I was flipping through the book “The Dirt on Sex” last night. It’s a Christian book aimed at talking to kids about sex — “It’s real. It’s raw. It’s true. It’s the dirt.”

Author Justin Lookadoo does give some good physiological information, such as the fact that sperm is present in pre-ejaculate and that a girl can get pregnant at any time during her cycle. And while it’s true that many sexually active teens wish they had waited longer to have sex, Lookadoo is heavy-handed as he repeatedly talks about the “guilt” and “shame” some teens experience.

He paints a very ugly picture of sex with comments like: “with oral sex you give the power to destroy you to the other person” and “the rush of self-hate because you have given someone a very private, intimate experience and it was treated as a joke.” He clearly believes that teenage sex is always without genuine feeling because boys only use sex to prove they’re not gay and to impress their friends, and girls only get pressured into sex when they have a low self-image. That is overly-simplistic and sexist.

It’s wrong to promise kids that “married virgins do it best.” First, only 5% of people are virgins when they get married, so it’s pretty rare for two virgins to get married. Second, plenty of virgins have sexual problems when they get married. And plenty of non-virgins have terrific married sex lives.

Sorry Justin, your “truth” is a bit muddy.

“Teen birth, teen abortion, and sexually transmitted infection (STI) rates in the United States are higher than in most other industrialized countries. In 1999, 48 out of 1,000 U.S. women ages 15-19 gave birth”a rate 11 times greater than in the Netherlands and four times higher than in Germany. The teen abortion rate in the U.S. is more than three times that of France and nearly seven times that of the Netherlands.

Many factors influence the differences in teen sexual health between the U.S. and these industrialized nations: affordable family planning services; sustained, realistic media campaigns; public health policy grounded in pragmatism and research; and sexuality information characterized by open, honest dialogue. Philosophically, many European countries accept that adolescents, especially older ones, are going to be sexually active. Therefore, policies and programs focus on protective behaviors and skills. In the United States, policies, programs, and national initiatives focus on delaying sexual initiation as long as possible.

Yet, U.S. teens experience first sexual intercourse at about the same time and have more partners than teens in many other developed countries.”

Source: Advocates for Youth

Former U.S. Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders recently spoke at a health care summit in Arkansas. Elders, who was forced to resign as Surgeon General in 1994 for supporting masturbation and condom distribution, said that “lack of sex education in the nation is “deafening” and makes children vulnerable to sexual assault and sexually transmitted infections.”

She also said:

“that abstinence-only sex education programs are unrealistic (AP/KUAR, 8/16). “The reason” for high HIV and STI rates in “Southern states is because [Southern states] are less likely to have sex education and talk about it as part of our schools and a part of our system,” Elders said, adding that abstinence-only programs that do not teach contraception will not solve the issue (Wiest, Arkansas News Bureau, 8/16). “

In anticipation of “Let’s Talk Month” in October, I have started a new blog: GetTalking. The purpose of LTM and the blog is to encourage parents to talk with their kids (of all ages) about sex. I am also coordinating some events and parent workshops through Charlotte Sexual Health. As far as I can tell, not much is happening in Charlotte for LTM – even though the campaign began here in 1980.

On the topic of sex ed in the school system, the following is a promo for a documentary about the sex ed debate in my beloved Minnesota: