The Whole Truth about Comprehensive Sex Education

Chuck Donovan / October 15, 2009

One of the illusions about comprehensive sex education is that it is, well, a comprehensive treatment of the science of human sexuality. Dr. Miriam Grossman, who has upfront and personal knowledge of the psychological and physiological challenges of sexually involved collegians from her years as a campus psychiatrist at UCLA, does more than beg to differ with the reigning orthodoxy. She shows the difference between good science and contemporary sex education in her new book You’re Teaching My Children What? She’ll summarize her conclusions at a Heritage Foundation lecture today at noon.

Grossman’s experience with the inexperience, in terms of actual medical understanding, of “experienced” college coeds prompted her to delve into the web sites of the leading comprehensive sex educators, from Planned Parenthood and SIECUS (the Sex Information and Education Council of the United States) to Advocates for Youth and Columbia University’s Go Ask Alice. What she did not find there is as interesting as what she found. Instead of accurate treatment of such issues as condom effectiveness and the high health risk of particular sexual practices, the sites are replete with exhortations to adolescents to ‘explore” their sexuality – ideology rather than information. (more…)