Sex Education and Premarital Sex

Sex Education and Premarital Sex

Sex education is taught to every young person in virtually every school across the country. In the majority of these sex education programs, physical anatomy and safe contraception are the main focuses of the programs, telling young people what the physical rewards and consequences may be but avoiding some of the key issues relating to mental, emotional and spiritual effects. Proponents of these programs feel that we must educate our youth on “safe sex.” It’s no wonder that premarital sex is so prevalent in our world today. As a result of this, physical problems of sexually transmitted diseases, psychological and emotional effects, and spiritual implications all tie together to create a vortex of consequences that have a deep and lasting impact. These consequences are not being addressed in these programs and that is why they are failing to have an impact on the decline of premarital sex.

Admittedly, most programs address the physical problems of STD’s, but don’t seek to educate well enough on the risks. Dr Clay Tucker-Ladd says in his book Psychological Self Help, “The fear of AIDS and sex education may be having some effect, but still only somewhere between 17% and 40% of the sexually active high schoolers use condoms regularly.” He goes on to say, “Moreover, one out of every 25 high schoolers has a sexually transmitted disease.”(Dr Clay Tucker-Ladd) One must assume that not enough emphasis is placed on the physical risks based on those statistics.

Additionally, little emphasis is given to the psychological and emotional effects of pre-marital sex. Most religious and conservative groups espouse abstinence. They site problems in this area as one of the chief reasons for it. Increasingly, more and more thought is given in this area as people talk about their experiences. Consider one anonymous author who also equates his experience differently than what the media portrays. He wrote, “After being with a girl, the next morning I always felt an emptiness. That's something you won't see on TV or in the movies, but it happens a lot. There was emptiness, even regret, afterwards.” And later on in the article, “But the emptiness continued…It's not what the movies make it out to be. If it were, it would be completely fulfilling. There wouldn't be any "emptiness."(www.leaderu.com) One can only conclude that these types of feelings don’t get enough coverage, or there would be more apparent discussion going on about them.

Spiritual considerations are almost non-existent in sex education programs. Some argue that after all, there is the protection of church and state to think about. However, many church and Para-church organizations would put this at the top of the list. Most who would “pooh-pooh” this notion say that it falls under “religious reasons” and state that the argument is one that religious fanatics use to “guilt” people