Can We Teach Safer Sex Now?
We spent $875 MILLION (that is *not* a typo) to fund abstinence-only education over the last 10 years. The results? Absolutely no differences in abstinence between control groups and abstinence-only education groups. (Okay, actually, those in the abstinence-only group were 1% more likely to have 4 or more sexual partners. Oops.)
Can we go back to teaching safer sex practices now?
Healthbolt’s got the graphs.
Call me a cynic but at least the program didn’t produce something worse than doing nothing at all.
I would have assumed that ineffectively preaching abstinence to the masses would lead to ignorance or complacency about safer sex practices.
Economist Megan Mcardle wrote: The kids didn’t have sex any later, but they also weren’t any less likely to use birth control. If this study is correct, it implies that all sex-ed is useless, a result I don’t find particularly surprising, actually. ”
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