It’s the embarrassing moment in every single teen movie and TV show: sex ed class. We think of the scene from Mean Girls with the gym teacher saying “Don’t have sex, because you will get pregnant… and die!” or on Freaks and Geeks when poor Sam Weir couldn’t find the vagina on a diagram. And, of course, the doorbell joke (I’ll share that later). Hollywood creates these moments as dramatizations, but, in reality, this is where our country is. Boy can’t find the vagina, and our teachers are telling our kids and teens that sex is pretty much equivalent to dying. I’m sorry, America, but, this thing your calling sex education? It’s wrong. It’s very wrong. You’re sitting students down and telling them not to do something, and you’re forgetting a huge thing about teenagers: if they want to do something they will do it, and, as soon as you label something as “taboo” they want to do it even more. So, you sat about twenty students down on the bleachers of their school’s gym, and had the buff, awkward gym teacher tell them not to do something that they probably have been thinking about since puberty hit them. Well, I hate to tell you this, but your plan didn’t work. Not on all of them, anyway.

So, instead of telling student to just straight-up not do something that we know they’ll probably end up doing anyway, shouldn’t we just tell them how to do it safely if that choose to do it? We are born with reproductive organs whether we want them or not. Not educated teens or even small children about what they are and why they are there and how to use them properly and safely is like having a tool box and not knowing how to use the tools. Before you know it you have sawed your hand off, and there is no going back. If we don't tell boys that the thing between their legs in a penis and what is does they'll suddenly find themselves having intercourse without a condom, and then they are a father. Again, there is no turning back after that.

We tell teens all the time that they need to make their own choices, and it’s safe to say that the decision whether to have sex or not is as important as deciding what to wear to school that day, or where to attend college, or even if they want to attend college. It’s a decision we make for them. We say things like, “it’s special”, and they it’s better if they “wait to do it with someone you love”. None of these things are wrong to think of to tell teens, but it totally goes against everything we tell teens about making their own choices. Sure, they might do it and regret it. That’s life. Life is full of lessons to be learned. We are so afraid of having toddlers fall and get hurt, right? They are so small and sensitive, but if they fall won’t they just learn to get back up again? You learn to live with consequences to the actions you make. In my opinion, sex is no different, and I truly believe we as a country are just not teaching kids and teens correctly about sex. After all, what makes a teenager want to do something more than telling them not to do it, am I right?

We all know the truth: abstinence only sex education does not work. The numbers don’t lie. According to a study, 94% of states teach these abstinence only programs, and 2% of states don’t teach anything at all. Let’s focus on one state – Texas. Texas is the fifth highest teen pregnancy state in the country. According to an article by the New York Post, Texas saw 35,000 teen births (ages 15-19) in 2014, and 58% of their schools teach abstinence only sex ed, while the remaining schools teach nothing at all. Texas has also cut funding to Planned Parenthood and other clinics do to the sates anti-abortion mentality. There is really not fair chance if you’re a teen girl living in Texas. They’re exposed to these ideas that stem from a belief system and not from clear cut facts, yet they still have desires that are only being explained to them through movies on online pornography, because they are not being told that on-screen sex is not real sex.

Now, let’s look at my home state: Massachusetts. Let’s start off by saying that there are numerous programs in Massachusetts that advocate for pregnant teens. Mass strongly supports Planned Parenthood, and they fund clinics and charities that help teen girls who need assistance, but that also bring awareness to teens about safe sex. Since the 1990s, the teen birth rate had dropped from 35 teens in 1,000 to 14 teens in 1,000 from ages 15-19 in 2012. This drop is contributed to more access to contraception which includes free birth control pills for teen girls, as well as education efforts that reach out to “high risk” teens. Massachusetts has become the second lowest teen pregnancy rate state next to New Hampshire, which reports only having six percent of teen girls ages 15-19 become pregnant. Both NH and Massachusetts have sex education programs that promote abstaining as well as contraception. So, moral of the story? It is okay to promote abstaining, but you have to face the facts: teens are going to have sex no matter what scare tactics you use. Why not just set aside some time to show them how to properly put on a condom?

I remember my health class junior year with Mrs. Mead. She was the best. She told us the truth, “I wish there was a room we could put teenagers in so they can just have sex and be done thinking about it,” she’d always tell us, and she wasn’t wrong. We have sex thrown in our faces at a young age. We see Victoria’s Secret models on TV posing in risque ways, and we are expected not to copy that as seven-year-olds. I remember being a kid in the late 90s and early 2000s. Sex was everywhere, and I don’t think a single adult in my life knew it. I had Britney and Christina singing “Dirrty” and “I’m A Slave 4 U” in their underwear. That was just what I got use to seeing. I learned early on that sex sells – not just CDs and underwear, but it gets people to like you – boys to like you. I had that idea in my head all the way through life until now. There is a huge pressure in your teens to have sex, and it starts as soon as you enter middle school, which is scary. Studies show that teens, on average, are having sex later, but there are more teens having sex at thirteen today then there has ever been. I contribute that to the over sexualization of children at an early age, and giving children cells phones doesn’t help, either. There is so much on the internet that kids should not see, yet we give them tablets and phones, and they now have access to the entire world. What are the seeing? Perhaps it’s even worth talking to not just teens, but even children about sex. There are places that do it! Studies show that the younger to talk to kids about sex the more likely they are to engage in it safely at teens. This doesn’t mean we’re throwing Kindergarteners into a pool of words they don’t understand or that we are sealing their fate and causing them to become sexually active at an early age. Start off simply. Teach them about their bodies. Do what my teach junior year did to her kids and leave an anatomy book out. Eventually, they’ll read it, and they might ask questions. It’s better than having them go about the world not knowing.

A lot of people will disagree with what I have to say, but the numbers speak for themselves. The states that only teach students to abstain are the states with the highest teen birth rates, and the states who teach a little of everything have the lowest. The saying, “better safe than sorry” really does apply here. I don’t want to bash anyone’s beliefs, because you have the right to believe what you want to believe, but that also means being able to respect the fact that some teens aren’t going to abstain. It isn’t for everyone. Shouldn’t we at least be protecting them rather than shaming them? Shouldn’t we let the teens that we tell to make their own choices do just that? And, remember, parents need to be involved. You can’t get mad at your teens for having sex if you aren’t taking an active role in their lives. It’s an awkward conversation to have for both the parent and the child involved, but it’s a conversation that can be had, and it’s a conversation that will make a difference. Don’t just leave it up to the school – a child’s education, no matter what the lesson may be, starts at home with their parents.

The bottom line? We aren't doing teenagers any favors by sending them out into the world assuming that they'll abstain, because they don't know how to use a condom. They need to be educated by their teachers, parents, and other adult figures.