Podcast: The potential harms of Ohio’s sexual health and education policies
“Sexual health is the integration of the somatic, emotional, intellectual, and social aspects of sexual being, in ways that are positively enriching and that enhance personality, communication, and love. Fundamental to this concept are the right to sexual information and the right to pleasure.”
This is how the World Health Organization defined sexual health in 1975. It went on to encourage “a positive approach to human sexuality” stating “the purpose of sexual health care should be the enhancement of life and personal relationships.” That education should not only teach “care related to procreation or sexually transmitted disease.”
This policy is a much different one from what students hear in modern sexual education classes.
“It was really under the second Bush that the abstinence stuff really heated up,” said Dr. Laurie Wagner, an associate professor of health education and promotion. “And the propaganda around sex education is that it promotes sex, it promotes abortion, it promotes being LGBTQ.”
In Ohio, the law requires that venereal disease education “shall emphasize (that) abstinence from sexual activity is the only protection that is 100% effective against unwanted pregnancy, STD’s, and the sexual transmission of a virus that causes AIDS.”
“Usually, they’ll make the argument comparing it to drugs,” Wagner said. “Like, ‘we don’t teach kids how to safely use heroin.’ Right, because there’s not a safe way to use heroin. There are lots of safe ways to have sex.”
Abstinence-only education focuses on avoiding pregnancy and infections by discouraging students from engaging in sexual activity at all. Wagner said that this type of program has been shown to harm students in the long run.
“When we look at outcomes of abstinence-only programs, though those students do generally wait about 18 more months before engaging in sexual activity,” she said. “When they do, their STI rates, their pregnancy rates are higher than everybody else. Because they’ve never been taught how to protect themselves.”
When programs like these focus so heavily on abstaining entirely for fear of pregnancy, they also run the risk of ostracizing LGBTQ students in the classroom.
“When you’re only talking about pregnancy, you’re not talking about most folks for whom pregnancy is not an outcome,” Wagner said. “So, they’re immediately being denied the best education.”
For students who are queer or trans, these classes can be unhelpful, exclusionary or even harmful.
“There’s just as equal opportunity to get an infection or bacteria in homosexual as there is in heterosexual relationships if you’re having sex,” said Holly Leibhart, a junior political science student at Kent State. “So, I don’t really understand why they wouldn’t teach it because, I mean, it would just increase the risk of their students.”
Wagner said the fear exists that if students are taught about sex, they’ll want to have sex. If they’re taught about sexuality, they’ll “decide to be gay.” But there’s no science that supports these concerns.
“We can choose who to be sexual with in terms of our partner, true,” she said. “But most scientists believe that our identities are our identities, irrespective of whether or not we choose to act on them or have the opportunity to act on them.”
A more inclusive sexual education may, instead, help students who are unsure of their sexuality begin to gain a better understanding of it earlier on in life.
Stephen Francis is a sophomore visual communications design student at Kent State who grew up attending an all-boys catholic school up until he left for college.
“I kind of understood that obviously I wouldn’t be getting the education that I thought that I would want to get and I would be getting it more based towards every single straight guy in my class,” Francis said. “Once I came here, I kind of started to actually be able to talk about it and talk to people about this kind of stuff, but in high school it was just like a shield. Like, literally like a giant wall.”
Parents also have the option to opt their children out of the classes if they’re uncomfortable with the subject matter. Wagner said that this can lead districts to shying away from teaching considered controversial topics.
“Masturbation, sexual orientation and contraception are the three things they struggle with the most,” she said.
In 1994, then surgeon general Dr. Joycelyn Elders was forced to resign after “she had condoned the idea of teaching schoolchildren to masturbate as a way of avoiding the spread of the AIDS virus,” per the New York Times.
Sexual education has gone through waves of openness and conservatism, but Wagner argues the most important thing is scientific accuracy over personal beliefs.
“I don’t teach my students values, I don’t teach them my values,” she said. “I give them a space to explore what their values are once they understand the science behind it.”
In Ohio, schools are expected to promote abstinence-only sexual education, meaning focusing on the dangers of pregnancy and STIs. But, how does this affect students who aren’t straight or cis? Keep an eye out tonight for my story on Ohio’s sex ed policy! #JMCRPP
— Ella✨ (@ellasaurusrexx) May 9, 2018
Podcast: Two queer students discuss the gaps in their sexual education classes and the differences between their curriculum. #JMCRPP https://t.co/jHzXj6xCoi
— Ella✨ (@ellasaurusrexx) May 9, 2018
