Table of Contents
Title Page
Epigraph
Introduction
Chapter One - Who’s Teaching Your Children?
How Do Teens Get to These Sites?
The Kinsey Scale of Human Sexuality
“Happy Birthday, Dr. Kinsey.”
Chapter Two - Girls and Boys Are Different
“Comprehensive” Sex ed—Hardly Comprehensive
The Bikini Approach
Scent of a Man
Kayla’s Brain
The Female Brain
Oxytocin: “The Cuddle Hormone”
Liquid Trust
Attachments
Chapter Three - Red Light, Green Light
The “Facts” of Life
Newsflash: Teens Are Not Miniature Adults, in Mind or Body
It’s Not Lack of Information—It’s Lack of Judgment.
Girls’ Bodies Are Not Ready
Biology Says: Wait!
Chapter Four - A Doctor’s Oath
Messages
What Kids Must Know
The Fight Rages On
Chapter Five - Whitewashing a Plague
The Lie: You Can’t Dodge the Bug
STDs and Depression
Gardasil and HPV: What You Haven’t Heard
The Compelling Link Between Oral Sex and Oral Cancer
The Number 1 Bug Is Worse Than They Say
Fear-based or Truth-based?
Planned Childlessness
Chapter Six - Questioning
Lucky You
Shades of Lavender
What Am I?
Exploration
The Minefield
The “Right” Information
Lesbian until Graduation
I Don’t Want to Be How I Am
Inner and Outer Battles
Chapter Seven - Genderland
We Are All Hermaphrodites
Outdated
What Crayons Can Tell Us
Different Worlds
Over the Edge
The Gender Binary
How Many Genders Are There?
Celebrate Who You Are?
Conclusion
Acknowledgements
Sex Education Policy by State
Notes
Copyright Page
Truth does not become more true by virtue of the fact that the entire world agrees with it, nor less so even if the whole world disagrees with it.
—Moses Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed
Introduction:
Shocked
HAVE YOU EVER CROSSED PATHS with someone momentarily, exchanged a few words, and then discovered you can’t forget their face, or something they said? That’s what I’m going through now. Several months ago, I gave a talk about sexual health to college students, and a girl in the audience made an astonishing comment. Her words, and her eyes, haunt me to this day.
I’d been invited to speak at a small private college outside Philadelphia. The auditorium was filled to capacity, with students sitting in the aisles and leaning against the walls. It was a lively crowd, but when I stepped up to the podium it fell silent.
They knew I wasn’t there with another “safer sex” talk. Why fly me in from across the country to tell them things they can recite in their sleep? They invited me because I’m the doctor bringing the science they’d never heard. The biochemistry of trust and attachment. How ovulation is affected by a man’s scent. Why a young cervix is easily infected. They’d learn that evening that with or without protection, sex is a serious matter—especially for girls. That a single encounter can have profound, life-long consequences.
I was there to teach the biology that was omitted from their “safer sex” training. It was a no-nonsense, politically incorrect approach to a subject close to their hearts, and they hung on to each word from start to finish.
Afterwards I asked for questions, and a number of hands shot up.
“What about the HPV vaccine?”
“There’s reason to hope it will prevent a great deal of disease,” I said, “but it’s not a cure-all. Girls,” I told them, “you should be vaccinated even if you’ve already been sexually active.”
Next came a complaint:
“You assume everyone is heterosexual. You should be less hetero-normative.”
This was not the right time for a discussion about the politically correct notion of “heteronormality,” so I just thanked the student for his comment and added that the highest rates of sexually transmitted infections are found in gay men and bisexuals, and the lowest in lesbians. 1
Then a dark-haired girl in the front row raised her hand.
“I’m a perfect example of what you talked about. I always used condoms, but I got HPV anyway, and it’s one of the high-risk types. I had an abnormal Pap test, and next week I’m going to have a culposcopy.”
She sounded mellow, but there was panic in her eyes.
I felt a wave of sorrow. This young woman was going in for a biopsy of her cervix because atypical cells were present—a result of infection with a high risk strain of HPV. I knew what that meant: she probably had HPV-16, the type that’s most difficult for her body to clear,2 and most likely to cause malignancy. If the infection persisted, her risk of developing cervical cancer was at least 40 percent.3
“But I thought it over,” she continued, “and I decided that the pleasure I had with my partners was worth it.”
The audience was silent. How does one react to such a declaration? With applause? High fives?
“I hope all goes well next week,” I said, “and that you’ll never have to worry about this again.”
But I knew it wasn’t so simple. In a few days she’ll lie on a table with her feet in stirrups, a large electronic microscopic inches from her vagina. With a bright light illuminating the site, the gynecologist will examine her cervix. He’ll say something like “this might be uncomfortable,” then excise abnormal areas with a scalpel. It will hurt. She might have pain and discharge afterwards. Then she’ll wait for a call with the results: is she okay, or not?
The way I saw it, her story was a double catastrophe. For a young woman—she couldn’t have been over 20—to even worry about having cancer was the first catastrophe. At this time in her life, she shouldn’t be concerned about anything more serious than finals.
The second catastrophe was her sentiment: “The pleasure I had was worth it.”
Worth it? What’s she talking about?
Didn’t she have the concerns I always hear: When was I infected, last week or last year? and Who was it, Kenny or Ron? Should I tell my current partner, or my future ones? What about Mom and Dad? What does dysplasia mean, anyhow? Could I really get . . . cancer?
Was this young woman aware, I wondered, of all the possible ramifications? While it’s true that most HPV seems to clear, she’ll never know—is the virus gone, or just dormant? Had anyone told her that having one sexually transmitted disease (STD) makes her more vulnerable to others, including HIV? That being on the pill could increase her risk, and that pregnancy can re-activate the virus?
All this, yet “the pleasure was worth it”?
I guess she felt that sex trumps everything, even health. It was all about pleasure, even if it ends in disease. Where did this thinking come from?
Back to the Source
According to a 2008 report from the federal Centers for Disease Control, she has plenty of company: one in four adolescent girls in the United States has a sexually transmitted infection.4 When that fact hit the news, parents were horrified, health experts were shocked, and the CDC called it “a wake-up call.”5
A statement was issued by the president of the Sexua
lity Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS). The figures, it said, were “staggering” and “disturbing”; they represented an “inexcusable failure.”6
Their reaction reminded me of a scene in the classic film Casablanca. You know, that famous line in which Captain Renault tells Rick he is “shocked—shocked!—to find that gambling is going on in here,” and then quietly collects his winnings.
One in two sexually active youth will contract an STD by age 25.29
That 3.27 million American girls have a sexually transmitted infection should come as no shock, especially to SIECUS and its main cohorts, Advocates For Youth (AFY) and Planned Parenthood. This pandemic is a direct consequence of their vision and ideals.
These groups claim to provide “comprehensive access” to “accurate” sex education. Take a look, though, at their curricula, their guides for teachers and parents, and—most disturbing—the websites to which they direct your kids: you’ll see how young people are infused with a grotesque exaggeration of the place of sexuality. Promiscuity, experimentation, and fringe behaviors are encouraged. For them, these are personal choices, and judgments are prohibited. At all ages, sexual freedom is a “right,” an issue of social justice. In short, they are dedicated to promoting radical social ideologies, not preventing disease.
That one in four teens has a sexually transmitted infection (STI) is deeply troubling, yes, but it shouldn’t come as a surprise. What’s astonishing is the madness called “sexuality education.” Until these programs are recognized as irresponsible and dishonest, young people, especially girls, will continue to pay an awful price.
Sex education is comprised of a vast network of programs with Planned Parenthood, Advocates for Youth, and SIECUS at its center. Consequently, every parent should check their child’s school curricula for the full picture.
Madness is a strong word, but the more I learn what our children are taught, and when, the more I stand by that choice.
Parents, have you heard what our kids are told? Have you seen what’s put in front of them? I thought it was illegal to make indecent material available to minors. You think MTV is vulgar? I suggest you explore the material sex educators have created for kids.
Take a look at Planned Parenthood’s revolting “Take Care Down There,” and “How Babies are Made.”8 Check out gURL.com, a site recommended to teens by SIECUS, Planned Parenthood, and similar groups that claims to be “the largest community of teenage girls on the web.” Their “experts” want your daughter to know about sadomasochism—“being tortured, bound, tickled or having hot wax poured on the body.” “Though it may seem painful,” your daughter will learn, “those involved find the pleasure outweighs the pain.”9 gURL.com’s best selling book for teens, Deal With It!, lauded as “a superb reference for young women” by a former president of Planned Parenthood, provides your daughter with instructions on “giving a blow job,” “going down on a girl,” and features stick figure illustrations of “the three most popular positions” for intercourse. 10 Are you troubled by your teen’s language? I direct you to www.positive.org, recommended by both SIECUS and AFY. You’ll be horrified. This offensive material is foisted on our kids under the pretence of safeguarding their health and well-being.
When I think of someone exposing my kids to this smut, my eyes narrow and the claws come out. I see red. But what of the many young people who’ve been raised on this stuff? What effect has it had on their attitudes and behavior? As a physician and a mother, I weep for them.
Hicks vs. Harvard
Objections to today’s sex education are hardly new. Some parents have been active in their opposition, taking legal action, even going to jail.11 But organizations such as SIECUS and Planned Parenthood claim neutrality and successfully portray the conflict as religious right versus medical facts, hicks versus Harvard.
Those hicks must be on to something, because recent discoveries in neurobiology, endocrinology, and histology indicate science is in their corner. I contend that it’s “comprehensive sexuality education” that’s animated by pseudoscience and crackpot ideology. Sexuality educators charge their opposition with censoring medically accurate, up to date science, and argue that kids need more than a “plumbing lesson.” Yet the sex ed industry is no less guilty of using science selectively and omitting facts that contradict their agendas. It’s time to call foul.
SIECUS and Planned Parenthood have yet to recognize some of the most compelling research of recent years. These organizations are still animated by the philosophies of the infamous sexologist Alfred Kinsey—whose work has been debunked—the birth control and eugenics advocate Margaret Sanger, the feminist Gloria Steinem, and Playboy founder Hugh Hefner. These twentieth-century crusaders were passionate about social change, not health. Their goal was a cultural revolution, not the eradication of disease. And the same is true for the sex ed industry. That’s why their premises haven’t changed in fifty years, even as journals like Neuropsychiatry and The New England Journal of Medicine have filled with research contradicting them.
Bizarro World
While SIECUS informs kids that culture teaches what it means to be a man or a woman, neuroscientists identify distinct “male brains” or “female brains” while a child is still in the womb. According to the “experts,” a girl is a “young woman,” ready for “sex play,” but gynecologists know the question is not whether a sexually active “young woman” will get herpes, HPV, or Chlamydia, it’s which one. “Respect your teens’ decisions,” parents are advised; “step aside, and don’t judge.” But studies show kids do best when parents convey their expectations and stand firm. Give adolescents information, they promise, provide them with condoms and pills, and they’ll make smart decisions. But MRIs show that during highly charged moments, teen brains rely on gut feelings, not reason. In other words, it’s not ignorance causing all those pregnancies and infections; it’s the unfinished wiring between brain cells.
These findings, and more, are excluded from modern sex education. Why? Because they contradict Kinsey, Hefner, and Steinem. They testify against the anything goes, women-are-just-like-men ideology. They announce to the world: Hicks–1, Harvard–0.
What Sex Ed Is Really All About
Parents, if you believe that the goals of sexuality education are to prevent pregnancy and disease, you are being hoodwinked. You must understand that these curricula are rooted in an ideology that you probably don’t share. This ideology values, above all—health, science, or parental authority—sexual freedom.
According to this philosophy, a successful curriculum encourages students to develop their own values, not blindly accept those of their community. It emphasizes the wisdom they’ll gain through open-mindedness and tolerance. “Students . . . become more ‘wide awake’ and open to multiple perspectives that make the familiar strange and the strange familiar,” according to one sex education manual.12
If the subject is marine biology or entomology, you might not mind if the “strange” becomes the “familiar” to your child. But when it comes to issues of sexuality, it might be another matter entirely. Do you want instructors, whose personal values might be at odds with yours, to encourage your kids to question what they’ve been taught at home and at church,13 and to come up with their own worldview based on taking sexual risks that endanger their health and wellbeing? It seems reasonable to question the ethics of this practice.
What these “experts” are hiding is their goal of bringing about radical social change, one child at a time. Their mission is to mold each student into what is considered “a sexually healthy” adult—as if there was universal agreement on what that is. 14 From a review of many of today’s sex ed curricula and websites, it would appear that a “sexually healthy” individual is one who has been “desensitized,” who is without any sense of embarrassment or shame (what some might consider “modesty”), whose sexuality is always “positive” and “open,” who respects and accepts “diverse” lifestyles, and who practices
“safer sex” with every “partner.”
This is not about health, folks. This is about indoctrination.
The Madness of “Comprehensive Sex Ed”
Don’t wait until children ask questions, parents are told by sex education “experts”; to ensure their healthy future, they need information early. Teach preschoolers that each of us is sexual, from cradle to grave, and that “sexual expression” is one of our basic human needs, like food, water, and shelter. Encourage their “positive body concept,” by expanding games such as “Simon Says” to include private parts (Simon says point to your ear, ankle, penis).15 Explain intercourse to preschoolers 16; tell them they have “body parts that feel good when touched.”17 Inform five-year-olds that “everyone has sexual thoughts and fantasies” and that “people experience sexual pleasure in a number of different ways.”18 Teach kids about HIV before they know their ABCs.19
The potential for harm is even greater a few years later when our kids must learn more, we’re told, for their own good. Planned Parenthood says 3rd grade is the time to find out about wet dreams, masturbation, rape, and “sex work.”20 Nine- to twelve-year-olds should understand that male and female are not defined solely by chromosomes or genitalia; everyone has an “internal sense” of his or her identity, and that “sense” might not jibe with what they see in the mirror.
As you can imagine, sex educators believe that the “information” teens “need” to know is more explicit and disturbing. But by then, of course, if not earlier, they can go online themselves and check out the sites sexuality educators recommend, like Columbia University’s “Go Ask Alice.” I urge every adult whose life includes a young person to check out this award-winning site, one that gets over two thousand questions a week, and many more hits. On “Alice,” teens find excellent information about drugs, alcohol, diet, depression, and other health issues. But they also learn how to purchase “adult products” by phone,21 arrange a threesome,22 and stay “safe” during sadomasochistic “sex play.”23
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