{"id":37677,"date":"2013-07-10T14:08:25","date_gmt":"2013-07-10T18:08:25","guid":{"rendered":"\/news\/?p=37677"},"modified":"2013-07-11T10:46:12","modified_gmt":"2013-07-11T14:46:12","slug":"does-sex-have-a-price-tag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/does-sex-have-a-price-tag\/","title":{"rendered":"Does sex have a price tag?"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

Sex has a price tag – and young girls often pay the most, physically and emotionally.<\/p>\n

That statement, by abstinence proponent Pam Stenzel<\/a>, is at the heart of a controversy at a West Virginia high school. An 18-year-old student named Katelyn Campbell – who did not attend Stenzel\u2019s lecture on abstinence\u2014nonetheless claims that it amounted to \u201cslut-shaming.\u201d<\/p>\n

“The tone in her videos was really combative,” Campbell told ABC News last week<\/a>. “It just seemed like she was going out to get [teens] who’d already had sex.\u201d<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t comment on the entirety of Stenzel\u2019s work. But the crux of her speech – that sex has a price tag – is a medical reality, regardless of whether Campbell and other proponents of politically correct sex ed want to hear it.<\/p>\n

As I\u2019ve mentioned before, I worked as a researcher for Dr. Miriam Grossman<\/a>, author of the books Unprotected <\/i>and You\u2019re Teaching My Child What? <\/i>I\u2019ve browsed health websites, \u201csex ed\u201d manuals, and even teen magazines like Seventeen<\/i>. Although much of the health information is politicized, the advice offered to young girls on sexual decision-making is downright scandalous.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no right time to have your first intercourse. This is a choice you make,\u201d declares GoAskAlice.com, a popular health website. This canard is repeated ad nauseam in sex education programs and magazines geared toward middle and high school students, such as Seventeen<\/em>. (Don\u2019t let the name fool you \u2013 most of its readership is under 16.)<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no correct age at which you are \u2018supposed\u2019 to have sex,\u201d declares the health website coolnurse.com. \u201cEveryone has to make a very personal decision about what is right for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Really? What if a girl decides that sex is right for her at age 12 or 13?<\/p>\n

One fact absent from most sex education programs is that young girls are more susceptible to STDs than mature women. They don\u2019t include information about the cervical transformation zone (or T-Zone), a ring of cells that is vulnerable to infection. The transformation zone is dramatically larger in a teenage girl, but it shrinks as she gets older. I didn\u2019t find a single mention of the T-Zone in any of the comprehensive sex education guides I reviewed. How many girls have been put at risk for STDs because they believe that sex is \u201csafe\u201d as long as they use condoms and feel ready?<\/p>\n

Also, on a strictly neurological level, kids are not <\/i>able to make a mature decision to have sex. In adolescents, the areas of the brain responsible for impulse control and accurate risk assessment are not fully developed – and won\u2019t be until their 20s. Adults acknowledge this medical fact when debating other issues affecting kids. For example, teens\u2019 limited capacity for risk assessment is often cited as the reason not to let them drive until age 16 or drink until age 21. If we think high school seniors are too immature to have a beer, why do we think eighth-graders are able to understand the risks of sexual activity, let alone use condoms and birth control reliably?<\/p>\n

Oh, now I remember: telling a 14-year-old girl she\u2019s too young to have sex would be making a moral judgment. The correct response is to hand her a condom and applaud her for making a \u201cpersonal decision\u201d about whether she is \u201cready.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is negligent to instruct teens to make choices based on fleeting feelings of \u201creadiness,\u201d since studies show that early sexual debut is usually a regretted decision. According to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, 72 percent of girls and 55 percent of boys say they wish they had waited longer to have sex. The younger a girl is when she loses her virginity, the more likely she is to regret that decision later.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, the same survey found that 78 percent of all teenage respondents believed that teens shouldn\u2019t have sex at all – probably because they were the first generation to have the \u201chave sex as soon as you\u2019re ready\u201d mantra foisted on them and have suffered the consequences. While it is nearly impossible to find a woman who delayed sex and regrets not starting young and having multiple partners, I challenge anyone reading this to find even one girl who had sex at 12, 13, or 14 and believes it was a good decision.<\/p>\n

Before writing this piece, I asked several of my friends their opinions on sex education. One, a self-described liberal feminist, told me, \u201cI\u2019m all for teaching kids about condoms, but I don\u2019t think we should be telling emotionally immature kids to have sex based on feelings.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amen. Whether or not you agree with Stenzel\u2019s abstinence-only position, there is no doubt that instructing girls in middle school and high school that sex has no \u201cprice tag\u201d is a direct threat to their health.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s a somewhat more pressing concern than \u201cslut-shaming.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s not just about money.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":202,"featured_media":27404,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nDoes sex have a price tag? - Live Action News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/does-sex-have-a-price-tag\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Does sex have a price tag? - Live Action News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It's not just about money.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/does-sex-have-a-price-tag\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Live Action News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/liveaction\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-07-10T18:08:25+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-07-11T14:46:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/woman-girl-question.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"540\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"360\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Ashley Herzog\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@liveaction\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@liveaction\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Ashley Herzog\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/does-sex-have-a-price-tag\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/does-sex-have-a-price-tag\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Ashley Herzog\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/1192a6947a902cd81e96e9d6877be819\"},\"headline\":\"Does sex have a price tag?\",\"datePublished\":\"2013-07-10T18:08:25+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-07-11T14:46:12+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/does-sex-have-a-price-tag\/\"},\"wordCount\":827,\"commentCount\":4,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#organization\"},\"articleSection\":[\"Analysis\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/does-sex-have-a-price-tag\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/does-sex-have-a-price-tag\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/does-sex-have-a-price-tag\/\",\"name\":\"Does sex have a price tag? 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