A researcher at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville is questioning results of a Ohio State University study in February that claimed teens who lose their virginity earlier than their peers are more likely to become juvenile delinquents.  According to the Washington Post article, “so obvious and well established was the contribution of early sex to later delinquency that the idea was already part of the required curriculum for federal ‘abstinence only’ programs.”

There was just one problem: It is probably not true. Other things being equal, a more probing study has found, youngsters who have consensual sex in their early-teen or even preteen years are, if anything, less likely to engage in delinquent behavior later on.

The new study “really calls into question the usefulness of abstinence education for preventing behavior problems,” Harden [a leader of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville study] said, “and questions the bigger underlying assumption that all adolescent sex is always bad.”

A New York Times blog post draws a comparison between the seemingly unrelated driving exam in South Africa and abstinence-only sex education in the U.S.

Health educators risk students’ well-being by being too politically correct, according to a column in WorldNetDaily.com.  The author cites Miriam Grossman, author of the book “Unprotected: A Campus Psychiatrist Reveals How Political Correctness in Her Profession Endangers Every Student.”

According to the article,  Dr. Grossman has garnered media attention because of her claim that health educators risk students’ health by promoting a “particular ideology – usually a combination of feminism, androgyny and ‘anything goes’ liberalism.”

The commentary goes further, saying that young women are particularly hurt by this ideology.

One fact absent from most sex education programs is that young girls are more susceptible to STDs than mature women. They don’t include information about the cervical transformation zone (or T-Zone), a ring of cells that is vulnerable to infection. The transformation zone is dramatically larger in a teenage girl, but shrinks as she gets older.

The commentary says the rationale for this ideology is that “sex educators like the idea of telling teens to have sex as soon as they feel ready not because it’s good for them, but because they see it as the values-neutral position.”

For more about Grossman, you can also read a recent San Francisco Chronicle article in which she discusses her book and what she sees as dangers in the casual “hook-up” environment on college campuses.

What do you think?  Do you think sex education programs are too politically correct to the point of being permissive, sending the message that it’s okay to have sex early?

According to the Christian Post and CitizenLink.com, a study published in the Jan./Feb. 2008 issue of the “American Journal of Health Behavior” will show that programs by the Virginia health department’s Abstinence Education Initiative resulted in a “significant reduction in teen sexual initiation.”

The Institute for Research and Evaluation evaluated the impact of the programs by examining the behavior of seventh-graders from five different Virginia schools. The study concluded that those students receiving abstinence education were about one-half (45.7 percent) as likely to initiate sexual activity as students who did not receive abstinence education.

News of the study broke soon after this week’s announcement that Virginia’s governor had decided to halt funding for abstinence-only education programs.  It also comes on the heels of a nationwide study that stated abstinence-only education is unproven for stopping teen sex.

The New York Times recently reported on the “vajayjay,” or the nickname for a vagina, that sprang into the popular lexicon after being featured on “Grey’s Anatomy” and “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” Shonda Rhimes, the creator of “Grey’s Anatomy,” decided to use the nickname after facing resistance from the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates media decency standards.

“I had written an episode during the second season of ‘Grey’s’ in which we used the word vagina a great many times (perhaps 11),” Ms. Rhimes wrote in an e-mail message. “Now, we’d once used the word penis 17 times in a single episode and no one blinked. But with vagina, the good folks at broadcast standards and practices blinked over and over and over. I think no one is comfortable experiencing the female anatomy out loud — which is a shame considering our anatomy is half the population.”

Rhimes was not alone in her reluctance to use a nickname for female anatomy. According to the article, Eve Ensler argued long-ago in “The Vagina Monologues” that “what we don’t say becomes a secret, and secrets often create shame and fear and myths.” Vagina, her widely performed series of monologues declared, is too often an “invisible word,” one “that stirs up anxiety, awkwardness, contempt and disgust.”

In a recent post that I wrote, one of sex therapist Dr. David McKenzie’s tips for parents talking to kids about sex was to use correct terminology. He said parents with good intentions sometimes use nicknames, but that it actually makes it more difficult for kids to comfortably ask questions about their bodies as they mature.

Meanwhile, Dr. Carol A. Livoti, a Manhattan obstetrician and gynecologist, said in the New York Times article that euphemisms and slang for women’s body parts can render women incapable of explaining their symptoms to health professionals. But in the article, Geoffrey Nunberg, a linguist at the University of California, Berkeley, and the chairman of the usage panel for the American Heritage Dictionary, said there was a need for a pet name, “a name that women can use in a familiar way among themselves.”

How do you think nicknames affect sex education and discussions about maturing bodies? Also, what do you think of the suggestion that the FCC has a double standard in its decency standards, coming down more heavily on the use of “vagina” than “penis”?

You can read blogosphere discussions, including postings on The Huffington Post and Boing Boing.

Watch a comedic “Talk Soup” video that includes the clips from “Oprah” and “Grey’s Anatomy” in which “vajayjay” was used:

Dr. David McKenzie, a marriage and sex therapist in Vancouver, Canada and Washington State, provides tips to Fox News about how to talk with children about sex.

DO:

• Allow children to set the pace by answering their questions in an age appropriate manner. Sex education can really start at any time.
• Utilize good literature, such as story books, to read to children at a very early age (as young a four or five years) where human sexuality is explored in very simple, child-like ways

DON’T:

• Close the door to open and honest discussion early on, which happens when parents use “birds and bees” terminology, even though they have the best intentions. Use correct words for each body part, otherwise children will not be as comfortable asking questions about their bodies as they grow up. Concepts can still be simplified and accessible to children while naming body parts by their real name.
• Ignore questions from your child about sex. But do not give more information than the specific information they are asking for, unless necessary to answer the question.
• Miss an opportunity to teach by not answering a child’s questions at all. Every question is an opportunity to teach and, by not answering, children will think parents can’t be approached.

Additional resources for parents (including both some comprehensive and some abstinence-only guides) include Advocates for Youth’s online Sex Ed Center, parenting Web site Kidsgrowth.com, Dr. Spock.com and Notmenow.org.

Virginia has stopped funding abstinence-only sex education programs, according to the Washington Post. Virgina Gov. Timothy M. Kaine cited recent studies finding that teenagers should also be taught about birth control and condoms to protect against pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

Delacey Skinner, Kaine’s communications director, said the governor believes that effective sex education programs must include information about contraceptives as well as abstinence.

The article says Virginia is the 14th state to reject abstinence-only education. The other states that have rejected federal funding for abstinence-only programs are California, Colorado, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, Wisconsin and Wyoming.  You can read more background about Title V, the federally-funded abstinence-only education.

A Wisconsin woman has been charged with “exposing children to harmful descriptions,” a felony crime that carries a penalty of up to three years in prison, according to Court TV News.

Amy Smalley thought she was being a good parent when she taught her children about sex.

Smalley told her children, ages 11 and 15, about her own sexual experiences, explained how to perform oral sex and even showed them a sex toy she owned.

This is an interesting topic because part of the debate over sex education centers on who should be teaching it: parents or schools. But this case centers around how it’s taught by parents, who are usually assumed to deserve at least some voice in how their kids are educated about sex. What do you think of this prosecution? Do you agree that the parent should be protected by free speech laws, as her lawyer argued?

I conducted an audio interview this week with Bill Albert, the deputy director with the Washington-based The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. This is particularly timely because the organization just released a study, “Emerging Answers 2007,” that explores which sex education programs are most effective for preventing teen pregnancy, among other things. You can also view my previous, related post, about the study’s findings.

Listen: Teen pregnancy audio interview

I’ve also posted a full transcript of the interview, which includes additional questions that didn’t make it into the edited audio file.

Colorado recently failed to renew its request for Title V funding, federal funds that must be used for abstinence-only sex education.  Although Title V has been controversial and other states have denied the funding after some studies found abstinence-only sex education are not necessarily more effective and sometimes have no impact, Colorado says it ended the funding because of bureaucratic, not philosophical, reasons.

According to the RHRealityCheck.org blog, Dr. Ned Calonge, Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment’s chief medical officer, acknowledged that the health department’s conclusion was influenced by the ongoing battle on Capitol Hill over the continuation of Title V.  But Calonge holds that they “just made the decision not to reapply [for the funding].”

The Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States applauded the decision, calling Colorado the 13th state to reject the funds.  Why do you think Colorado failed to renew its application for Title V funds? Who do you believe?