getting pregnant. So we would rather keep pretending that they aren't and scratch our heads at how all these (abstinent) teens are somehow getting chlamydia and becoming parents, than deal with the fact that all of us are sexual beings, for all of our lives.

That's the kind of thinking that's dangerous--and that's we need to abstain from. Science says so.