Words and their meanings are important. The significance of words can be critical when there is an ideological difference between two groups attempting to pass government policies. Words can, and often do, become weapons that are used to sway public opinion to support or defeat legislation.
The following list contains a few words that can have significantly different meanings depending on what kind of sex education an individual or group supports.
Comprehensive Sex Education
This sounds like…education that includes a wide-range of topics that will teach students about sexuality.
This is…sex education focusing on reducing the risk of sexual activity. The foundation of this education is based upon the perceived human right of all persons to be sexually active when they’re ready.
Contraceptive-focused Education
This sounds like…sex education focused on contraceptives.
This is…the label coined by FOTF for use instead of “comprehensive sex education” for sex education focused on contraceptives and reducing the risks of sexual activity.
Family Life Education
This sounds like…education that would support family values and, perhaps, include information on sexuality.
This is… code for contraceptive-focused sex education.
Abstinence-Plus Education
This sounds like…abstinence curricula with added information.
This is…sex education that’s masquerading as abstinence education (abed) and really is contraceptive-focused education. (See below)
Important research:
Martin, S., Rector, R., Pardue, M.(2004). Comprehensive sex education vs. authentic abstinence: A study of competing curricula. The Heritage Foundation. http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/upload/67539_1.pdf (August 15, 2008).
- “On average, authentic or traditional abstinence curricula devote 53.7 percent of their page content to abstinence-related material. In addition, these curricula devote 17.4 percent of their content to the subjects of healthy relationships and the benefits of marriage, both of which directly reinforce the main theme of teen abstinence. Authentic abstinence curricula allocate zero percent of their content to promoting contraception.
Comprehensive sex-ed/abstinence-plus curricula take the opposite approach. On average, these curricula devote only 4.7 percent of their page content to the topic of abstinence and zero percent to healthy relationships and marriage. The primary focus of these curricula is on encouraging young people to use contraception. On average, comprehensive sex-ed curricula devote 28.6 percent of their page content to describing contraception and encouraging contraceptive use. Overall, comprehensive sex-ed curricula allocate six times more content to the goal of promoting contraception than to the goal of promoting abstinence.”
Abstinence-Only Education
This sounds like…abstinence education is simply telling the students to “just say no.”
This is… rhetoric used by the opponent base trying to minimize the depth of abstinence-until-marriage education so that the public will call for its de-funding.
Scientifically-based/ Medically-Accurate sex education
This sounds like…what all health education should be – scientifically correct.
This is…language that has been used to wrongly attack abstinence-until-marriage curricula since Rep. Henry Waxman released his report on abstinence education in December 2004. Rep. Waxman read less than 15 abstinence curricula for his report out of the hundreds in publication. He found minor errors in some of those curricula and wrongfully concluded, in a press conference, that abstinence education is not scientifically- based or medically accurate education.
What hasn’t been done:
- Contraceptive-focused sex education has not been reviewed or held to similar standards.
- The curricula writers who justified their writing as medically accurate were not reported in the press.
- The press did not question the findings of Henry Waxman. But they have generally reported abed as medically inaccurate education since Dec. 2004.
Age- Appropriate Sexuality Education
This sounds like…there is a consensus of common-sense around the appropriate age students should receive certain messages about sex.
This is…according to SIECUS and Planned Parenthood, teaching children about sex from kindergarten to the 12th grade. Below are a few examples of what Planned Parenthood states are “age-appropriate” messages for particular ages. These guidelines are used to inform contraceptive-focused sex education programs.
Ages 5-8:
- Names of reproductive organs taught.
- “Both boys and girls have body parts that feel good when touched.”
- “Vaginal intercourse – when a penis is placed inside a vagina- is the most common way for a sperm and egg to join.”
- “Some people are homosexual, which means they can be attracted to and fall in love with someone of the same gender.”
Ages 9-12:
- “Gay men, lesbians, and bisexual people can have their own children or adopt.”
- “Gender identity refers to a person’s internal sense of being male, female, or a combination of these.”
- “Children may have a mother, a mother and a father, two mothers, two fathers, or any other combination of adults who love and care for them.”
Ages 12-15:
- “Some sexual and reproductive organs provide pleasure.”
- “The size and shape of penises, breasts, and vulvas can vary significantly.”
- “The size and shape of sexual organs does not affect a person’s ability to reproduce or experience sexual pleasure.”
- “Many scientific theories have concluded that sexual orientation cannot be changed by therapy or medicine.”
- “Transgender” describes people whose internal sense of gender (gender identity) doesn’t match what society expects of them based on their genitals and chromosomes (biological sex).”
- “Gay, lesbian, and bisexual youth, like heterosexual youth, may or may not date.”
- “Values should be freely chosen after the alternatives and consequences are evaluated.”
- “No one has the right to impose their values on others.”
Ages 15-18:
- “Some babies are born intersexed which means that they may have ambiguous genitals that are not clearly male or female and/or that their chromosomes do not match their genitals.”1
- “All people have the right to express their gender identity.”
- “Sexual orientation is determined by a combination of a person’s attractions, fantasies, and sexual behaviors.”
1The truth is – the percentage of true intersexed babies is extremely small. The percentage of the human population that is intersexed is 0.018% which means 18 out of every 100,000 people have this condition.
Source: Sax, L. (2002). How common is intersex? A response to Anne Fausto-Sterling. Journal of Sex Research, 2002, pp 174-178.
Use the link below to access the entire document.
Source- SIECUS (2004). Guidelines for Comprehensive Sexuality Education 3rd Edition: Kindergarten through 12th Grade. http://www.siecus.org/data/global/images/guidelines.pdf (August 28, 2008).
