General's Advice: US Needs Sexual Literacy

Two former US Surgeons General have announced that the United States
has unacceptable levels of
title="sexually transmitted diseases">STDs
and that abstinence-only education has not helped.



Note that the Presidents "
href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/achievement/chap14.html">Record
of Achievement" boasts:

A new abstinence initiative will double
the funding for abstinence-only education;
develop model abstinence-only education curricula; review all Federal
programming for youth addressing teen pregnancy prevention, family
planning, and STD and HIV/AIDS prevention, to ensure that the Federal
government is sending consistent health messages to teens; and create a
public education campaign designed to help parents communicate with
their children about the risks associated with early sexual activity.

Funny thing, that he counts among his accomplishments something that
href="http://scienceblogs.com/bushwells/2006/09/stop_the_aclu_buffoons_tattle.php">has

href="http://blog.thehill.com/2006/08/24/gops-war-on-science-suffers-a-defeat/">not

href="http://scienceblogs.com/aetiology/2006/11/abstinenceonly_education_for_t.php">worked.



Now, two prominent health experts have announced that a different
approach is needed:

href="http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=healthNews&storyID=2006-11-03T000437Z_01_N02397662_RTRUKOC_0_US-SEX-ED.xml&WTmodLoc=Home-C5-healthNews-3">U.S.
needs "sexual literacy", ex-surgeon generals say

Thu Nov 2, 2006 7:04pm ET137



SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - U.S. efforts to promote abstinence as a
cornerstone of sexual education have not lowered levels of sexually
transmitted diseases, two former U.S. surgeon generals said on Thursday.



Joycelyn Elders and David Satcher told a news conference in San
Francisco that a broad effort was needed to promote the "sexual
literacy" of Americans to counter unacceptable levels of sexually
transmitted diseases and unplanned pregnancies, especially among teens
and young adults.



"The vows of abstinence break far more easily than latex condoms," said
Elders...

There is a peculiar irony here.  Dr. 
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joycelyn_Elders" rel="tag">Joycelyn
Elders lost her job as the Surgeon General under President
Clinton, as explained in Wikipedia:

In 1994, she was invited to speak at a United Nations
conference on AIDS. She was asked whether it would be appropriate to
promote masturbation as a means of preventing young people from
engaging in riskier forms of sexual activity, and she replied, "I think
that it is part of human sexuality, and perhaps it should be taught."
This remark caused great controversy, especially among conservative
Christian groups and right wing interests in the United States. Under
great political pressure President Clinton asked for her resignation.

This demonstrate how silly some people are.  To a
reality-based (or evidence-based) person, it was a straightforward
question.  If someone did a study, and it showed that teaching
masturbation would decrease the incidence of STDs or teen pregnancy;
and if such reductions were deemed suitable public policies goals, then
her proposition that "perhaps it should be taught" would be perfectly
logical.  Even without such evidence, it is reasonable to make
the statement with the "perhaps" proviso.  No need to get all
in a snit about it.

He that is without sin among you, let him cast the
first stone

President Clinton was wrong to dismiss Dr. Elders, but perhaps he
understood how powerful these hot-button issues are in the political
arena.  



In any case, I have a proposition to make.  Since it now
appears that greater sexual literacy is needed in the public, and
href="http://www.ed.gov/news/pressreleases/2006/04/04242006a.html"
rel="tag">Laura Bush is a leading champion of
literacy, perhaps we should see if she'd be willing to take the lead on
this.