Written by Jazmin Jones
Society’s negative portrayal of adolescent sexuality causes adolescent sexual health to be defined in terms of disease and pregnancy prevention. This focus on the biological consequences of sex completely ignores the way sex is socially constructed and doesn’t address the lived experiences of sexually active adolescents. In response to this critique, The US Surgeon General’s Call to Action to Promote Sexual Health and Responsible Sexual Behavior states that, “sexual health is not limited to the absence of disease or dysfunction, nor is its importance confined to just the reproductive years. It includes the ability to understand and weigh the risks, responsibilities, outcomes, and impacts of sexual actions and to practice abstinence when appropriate. It includes freedom from sexual abuse and discrimination.” (Tolman, Stripe, & Harmon, 2003) The Surgeon General’s model provides both a starting point for addressing adolescent sexuality and a framework for the restructuring of School-Based Sex Education (SBSE) programs.
A critical deficit in the SBSE program agenda is its foundation—the drive reduction model. Built on the assumption that adolescent sexuality is based on an “intense instinctual drive that is overpowering if left unchecked by civilizing social mediators such as laws and morality,” (Bay-Cheng, 2003) the drive reduction model associates adolescence with hyper-sexuality and unrestrained moral judgment. Effective comprehensive sex education is essentially impossible when adolescent sexuality is framed so negatively. The drive reduction model is an inadequate political approach that should be completely removed from discussions of adolescent sexual health and especially SBSE programs.
The lack of thorough information presented through SBSE programs is intensified by a paralleled silence surrounding adolescent sexuality in the homes of adolescents. In Sexploration (The Ultimate Guide to Feeling Truly Great in Bed), Jane Bogart credits our families with creating the “environment in which we learn key information about our sexuality and play[ing] crucial roles as we develop sexually.” (Bogart, 2006) One of her arguments in the first chapter is that too often the household sexual climate is hostile for teens and that “parents may feel instinctively that it is wrong for kids to explore.” (Bogart, 2006) She uses personal narratives to illustrate that at best, parents’ discomfort with discussing sexuality with their teens makes “the Talk” awkward. But frequently, even the embarrassing sex talk is non-existent, and few adults openly discuss “the mechanics of how sex worked beyond the old sperm-meets-egg description.” (Bogart, 2006) This results in adolescents being unprepared for sexual relationships. Comprehensive sex education programs are necessary to ensure both adolescent sexual preparedness and health.
Mary Crawford and Rhoda Unger examine parents’ acceptance of adolescent sexuality in their book, Women and Gender-A Feminist Psychology. Rather than focusing exclusively on parental silence, however, Crawford and Unger extend their analysis to the gender biases that occur when parents and adolescents themselves discuss pre-adult sexuality. They note that the gender discrepancies begin in childhood and that “mothers are more reluctant to name the genital organs of their daughters than those of their sons and tend to do so at a much later age.” (Crawford & Unger, 2003) So while “boys learn to personify their penises with names like Johnson or dick…girls learn to talk about their genitals, if at all, with terms such as down there, privates, or between your legs.” (Crawford & Unger, 2003) Crawford and Unger use large surveys to propose that this selective silence contributes to young women’s ignorance about their bodies and especially their genitals. Comprehensive sex education programs would provide the unbiased and age-appropriate knowledge about sexuality that is often omitted from parent-child discussions of sexuality.
The glaring omission of relevant sex ed. content in SBSE programs and parental discourses harms adolescents by creating “additional barriers to knowledge and protection.” (Bruckner & Bearman, 2005) This exclusion is particularly damaging for adolescent females because “traditional gender role socialization runs counter to safer sexual practices.” (Buysse & Oost, 1997) In their book, Women and Gender-A Feminist Psychology, Crawford and Unger suggest that through a process called gender-typing, children acquire information about gender and learn both directly (through reinforcement) and indirectly (through observation) what behaviors are appropriate for their genders and how they are supposed to act. They argue that boys are socialized to be instrumental with traits like independence, aggressiveness, and dominance, while girls, are ushered into roles of passivity by being affective, feminine, and innocent. Gender-typing therefore presents an additional barrier to adolescent sexual health by legitimizing gender-based differences in sexual autonomy. Comprehensive sex education programs would teach adolescents how to unlearn these gender-based stereotypes.
Despite widespread attempts at political correctness, the curriculum of current SBSE programs is rich with gender stereotypes that are particularly disadvantageous to adolescent female sexuality. While SBSE programs limit discussions of girl’s sexuality to menstruation and reproduction, they frame young boy’s sexuality more actively, “in terms of erections, ejaculation, and wet dreams.” (Bay-Cheng, 2003) This teaches both adolescent males and females that the expression of male (and not female) sexuality is innate. Through their interviews of 153 adolescent males and females, ages 15-18, on the topics of love, romance, relationships between the sexes, sexual values, and sexual behaviors, Susan Moore and Doreen Rosenthal found that many adolescents endorse this double-standard of male and female sexuality. They found that both male and female adolescents “expressed views about the difficulties they believed males have in controlling sexual urges,” and they believed that females “better control over their sex drives, either because they were more responsible, or because their drives were weaker in the first place.” (Buzwell & Rosenthal, 1996) This is problematic for girls because it delegitimizes their sexual desire and prioritizes male sexuality. Effective SBSE programs would contribute to adolescent sexual health by eliminating these (and other) gender biases.
Researchers are beginning to explore the link between acknowledging sexual desire and expressing sexual agency. Since School-Based Sex Education programs routinely deny female sexuality outside the context of marriage, girls are taught the importance of saying, ‘no’ to sex, but not when it’s all right to say, ‘yes.’ This ultimately leads to a reduced sense of self-efficacy, which Buzwell and Rosenthal argue includes “the ability to say ‘no’ to unwanted sexual encounters; the ability to assert one’s own sexual desires and wishes, and the ability to take responsible precautions in sexual encounters.” (Buzwell & Rosenthal, 1996) Comprehensive SBSE programs would recognize the difficulty of protecting one’s self interest without a sense of self-efficacy, and would teach adolescents to, also.
I have shown that gender-based stereotypes are pervasive and directly responsible for the power dynamics within adolescent relationships. I’d also like to suggest that these stereotypes are a major threat to safe sex practices among adolescents. In their article, ‘Appropriate’ male and female safer sexual behavior in heterosexual relationships, Ann Buysse and Paulette Oost use interviews with adolescents to illustrate that both male and female adolescents agree that males make sexual decisions. (Buysse & Oost, 1997) This poses a huge risk to females’ sexual health because it forces young women to rely on verbal persuasion as a negotiation style for safer sex. Other researchers have found that adolescent females are at a disadvantage in these negotiations and often resort to “withholding sex and postponing their demand for condom use until men were so sexually aroused that they would accept sex under any condition.” (Wood, Maforah, & Jewkes, 1998) Safe sex should not the subject of negotiation. Adolescents should not be forced to choose between unsafe sex and no sex. Comprehensive SBSE programs teach this.
Buysse and Oost found that safe sex is implemented less than half of the times it is suggested. Given the limited effectiveness of suggesting condom use, adolescents are forced to rely on other methods for safe sex. Many adolescents, and especially those who receive SBSE choose to abstain from sex altogether and commit themselves with virginity pledges. In their article, After the Promise: the STD consequences of adolescent virginity pledges, Bruckner and Bearman argue that “abstinence only education, “as an intervention may not be the optimal approach to preventing STD acquisition among young adults.” (Bruckner & Bearman, 2005) Their conclusion is based on the cultural association of sex with vaginal sex. Bruckner and Bearman found that in order to stay committed to their pledge, many adolescent pledgers “are more likely to substitute oral and/or anal sex for vaginal sex.” (Bruckner & Bearman, 2005) This sexual substitution does not offer immunity to adolescents. They would know this if they had a received comprehensive sex education prior to their onset of their sexual activity.
Buysse and Oost also found that when abstinence is not chosen as the method for ensuring safer sex, “the selection of a non-infected partner is the most popular way of practicing safer sex amongst youngsters.” (Buysse & Oost, 1997) Partner selection is typically used by male adolescents and is particularly dangerous because it is often based on insufficient information about sexual histories and social stereotypes. For example, potential partners are often considered healthy based on appearance. This poses additional risks for adolescents because most sexually transmitted diseases are visibly undetectable. Partner selection is also based on “stereotypes and fetishized notions of sexuality throughout our cultural history and present: lustful and loose lower class women; sexually aggressive and animalistic black men and women; emasculated and impotent Asian men,” (Bay-Cheng, 2003) are some of the criteria adolescents use in the process of partner selection. Compressive SBSE programs would teach that sexual health status cannot be determined with the naked eye, nor can sexual stereotypes be used as an accurate means of predicting risks.
Throughout this post, I have explored aspects of the culture surrounding adolescent sexuality. My goal was to demonstrate the importance of implementing comprehensive School-Based Sex Education programs as a means. These programs would challenge gender power dynamics and stereotypes in adolescent relationships. They would encourage sexual agency among adolescents. In sum, comprehensive SBSE programs would acknowledge the existing barriers to safe sex and teach effective strategies for promoting sexual health. My recommendation is for the immediate defunding of abstinence-only sex education programs and the implementation of comprehensive programs instead.
References
Bay-Cheng, L. (2003). The Trouble of Teen Sex: the construction of adolescent sexuality through school-based sexuality education. Sex Education , 3, 61-74.
Bogart, J. (2006). Sexploration-The Ultimate Guide to Feeling Truly Great in Bed. Penguin Books.
Bruckner, H., & Bearman, P. (2005). After the promise: the STD consequences of adolescent virginity pledges. Journal of Adolescent Health , 271-278.
Buysse, A., & Oost, P. V. (1997). 'Appropriate' Male and Female Perceptions of Safer Sex Behaviour in Heterosexual Relationships. Internatational Journal of Adolescent Medicine and Health , 9, 548-561.
Buzwell, S., & Rosenthal, D. (1996). Constructing a sexual self: adolescents' sexual self-perceptions and sexual risk taking. Journal of Research on Adolescence , 489-513.
Crawford, M., & Unger, R. (2003). Women and Gender-A Feminist Psychology. New York: McGraw Hill.
Landry, D., Kaeser, L., & Richards, C. L. (1999). Abstinence Promotion and the Provision of Information About Contraception in Public School District Sexuality Education Policies. Family Planning Perspectives , 280-286.
Moore, S., & Rosenthal, D. (1992). The Social Context of Adolescent Sexuality: Safe Sex Implications. Journal of Adolescence , 415-435.
Tolman, D., Stripe, M., & Harmon, T. (2003). Gender Matters: Constructing a Matter of Adolescent Sexual Health. The Journal of Sex Research , 40, 4-12.
Wood, K., Maforah, F., & Jewkes, R. (1998). "He Forced Me To Love Him": Putting Violence on Adolescent Sexual Health Agendas. Social Science Medicine , 223-242.
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