{"id":252330,"date":"2021-09-01T06:38:33","date_gmt":"2021-09-01T11:38:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=252330"},"modified":"2024-08-05T15:48:19","modified_gmt":"2024-08-05T20:48:19","slug":"selling-sex-schools-ed-designed-failure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/selling-sex-schools-ed-designed-failure\/","title":{"rendered":"Selling Sex in Schools: When sex ed is designed with failure in mind"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This article is Part Three of a series. Click to read Parts One<\/a>, Two<\/a>, and Four<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Advocates for Youth<\/span><\/a> (AFY), the <\/span>taxpayer-funded<\/span><\/a> authors of a comprehensive K-12 sex-ed <\/span>curriculum<\/span><\/a> currently being used in over <\/span>100 school districts<\/span><\/a> nationwide, <\/span>claims<\/span><\/a> that programs such as theirs \u201creduce sexual risk behaviors.\u201d But does exposing children to graphic material which glorifies sexual behavior, like that contained in AFY\u2019s curriculum and on its online cartoon counterpart, <\/span>AMAZE<\/span><\/a> \u2014 as discussed in <\/span>part two<\/span><\/a> of this series \u2014 really reduce reckless sexual behavior on the part of young people? <\/span><\/p>\n

Are children \u2014 including pre-schoolers, one of the target audiences of the <\/span>AMAZE Jr<\/span><\/a>. site \u2014 psychologically equipped to process this kind of sexually explicit material in a healthy manner? Are they really mature enough to make responsible decisions regarding sex?<\/span><\/p>\n

Sex-Ed Snake Oil<\/b><\/p>\n

Research shows that the answer to all of these questions is no.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A <\/span>review<\/span><\/a> of 103 studies on comprehensive sex-ed programs in the U.S. and other nations showed that a large percentage of the programs studied led to <\/span>increases<\/span><\/i> in promiscuity and risky sexual behavior along with their attendant consequences, including \u201cincreased pregnancies, STDs, \u2026 [number of] sex partners, increases in forced sex\/rape, and increases in paid sex.\u201d <\/span>None<\/span><\/i> of them reduced STDs or teen pregnancies, which is what groups like AFY and its financial backers, Planned Parenthood, claim to be doing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This makes sense, as <\/span>research<\/span><\/a> has shown \u2014 and common sense affirms \u2014 that <\/span>normalizing<\/span><\/a> any particular behavior is likely to\u00a0<\/span>increase<\/span><\/a> its <\/span>frequency<\/span><\/a>. As shown in <\/span>part two<\/span><\/a> of this series, AFY and AMAZE normalize <\/span>masturbation<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>pornography<\/span><\/a> use, juvenile <\/span>sex<\/span><\/a> (including sex with <\/span>adults<\/span><\/a>), and <\/span>abortion<\/span><\/a>; the AMAZE site does this, in part, simply by being sexually graphic, but also by directly stating that these things are \u201cnormal.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Research also shows that:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Exposure<\/span><\/i><\/a> to [sexually explicit] content is linked with … earlier progression to sexual activity, pregnancy, and sexually transmitted infection among adolescents. \u2026 In 21 studies, researchers used longitudinal data to find a potential cause-and-effect relationship between exposure to sexual content and earlier sexual intercourse. \u2026 [R]esearchers found that youth whose media diets contained greater amounts of sexual content when initially surveyed were more likely to initiate intercourse by follow-up (1\u20132 years later).<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n