Our daughter, an eighth grader, told us tonight at dinner that she didn’t have PE today because they had a woman come in to give a presentation called something like "It’s Worth the wait" to all the girls in her grade.  From our daughter’s description the speaker’s message was simply that it’s worth waiting until marriage to have sex. Not adulthood, marriage. 

She said that the woman giving the presentation was open and gregarious, and was quite explicit in her explanation of the perils of sex like contracting herpes, syphilis, etc.  Then one of the girls asked, "Well, what about lesbians?"  Much stuttering ensued and then the presenter explained that if a boy cheated on his girlfriend with another girl who had herpes then he could give his girlfriend herpes.  Basically it sounds like she dodged the whole lesbian thing, and I guess it’s understandable if you’re asked to address alternative lifestyles and your program is based on waiting until marriage to engage in sex, but you can’t legally get married as a homosexual.  It does present one with a conundrum.

Before I go on I think it’s important to note that while today’s presentation was about abstinence my daughter tells me that the girls have received information on safe sex in past programs.  My understanding is that today’s program was simply another piece of the sex-ed puzzle for the girls, not the end-all, be-all.  Thus my comments here are directed specifically at today’s program and its ilk.

Now don’t get me wrong;  I don’t like the idea of my kids having sex too young and I’d like to think that they’ll wait until they are mature enough and have met a person that they truly love before they decide to have sex.  On the other hand I live in the present and I also remember being 16, 17, 18 years old and full of raging hormones so I’m pretty realistic about the odds of kids waiting until they’re married.  Heck, if I had to choose I’d rather they have sex at the appropriate age before marriage rather than rush into a marriage in order to have sex.   

So realistically speaking I think our kids need information about the benefits of waiting (and there are some, believe it or not) and about how to protect themselves when they think they’re ready.  And believe you me, they’ll decide when they’re ready, not us parents.  As for the kids who are gay, well they deserve the same information the straight kids get.  Just because they’re gay doesn’t mean they won’t benefit from the same message about the benefits of waiting and how to protect themselves when they decide they’re ready for sex.  Heck they probably deserve it more given the added social stresses they face that their straight peers don’t.

Finally there’s the question of whether the state should be getting into sex education at all.  Some folks argue that this is simply the domain of parents, but I tend to think that kids benefit from hearing things from other responsible adults beyond their parents.  It’s the same reason that I think my kids learn more from being taught math, science and English by people who have studied those subjects in-depth I think my kids will learn a lot from someone trained in health services.  We’ll still cover it at home, but as most parents will tell you kids often don’t hear what’s coming out of our mouths because to them we’re just annoying nags.  So if they can get the information from a source they’ll actually listen to then all the better.