Teens Not As Dumb As The Fundies Think

Throughout the eight years of the Bush administration there was a concerted effort by right-wing fundamentalists to destroy any meaningful sex education for teenagers in America's schools -- an effort that was supported and funded by the federal government.   Sex education teachers were generally forbidden to discuss condoms or any other methods of preventing pregnancies or sexually-transmitted diseases.   The only thing allowed to be taught was "abstinence".

This seemed to be based on the silly notion that teenagers were stupid.   The fundamentalists believed if kids were not told about sex, then they wouldn't find out about it or try it out for themselves.   Of course this was a stupid idea from the start.   While teens could use some guidance on preventing pregnancies and sexually-transmitted diseases, none of them need to be taught about the existence of sex or how to do it.   As anyone who has been a teen should know, that comes naturally and with plenty of encouragement from peers.

This misguided "abstinence only" teaching probably resulted in many unneeded pregnancies -- it certainly didn't lower the incidence of occurrence.   And it probably resulted in some teens getting diseases because they weren't taught prevention.   But it turns out that American teens are a lot smarter than the fundamentalists gave them credit for.   While schools refused to teach, the teens found ways to learn anyway (and I suspect the internet helped immensely in this regard).

An Indiana University study published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine last month showed that kids seem to be learing about "safe sex" in spite of adult efforts to keep them in the dark.   The study showed that "80% of sexually active teen boys and 69% of teen girls' partners used condoms during their most recent sexual encounter."   Those are not only remarkably high numbers, but also very gratifying ones.

But while the "safe sex" message seems to be getting through to teens, the same cannot be said of older Americans.   They don't seem to be bright enough to protect themselves from the serious and well-documented danger of sexually-transmitted diseases.   It seems that 91% of men over 50 don't use a condom with a date or casual acquaintance, and 70% don't use condoms with someone they just met.  

Maybe these older people thought teens were so stupid that "abstinence only" would work, because they themselves are that stupid.   Whatever the reason, it looks like this generation of teens are a lot brighter than older Americans -- at least in sexual matters.