Howdy!

The scribbles of black ink on the board glared menacingly at us. The angry screeches of the teacher pushing her marker into the whiteboard to create dots heading towards a large circle. We all stared in horror as she yelled, “THIS is what ONE hole in a condom can do! ONE hole releases MILLIONS of sperm to the uterus! This is how you get PREGNANT and your life will be ruined!” This sums up the quality of the sex education I received through my 13 years of schooling.

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The current state of sexual and reproductive education for adolescents in the United States is incredibly poor. As young adults head into puberty, they severely lack the knowledge of how to take care of their growing bodies and how to safely interact with others on a romantic and sexual level. It was recorded that 57% of sexually active girls and 43% of sexually active boys knew about birth control methods before they had sex for the first time.¹ This statistic proves how uninformed teenagers are before their first sexual encounter, which could lead to unintended pregnancies, spread sexually transmitted diseases and infections, and poor genital hygiene.

When it comes to teaching American youth the essentials of a healthy relationship, only eight out of the 50 states and the District of Columbia require schools to teach students about the issue and importance of consent.² Consent is a key factor in a healthy relationship and its importance has been magnified through social campaigns such as the Me Too movement. To learn that young adults do not have the proper information on what consent is does not empower them to create stable relationships for both partners.

A study by Mathematica, a nonpartisan data research incorporation, from 1998 to 2007 revealed that abstinence-centered programs have “no effect on the sexual abstinence of youth”.³ Additionally, the youth that go through these programs have a higher probability to have unprotected sex.³ This demonstrates a waste of federal spending since this program has not had any effective change. This is also dangerous for the public because the more youth that go into the world with little knowledge of proper reproductive health, the more likely sexually transmitted disease and infections can spread and personal health can suffer.

A lot of people in my generation learned about their reproductive health from online sources. No person should have to rely on people hiding behind an icon on a screen to teach them about puberty, sex, and healthy relationships.

My goal in the future is to join or found a center for reproductive health research and policy. There needs to be a better standard of reproductive education in the United States and that starts with better research. I want to lead the way in this field and spearhead change within the United States. One program I would want to implement would be to create a network of trusted medical professionals that have demonstrated and take active steps in involving multiple perspectives in their medical practices. Another program I would like to implement is a training program to help medical professionals that desire to become more prepared to deal with a diverse population of patients. This way, the medical field will progress forward and help serve the entire diverse population of the United States.

When observing the level of sexual education taught to my peers and I the past 13 years, one word can be used to sum up the experience; horrifying. The teachers were ill-prepared, the materials were outdated and biased, and the students already had a poor understanding of the basics of reproductive health. These factors led my friends and I to teach ourselves through online stories and reading other peoples’ experiences. Situations like these make me determined to empower future teenagers to take charge of their health and foster a healthier generation of individuals.

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1. Lindberg LD, Maddow-Zimet I, Boonstra H. Changes in adolescents’ receipt of sex education, 2006–2013. J Adolesc Health. 2016;58(6):621–627. doi:10.1016/j.jadohealth.2016.02.004

2. Sex and HIV Education. Guttmacher Institute website. http://https://www.guttmacher.org/state-policy/explore/sex-and-hiv-education/. Accessed February 20, 2020. 

3. Impacts of Four Title V, Section 510 Abstinence Education Programs. Mathematica website.https://www.mathematica.org/our-publications-and-findings/publications/impacts-of-four-title-v-section-510-abstinence-education-programs/. Accessed February 20, 2020.