Sex was on everyone’s minds last week, especially in the Glickman Library. Moderated by USM’s Diana Long, professor of history and women’s and gender studies, a forum titled “Silencing Sex Ed” presented a panel of experts to discuss teaching abstinence to students in America and abroad.
The panel, presented at both Bowdoin and USM last week, was highly relevant to Maine: this state has recently harbored controversies in sex ed, including King Middle School’s decision to make birth control available to students, which was a reaction to the pregnancies of seven middle-schoolers last year.
We are also one of only 16 states that have refused federal monies to teach abstinence-only sex education curriculum (four more states will join by the end of 2008).
Seeking to highlight some of the issues as well as discuss some of the history behind them, the panel brought forward three experts to talk about sex education.
Julie F. Kay, the senior staff attorney of a Washington sexuality and family rights program called Legal Momentum, spoke on abstinence-only programs as harmful to women and girls.
“This is not our grandmothers’ femininity,” said Kay in her presentation. “These are modern concerns in which misinformation is being fed to young girls through these modern programs.”
To show the dreadful social messages being shouted through ads, Kay showed a picture of an Iowa billboard that was part of a campaign paid for by federal funds. It read ‘Wait for the Bling.’ On one side of the billboard was the image of a man putting a ring on a woman’s finger; the other side showed a shadowy female figure holding her bling-less hands over a pregnant belly.
Kay next presented text from a sex ed curriculum. One passage read, “Females must be careful about what they wear. While they may be thinking fashion, males may be thinking: sex! It is important to dress conservatively.”
“No, this is not something the Taliban said,” Kay remarked, “it is something that America dictates about gender.”
Serra Sippel, the executive director of CHANGE (Center for Health and Gender Equity), spoke about the U.S. exporting an abstinence-only agenda. In Sub-Saharan Africa, which faces an AIDS epidemic and is where the majority of countries receiving U.S. foreign aid are located, the ‘ABC’ strategy is largely used. Stressing “Abstinence” first, “Being faithful” second, and directing “Condom-use” toward high-risk populations more than to the general public, the ABC strategy has been prioritized by the Bush administration.
Opponents to the use of U.S. funding that doesn’t provide a comprehensive education were saddened when Bush announced the continuation of the “President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief” (PEPFAR) in his last State of the Union address.
Without reform, Sippel believes, PEPFAR won’t be successful in fighting the disease.
Citing that Congress and the Bush administration allocate more than $200 million annually for abstinence-only education and $100 million for PEPFAR, the panel believes this money is going to waste.
William Smith, vice president of the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, discussed the challenges and successes in opposing abstinence-only education. He encouraged the crowd to contact to Senators Collins and Snowe to sponsor bills that encourage comprehensive sex education.
After the session, an open question and answer period engaged the panel and the audience.
Not one voice disagreed with the presentations, and the only questions asked the panel to delve deeper into what Maine citizens and students should do to forward the agenda of comprehensive sex education.
To end the evening, Smith offered the last word.
“We have the right to the highest quality of health,” he said, “this undoubtedly includes the best possible education.”