What's really going on in your kid's sex ed class? One mom decided to sit in on her son's high school health class and what she heard was so disturbing she ended up live-tweeting the sex "education" lesson -- and getting into a whole lot of hot water for it.
As it happens, the mom is Alice Dreger, a sex researcher, bioethicist, and professor at Northwestern University. In an essay she wrote after the incident she says she became concerned when her son told her he was being taught abstinence. Technically the sex ed curriculum is not abstinence only, "but it may as well be," Dreger says. There's a significant emphasis on it.
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I can't stand this. They're teaching "abstinence stories" that worked and non-abstinence" stories that "led to consequences."
— Alice Dreger (@AliceDreger) April 15, 2015And there you go. I don't have a problem with encouraging kids to try not to have intercourse until they're adults. It's just that there's so much dishonesty and misinformation that goes with abstinence education.
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The visitor-teacher is telling my kid abstinence education reduces premarital sex. My kid is trying to show her studies that dispute that.
— Alice Dreger (@AliceDreger) April 15, 2015As the son of a researcher, the boy had been raised to look for unbiased, sound evidence to support any claim. He'd done his homework to prepare for this class.
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She's being completely condescending. "You can look up anything on the internet" Then refers him to site on abstinence education!
— Alice Dreger (@AliceDreger) April 15, 2015This website she refers to is the National Abstinence Education Association, a nonprofit that lobbies to stop anti-abstinence judges from getting elected. Then Dreger notes that a health teacher refers to "LGBYT" (it's just LGBT: Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) before a new speaker, who she calls "Jim" tells his sad story. Raised by an alcoholic father, Jim turned to sex, drugs, and alcohol as a teen.
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The guy telling the "abstinence" story is now telling us about having sex as a teenager. I'm confused.
— Alice Dreger (@AliceDreger) April 15, 2015[code]
Now he's talking about getting a girl preg and them hiding it from their parents. Yup, that's what sexual shame does, dude!
— Alice Dreger (@AliceDreger) April 15, 2015[code]
Preg girl got picked on so her friends desserted her. That's what happens if you have sex, kids! Yup! Pregnant and NO FRIENDS!
— Alice Dreger (@AliceDreger) April 15, 2015[code]
He and the girl both had alcoholic fathers. But somehow he's not recommending never drinking.
— Alice Dreger (@AliceDreger) April 15, 2015Dreger notes that what she learned from Jim's story was that he's remarkably resilient and that he overcame the mistakes of his youth. But that's not Jim's point.
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The whole lesson here is "sex is part of a terrible lifestyle. Drugs, unemployment, failure to finish school -- sex is part of the disaster"
— Alice Dreger (@AliceDreger) April 15, 2015That's about the saddest introduction to sex you'll ever get, not to mention unrealistic. What happens when kids discover that sex is incredibly fun and pleasurable? "So much fun it'll melt your brains," as Salt Lake Tribute columnist Robert Kirby once put it. About a year ago Dreger wrote an essay, "What If We Admitted to Children That Sex Is Primarily About Pleasure." Imagine how that would change the tone of sex ed class.
More from The Stir: 1 Thing Every Mom Should Know About Having the Sex Talk
The female guest speaker then took over to discuss condom use. She grudgingly admits that they can prevent pregnancies. But they can also fail! How likely is that to happen?
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About 18% chance a condom will fail, she says.
— Alice Dreger (@AliceDreger) April 15, 2015According to the CDC, the "typical use" failure rate is indeed 18 percent. If you use it correctly, however, that failure rate is 2 percent. What if we taught boys how to use condoms correctly?
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"On average 1 out of 6 times there is a mishap with a condom." "Every day in US 1600+ teen pregnancies." Lesson: condoms fail? WTF?
— Alice Dreger (@AliceDreger) April 15, 2015But it gets worse.
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"We are going to roll this dice 8 times. Every time your number comes up, in pretend your condom failed and you get a paper baby." JESUS!!!
— Alice Dreger (@AliceDreger) April 15, 2015Despite the odds she just quoted, everyone gets a paper baby. Dreger notes that no scissors for paper baby abortions are available. "'Safe sex is a misnomer,'" she quotes the speaker saying.
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It's over. I need a drink.
— Alice Dreger (@AliceDreger) April 15, 2015In a discussion following the class Dreger dropped an F-bomb, and for that reason (the school later informed her) she has been banned from stepping foot inside her son's school except for important events.
But I think it was worth it. This isn't just about Dreger's son, or even his class. As the story spreads far and wide it's serving as a wake-up call to parents everywhere. Do you know what's going on in your kids' sex ed class? Are you okay with the curriculum? When you have your own conversations about sex with your kids, are you saying something completely different? Are you even having those conversations?
However you feel about what kind of sex education is best I think it's clear that parents need to be involved.
How do you think you'd feel if you sat in on your children's sex education class?
Image via Bernd Schmidt/Shutterstock