Subject: Schools Teach the Virtues of Virginity 
Date: Published: 2/20/92 (162 lines)
Source: Wall Street Journal. Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc.

    Education:
    Schools Teach the Virtues of Virginity
    ----
    By Sonia L. Nazario
    Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

    HEMET, Calif.  -- Today's lesson at Acacia Middle School:
 virginity.
    Jillian Michael, a 12-year-old seventh grader, stands
 before her class, reciting the assignment of the day.  She
 extols the virtues of chastity and warns of the dangerous
 consequences of caressing a man before marriage.
    "Do the right thing! Wait for the ring!" she chants,
 forming both hands into a "C" for chastity, then clasping
 them together to mimic interlocking wedding bands.  Her
 public-school classmates, some giggling, repeat the "chastity
 pledge" in unison as teacher Bonnie Park urges them on.
    "The only safe sex is no sex," says Mrs. Park, whose
 school last year embraced Sex Respect, a federally funded,
 10-session course that stresses abstinence and the pitfalls
 of premarital sex and is silent about potentially
 controversial topics such as use of contraceptives, adultery,
 homosexuality and pornography.
    By adopting the course, the Hemet Unified School District
 has allied itself with one of two camps in the battle over
 what form of sex education to provide.  Hemet and hundreds of
 other districts say past educational initiatives have failed
 to get teens to use contraceptives and have even encouraged
 teen sex.  They believe that adopting one of at least 15
 abstinence-focused curricula now available can instill the
 value of self-control.
    But at least as many districts, along with some major
 education and health groups, call the increasingly popular
 abstinence-only approach unrealistic.  Ignorance about
 contraception and other important topics, they say, will
 boost the rate of teens getting pregnant or contracting HIV,
 the virus that causes AIDS.  With condom-giveaway programs and
 courses centered on birth control, these districts have taken
 a far different approach to sex education than those
 advocating self-control.
    "We're having a civil war of values over teen sexuality
 and schools," says Anne Newman, director of the Texas Council
 for Family Values, who strongly believes premarital sex is
 morally wrong and leads to wrecked marriages.  At a
 schoolboard debate between opposing sides in Jacksonville,
 Fla., security officers were on hand in case tempers flared.
    "If my son contracts AIDS for not having the right
 information, I couldn't live with myself," says Carol McShane
 of East Troy, Wis., who opposes Sex Respect.
    But Darlene Marshall, president of the Acacia
 Parent-Teacher Association, is delighted that her daughter
 Amber, 14, has taken the course.  "My daughter will probably
 remain chaste until marriage because of this program," she
 says.
    Clearly, there's a need for something that works.  A
 Centers for Disease Control survey last month indicated that
 40% of young people have sex by the ninth grade.  Here at
 Acacia Middle School, in a predominantly middle-class
 community nestled in the San Jacinto mountains, an average of
 two students get pregnant each year, some as young as 11.  One
 in seven teens nationwide contracts a sexually transmitted
 disease, and a growing number are infected with HIV.  The cost
 to aid families of teen mothers is $21.6 billion annually.
    Most parents give their children only a perfunctory
 "zippers up" speech, says the PTA's Mrs. Marshall.  "When I
 say menstruation, the girls blush and half the boys have no
 idea what I'm talking about," adds Acacia teacher Gayle
 Siebke.  She says her students believe they can't get pregnant
 the first time they have intercourse.
    Bonnie Park's class begins by teaching that premarital sex
 can lead to emotional turmoil, disease, pregnancy and guilt
 -- lessons the students reinforce by making bumper stickers
 with slogans such as "Don't be a louse, wait for your
 spouse."  A Sex Respect chart of physical intimacy marks a
 "prolonged kiss" as the "beginning of danger," and the course
 warns, "No petting if you want to be free."
    Mrs. Park teaches her students how to set limits, how to
 sharpen their refusal skills to counter peer pressure and how
 to plan dates to avoid "dangerous situations."  She reinforces
 the view that virginity is positive and that condoms can be
 the road to ruin, saying that many prophylactics fail.  To
 demonstrate condom unreliability, Acacia students pour water
 into balloons with pinpoint holes.
    "The message teens always get is:  `Everyone is doing it,'"
 says Acacia teacher Flora Johnson.  "We're trying to counter
 that."
    While some students say they find the classes more amusing
 than instructive, others take the lessons to heart.  "I don't
 think I'll have sex before marriage," vows Nathan Burns, 13,
 after Mrs. Park's class.  "Now, when anyone pressures me into
 having sex, I can think twice, say no, and not feel like a
 loser," writes student Danielle Devereaux in a homework
 essay.
    Sex Respect, now being taught in 1,800 schools, was
 launched after Congress appropriated money for
 abstinence-education programs a decade ago.  The AIDS epidemic
 has led 17 states to order the teaching of sex education; of
 that group, 15 require that abstinence be emphasized.  The
 Supreme Court in 1987 rejected a suit charging that federal
 funds given to religious groups to launch abstinence-focused
 courses constitute the teaching of religious values and thus
 violate the Constitution.
    "We brought in an abstinence-only program because parents
 will accept it," says Acacia principal Karen Doshier, who
 tried for more than 20 years to get her district to adopt
 some sort of sex-education program.  Other districts have
 adopted abstinence curricula after parents rebelled against
 more explicit sex-education approaches.
    "You undo the abstinence message if you talk about
 contraception in the classroom," says LeAnna Benn, executive
 director of Teen Aid Inc., the other main curriculum that
 focuses on abstinence.
    Still, some educators are dubious.  "How can I stand up
 there and preach abstinence when these kids' parents are
 living with someone but aren't married?  "  asks Acacia teacher
 Ms. Johnson.  (She tells students they shouldn't engage in
 sexual activities outside of long-term, monogamous
 relationships.)  Mrs. Siebke wonders how she will reply if one
 day a student whose mother has had three live-in boyfriends
 asks if she should condemn her mother for not being
 abstinent.
    Educators in Hemet and elsewhere fear the psychological
 consequences for children who are inculcated with the horrors
 of premarital sex but still break their chastity pledge,
 although the course also teaches "secondary virginity" (which
 encourages teens who have had sexual experiences to return to
 celibacy).
    Parents in many districts are fighting to stop abstinence
 programs.  In Beaufort County, S. C., a third of parents
 initially pulled their children from the Sex Respect class,
 and 2,500 parents, educators and students signed a petition
 condemning it.  (Schools continued to teach the course but
 augmented it with additional materials.)  
    In Enfield, Conn., the school district started a Sex
 Respect pilot program, then rejected it after parents
 complained that it taught fear, guilt and shame.  The school
 board opted instead to teach about contraception as early as
 seventh grade.
    In Clayton County, Ga., and East Troy, Wis., parents
 enlisted the American Civil Liberties Union to help battle
 abstinence-only curricula.  "Since the beginning of time,
 unmarried people have had sex," says Georgia ACLU executive
 director Teresa Nelson.  "Teaching them ignorance isn't the
 answer."
    Carol McShane, the East Troy parent who has fought
 unsuccessfully against the program, says she opposes Sex
 Respect because she believes it equates abortion with killing
 and also is homophobic.  She adds that the course promotes
 sexual stereotypes, portraying boys as hormone-crazed
 predators who, the course text says, "aggressively seek
 sexual release with whatever partner they can persuade or
 force to accommodate them."
    "Sex Respect teaches that males are out of control," Mrs. 
 McShane says.  "That's not a message I want my sons to learn."

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