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Abstinence only one option

April 16th, 2008     by Allison Martell     Comments

Poking around Feministe’s shameless self promotion open thread yesterday, I found this interesting discussion on things that girls need to know about sex. Here are the first few:

1. There are reliable ways, besides abstinence, to prevent pregnancy.
2. There are reliable ways, besides abstinence, to prevent STIs.
3. Abortion is safe (safer than carrying a pregnancy to term, in fact) and there’s a wide range of legitimate opinion as to when and whether it is appropriate.

There’s a lot more in the original post - you should click over and read it. As I’ve written elsewhere, quality sex ed is in short supply, especially in the States, and a lot of non-professionals are pitching in on the internet with material like this list. This movement has its ups and downs - without doctors vetting curriculum, some misinformation and strange emphasis can slip in - but it’s certainly better than abstinence-only education, which just doesn’t work.

Things might be about to change for our American friends - brooklynite has collected some quotes from presidential nominees which suggest that they might be on board with sex ed in a way that previous generations of American political leaders have not been.

So, what do you think every girl should learn about sex?

Tags: body politics

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