by Ben Shapiro
The fact that this message had to be taught in schools, though, already signified the beginning of the end for traditional morality. If parents were abdicating their responsibilities to such an extent that the schools had to step in, it was only a matter of time before taxpayer-funded sex ed became the dominant experience it is today.
It didn’t take long. With growing sexual licentiousness and the beginnings of moral decline in the 1920s, sex education became more and more prevalent. The Great Depression and WWII delayed the downward spiral of sexual education. But by the beginning of the 1950s, sex education was ready to explode onto the scene. In 1948, Alfred Kinsey published his landmark survey, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male; in 1953, he followed up with Sexual Behavior in the Human Female.
According to Kinsey, 85 percent of males had premarital sex, almost 70 percent had sex with whores, and 30 to 45 percent of husbands had affairs. Somewhere between 10 and 37 percent of men had engaged in homosexuality.20 These statistics were debunked later on, when it was found that Kinsey had skewed his polling data by relying on the testimony of sex offenders. As Daniel Flynn, author of Intellectual Morons, writes, “Kinsey was a charlatan who embarked upon research to confirm his pre-drawn conclusions.”21
Kinsey claimed that Americans were secret perverts and sex maniacs. He “concluded that generations of Americans had not simply failed to follow the accepted standard of sexual morality, but in fact had failed so spectacularly as to call into question the moral code’s very validity as a social ideal.”22 This is the tried-and-true hypocrisy charge: If you’ve sinned, you can’t advocate morality. Falsely implicating millions of Americans in immoral sexual behavior was certainly an effective way of neutralizing societal morality. The only way to alleviate guilt became abdication of moral sexual standards. And when the chief goal is erasing guilt, even for immoral actions, all that remains is narcissism.
Kinsey’s view—that societal standards had to be lowered—caught on in short order. “[Our goal] is to be ready as educators and parents to help young people obtain sex satisfaction before marriage,” wrote Planned Parenthood staffer Lena Levine in 1953. “By sanctioning sex before marriage, we will prevent fear and guilt . . . we must be ready to provide young boys and girls with the best contraception measures available so they will have the necessary means to achieve sexual satisfaction without having to risk possible pregnancy.”23
Levine’s boss at Planned Parenthood, Dr. Mary Calderone, would go on to found SIECUS, an organization devoted exclusively to “the broad aspects of human sexuality.”24 Calderone’s vision was of an open sex education, a sex education that didn’t view “sex as a ‘problem’ to be ‘controlled,’” but rather as “a vital life force to be utilized.”25 Luckily for Calderone and her ilk, by the late 1960s, teen sexual behavior had escalated to such an extent that a 1968 poll showed 71 percent of Americans favoring some sort of sex education at high schools.26 “National statistics tell part of the story,” wrote John Kobler in the Saturday Evening Post in 1968. “Venereal diseases among teenagers: over 80,000 cases reported in 1966 . . . Unwed teenage mothers: about 90,000 a year, an increase of 100 percent in two decades. One out of every three brides under twenty goes to the altar pregnant . . . illegal abortions run into the hundreds of thousands.”27 It is fascinating that Kobler dates the vast rise in unwed teenage pregnancy back to 1948. Is it any coincidence that Kinsey’s seminal work premiered that very year?
The rest is history. Today’s sex ed experience for members of the porn generation is wedded to the idea of permissiveness and “tolerance” for all sorts of behaviors. As “inherently sexual beings” the argument goes, our sexuality should not and cannot be contained by any system of morality. Sexuality is as much a natural characteristic as race. No form of sexual expression may be condemned, and all must be taught. Be loud, and be proud. A textbook in use at Van Buren High School in Woodland, a Midwestern city with a population of about 175,000, explains this view to ninth-graders: “Because of the strong biological urge and its association with pleasure, sexual behavior is not always easy to control. Partially for this reason, many people have tried to hide sexual feelings. Total abstinence or illicit sex may cause feelings of guilt, fear, and anxiety. Sex is beautiful and can be an essential part of the total personality of everyone. No one should be forced into a position of guilt, fear, or anxiety about their own sexuality.”28
In the absence of traditional morality, “self-esteem” (code for narcissism) is the rule of the day. SIECUS, the foremost independent sex education organization in the United States, touts its chief goal: “SIECUS affirms that sexuality is a fundamental part of being human, one that is worthy of dignity and respect. We advocate for the right of all people to accurate information, comprehensive education about sexuality, and sexual health services. SIECUS works to create a world that ensures social justice and sexual rights.”29 Planned Parenthood, which hands out materials to thousands of school children across America each year, states that its mission is to forward “the fundamental right of each individual, throughout the world, to manage his or her fertility, regardless of the individual’s income, marital status, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, national origin, or residence.” In the field of education, this means “educational programs which enhance understanding of individual and societal implications of human sexuality.”30
These radical sex educators are correct in one sense: Sex shouldn’t be shameful. But just because people have natural desires and drives doesn’t legitimate those natural desires and drives in all contexts, especially outside the context of marriage.
The attack on abstinence
The public policy brilliance of comprehensive sex education is its self-justifying nature. Sex education has used skyrocketing rates of venereal disease, teen pregnancy, and sexual immorality as an excuse to teach its panoramic view of sexuality. Unfortunately, there’s a rising threat looming on the horizon for sex educators: abstinence education. If morality can somehow be infused back into sex education, if the “tolerance for all sexual activity” mission may be discarded safely, the Kinseyans are out of a job.
So the only thing to do is rail against abstinence education. Social liberals start by claiming that abstinence education is “repressive,” conjuring up purple images of religious fanaticism. “I personally feel this, that the underlying issue is sex,” said Surgeon General Dr. Jocelyn Elders in 1993. “That fornication must be punished, and that teenage pregnancy and the bad things that happen after are the natural punishment.”31
Then the social liberals claim that abstinence education doesn’t work, because—of course—abstinence is impossible. “Denying our young people accurate information about sexual health will not prevent unintended pregnancies or the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. It will, however, prevent them from making responsible and informed decisions about their health and futures,” growled William Smith, director of public policy of SIECUS.32 “Personally, I don’t think abstinence is going to fly at all,” says Susan Foote, chairwoman of the Seabrook (New Hampshire) Planning Board. “There are other forms of pregnancy prevention than abstinence. Remember back when you were a teen; would abstinence have worked for you?”33 (By the way, the Seabrook Commissioner’s Task Force on Abstinence Education found that “roughly 60 percent of kids are staying abstinent.”34)
“Within this culture where sex sells everything from shampoo to gum, George Bush has proposed doubling the amount of federal funding for abstinence-only sex education in the classroom,” states an outraged Anne Kim of the University of Washington. “[I]t’s a farce to assume that exclusively teaching ‘no sex is safe sex’ will prevent teens from having it. This message dissolves in the real world where teens, regardless of whether they’re sexually active, want to know and talk about sex.”35
The truth is it’s too early to tell whether abstinence education can work at a wide level. There have been no conclusive studies one way or another, and the studies that do exist conflict w
ith each other. A Heritage Foundation report found that women who pledge to remain virgins until marriage are “about 40 percent less likely to have a child out of wedlock when compared to similar young women who do not make such a pledge.”36 Other research found that only 12 percent of those who made abstinence pledges fulfilled them, although those who didn’t last the distance at least waited eighteen months longer on average to have sex, married younger, and had fewer sexual partners before marriage.37 Still another study found that the rate of STDs among pledge-makers was slightly lower than the rate among those who made no pledge.38
Yet despite the conflicting information about pro-abstinence programs, one fact remains certain: Non-abstinence-only education programs have been a massive and complete failure. The proof is in the results.
Despite President Bush’s support for abstinence-only education, the vast majority of federal and state government-backed sex education in this country remains comprehensive, non-abstinence-only sex ed. In 2002, the federal and state governments spent $1.73 billion on contraception promotion and pregnancy prevention programs, as opposed to $144.1 million for abstinence programs for teens. That’s a 12:1 ratio, with abstinence programs getting the short end of the stick.39
Yet comprehensive sex education has done little or nothing to stanch the flow of teen pregnancy, venereal disease, and sexual licentiousness. By age thirteen, over 8 percent of girls have had sex. By age fifteen, one-third of girls have had sex, as opposed to less than 5 percent in 1970.40 That statistic is 45 percent for today’s fifteen-year-old boys.41 In the 1970s, “39 percent of sexually active adolescent girls reported multiple partners; as of 1988 that number had grown to 55 percent. Thirteen percent of those girls reported having had sex with at least six men.”42 Two-thirds of suburban and urban twelfth graders have had sex, and 43 percent of suburban twelfth graders have had sex outside of a “romantic relationship,” as have 39 percent of urban twelfth graders.43 Meanwhile, the national illegitimacy rate has risen dramatically, from just over 5 percent in 196044 to 33 percent as of 2003.45 Three to four million STDs are contracted annually by teens from the ages of fifteen to nineteen. Today, there are over twenty-five STDs of major concern, as opposed to only two in the 1960s.46
Arguing that it’s irresponsible to try an untested regime of abstinence education is a losing argument when we compare it to our current regime of pathetic failure, and social liberals recognize that weakness. So instead of trying abstinence, most just change their colors, calling comprehensive sex ed “abstinence-plus” sex ed. It’s like changing the name of South Central Los Angeles to South Los Angeles in order to prevent crime. Spin isn’t very effective in either case.
But those determined social liberals continue to spin away. Nicholas Kristof of the Times states, without citing a single statistic, that “There’s plenty of evidence that abstinence-plus programs—which encourage abstinence but also teach contraception—delay sex and increase the use of contraception.”47
Hillary Clinton, prepping for her presidential run, is smarter. She concedes, “Research shows that the primary reason that teenage girls abstain is because of their religious and moral values. We should embrace this—and support programs that reinforce the idea that abstinence at a young age is not just the smart thing to do, it is the right thing to do.” But that doesn’t mean that Hillary is willing to forego comprehensive sex ed: “But we should also recognize what works and what doesn’t work, and to be fair, the jury is still out on the effectiveness of abstinence-only programs . . . We should use all the resources at our disposal to ensure that teens are getting the information they need to make the right decision.” This means backing “increasing access to family planning services,” among other socially liberal programs.48 Liberals like Hillary won’t give up their self-feeding government-sponsored propaganda machine without a fight.
The president’s goodnight blowjobs
Hillary’s husband has played a sexual education role as well. President Clinton’s impeachment scandal of 1998 had a definite impact on the porn generation, and not in a positive sense. While most liberal commentators argued at the time that Clinton didn’t need to be a role model for America’s children in his personal life, his actions effectively validated the worst kind of activity—both when it comes to lying about sex and on the issue of oral sex. And the kids were watching.
By February 2005, a Seventeen magazine poll (in conjunction with SIECUS) showed that “40% of guys have said, ‘I love you,’ just to get a girl to do something sexual. 31% of guys have told a friend they went further with a girl than they really did. 17% of guys have told a girl they were virgins when they weren’t (so she wouldn’t think she was at risk for STDs).”49
In an attempt to dodge the perjury issue, Clinton contributed to the hot new idea that oral sex wasn’t real sex. Clinton claimed in August 1998 that “I said, I have not had sex with her as I defined it. That was true. And did I hope that I would never have to be here on this day giving this testimony? Of course. But I also didn’t want to do anything to complicate this matter further. So, I said things that were true. They may have been misleading, and if they were I have to take responsibility for it, and I’m sorry.”50
Despite earlier statements indicating that President Clinton defined oral sex as a sexual relationship,51 many in the media picked up on his latter words. This scandal wasn’t even about sex, they asserted—it was about fake sex!
So stated attorney W.A. Friedlander in the Raleigh News and Observer: “in Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, p. 795, ‘sexual relations’ is defined simply as ‘coitus’ which, in turn, is defined as ‘the natural conveying of semen to the female reproductive tract.’ This would certainly exclude oral sex.”52 Time bought the argument as well, stating in an article titled “When Sex Is Not Really Having Sex” that Clinton had “a legal loophole narrower than the eye of a needle but considerably easier to pass through than a prison wall.”53
Justified by Clinton, and either assented to or conveniently overlooked by his media pals, the oral sex/real sex faux distinction is now the prevailing belief among children. To be sure, the belief was prevalent even before the term Lewinsky entered common parlance, but having the president of the United States validate that belief surely didn’t help matters. Ricardo Gandara of the Austin American-Statesman posits, “Why are kids fearless about oral sex? Perhaps former President Clinton’s public distinction between oral sex and ‘real’ sex helped pave the way.”54
Dr. W. David Hager, a member of the Food and Drug Administration’s Advisory Committee for Reproductive Health Drugs, stated that he believed the increase in oral sex could be traced to the Lewinsky scandal and Clinton’s hair-splitting.55 And Dr. Lauren Streicher, a gynecologist from Northwestern Memorial Hospital, told the Chicago Sun-Times in March 2004, “There’s no question that there’s an increase in oral sex over the last five to seven years . . . One of the problems is that teenagers don’t often consider it to be sex. They think that this is not the same as having intercourse.”56
Of course, five to seven years before 2004 would be . . . 1997–1999, precisely the period in which the Lewinsky scandal broke. Interesting how that works.
Radical social leftist and Boston University professor Shari Thurer also credits the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal for bringing oral sex into the limelight .57 Joe McIlhaney Jr., president and founder of The Medical Institute for Sexual Health, agrees. “He said it wasn’t sex,” McIlhaney wrote in the Houston Chronicle. “Well, then how come it is causing the rampant spread of genital herpes among America’s young people? The ‘he’ I refer to is former President Bill Clinton. And the ‘it’ is oral sex, which Clinton said with great sincerity, isn’t sex.”58
Kids buy into Clinton’s argument. In one case, the head teacher at a school in a Washington suburb told parents that twelve girls aged thirteen to fourteen had been doing “it” with two or three boys. When one set of parents confronted their child, she quickly responded: “What’s the
big deal? President Clinton did it.”59
This is a brutally harmful belief. First off, sexually transmitted diseases can easily be passed genitals-to-mouth. Second, young men and women, pressured into believing that oral sex doesn’t really count, are more free to give it even if they don’t really want to. According to a December 2000 study by the Alan Guttmacher Institute journal, Family Planning Perspectives, giving oral sex makes girls feel exploited, but they do it anyway because they want to be popular or “make boys happy.”60
And then there’s the moral aspect. Oral sex outside of marriage is still extramarital sex. Denial of that fact is simply defining deviancy down. Boys and girls degrade the sex act to the level of kissing and still consider themselves virgins, even though they have engaged in promiscuous extramarital sex. When they get married as “virgins,” they breach a sacred trust between husband and wife. If the point of virginity until marriage is to keep sexual activity within moral boundaries, oral sex is a betrayal of that ideal.
Teens don’t see it that way. According to a 2003 Northern Kentucky University survey of almost 600 teens who had taken abstinence pledges, 61 percent had broken them; of the remaining 39 percent, who were still in their own opinions “virgins,” more than half said that they’d had oral sex. “Some people feel like they can maintain their pledge and still have oral sex, and that oral sex doesn’t count,” NKU researcher and psychologist Angela Lipsitz observed.61
On January 15, 1999, Dr. George Lundberg, editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association, published a study in which 60 percent of college students claimed that oral sex was not “real sex.”62 In July 1999, the Washington Post discovered an “unsettling new fad”—suburban middle school kids were commonly giving each other oral sex at parks, houses, and schools.63 Twenty percent of teens have had oral sex by age fifteen.64 A survey by Seventeen and the Kaiser Family Foundation revealed that 55 percent of teens have engaged in oral sex, as opposed to 40 percent engaging in vaginal intercourse.65