An article in The Evening Observer discusses the evolution in Jamestown’s sex education programs after the national spotlight on Nushawn Williams, who infected more than a dozen girls with HIV in the area in 1997, knowing he was HIV positive. The youngest girl was 13, the oldest in her mid-20s.

When DiMaio [a former health educator] first started teaching in the early 1970s, he said sex was something which couldn’t be discussed in health class. But then Nushawn appeared, and things changed pretty quickly.

‘‘Jamestown went from being very, very, very conservative on sexual education,’’ he said, ‘‘and then we went to being very progressive about it. I think what happens is some of these (organizations) had to rush into it real quick because they didn’t have anything.’’

After news of the HIV outbreak, there was a study in six county schools at the request of the Chautauqua County Health Department to provide insight into adolescents’ thinking, and their behaviors and attitudes.

The study found almost all high school students answered questions about HIV correctly, while two-thirds of younger students did as well. Ninety-five percent of the respondents indicated they learned about AIDS in school, with more than half indicating they had received flyers and pamphlets on the subject.

The researchers also found almost a third of the students had kissed by seventh grade, more than one-third of the eighth-graders had been touched on the breast or genitals. And of the 2,503 who answered the question, ‘‘Have you ever had intercourse,’’ 704 indicated ‘‘yes.’’ Many reported being sexually active between the ages of 13 and 16, with 47 percent of respondents indicating they did not or had never used a condom.

After the results of the report were published, Ms. Metzger said there was an increase in sexual education programming in area districts and communities. However, she and other county officials have noticed a drop in the number of programs offered as the years went by after the incident.

This article is an interesting look at one town’s increased scrutiny of its sex ed programs following a major event. It also raises the issue of how administrators and communities can continue to promote sex education over time, rather than having the programs languish as they did in Jamestown’s case.

The Genarlow Wilson case has thrust age of consent laws into the spotlight. Wilson was just released from prison on Oct. 26 after serving a two-year aggravated child molestation sentence for having oral sex with a 15-year-old girl when he was 17. In Georgia, the age of consent is 16.

An Associated Press article yesterday quoted school administrators who said sex education needs to include information about age of consent laws because many people are unaware that consensual teenage sex is often a crime. Adding to the confusion, the legal age of consent varies by state, ranging from 14 to 18.

“We do a disgraceful job of educating kids about the very real consequences that they face,” said J. Tom Morgan, a former DeKalb County district attorney who has a new book coming out called “Ignorance Is No Defense: A Teenagers Guide to Georgia Law.”

“If society is going to punish them as adults,” said Morgan, “then society ought to educate them.”

The executive director of the National Abstinence Education Association countered this, saying federally-funded abstinence-only programs are encouraged to teach age of consent laws as part of their classes.

But Wilson said sex education classes are lacking.

“Most of the time they just tell kids, ‘Use condoms,’” Wilson told The Associated Press
“That’s not the only thing they need to know about sex. They need to know that they can actually go to jail.”

Are you aware of the age of consent laws in your state? Do you think the laws are overly confusing, considering that the consent also varies depending on the closeness in age of the two participants? I thought it was interesting that the article mentioned new “Romeo and Juliet” exceptions by some states to prevent sexually active teenagers from being lumped together with child molesters.

Curious about the laws in your state? Avert, an international AIDS charity, has compiled worldwide age of consent laws. (U.S. state-by-state laws are near the bottom of the table.)