Could it be that many teenagers would rather take their chances with AIDS than run the risk of embarrassment? And what about the risk of pregnancy?
Family-planning workers have observed that many teenage girls cannot bring themselves to march into a clinic and declare that they are planning to lose their virginity. It’s too embarrassing. Running the risk of pregnancy is preferable.
After earning a graduate degree in public health, I was employed by the State of California to help solve the problem of teenage pregnancy by educating teenagers about birth control. The fundamental origin of the problem-the premarital sexual activity of teenagers-was accepted as a given. The Planned Parenthood professional assigned to train me pointed out that the real solution to this problem was to eradicate the sense of shame associated with premarital sex.
I was stunned. But the logic was obvious: teenage pregnancy is a problem. Birth control is the solution. Shame is the barrier to applying the solution. Therefore eliminate shame in order to solve the problem. But taking a young person’s sense of modesty and giving back a pill or a condom wasn’t what anyone would call a fair trade.
Nonetheless, for the next several months I proceeded to talk to hundreds of teenagers about various methods of birth control. But I was never convinced that I was genuinely helping them.
Professionally, I succumbed to the obligatory gag rule: don’t say anything that could arouse the sense of shame. In practice, then, I was compelled to imply that all sexual choices were morally neutral. Thus everything that I had learned from my parents’ marriage and my own marriage was off-limits. Everything I believed about how human beings form meaningful and lasting relationships was not only irrelevant but counterproductive.
The new sexual ideology protected teenagers from shame by saying, " If you feel like you are ready, then it’s OK." Ready for what? Ready to build a life together? Ready for conquest? Ready to feel like a slut? Ready to bring a new life into the world? Shame is a powerful word that explodes in many directions. There is a cruel, destructive side to shame. Controlling people by shaming them into self-loathing or compliance, for example. But shame also protects us. It prevents us from treating others in a despicable fashion. And it protects “the sanctity of our unfinished or unready selves.”
In his book, “The Meaning of Persons,” Paul Tournier reflects on a young person’s innate sense of modesty: “The appearance of this sense of shame is, in fact, the sign of the birth of a person. And later the supreme affirmation of the person, the great engagement of life, will be marked by the handing over of the secret, the gift of the self, the disappearance of shame.”
Recently, I returned to the high-school campus to talk with students about how they see themselves and what they hope for. Many were offended by the adult assumption that most teens are sexually active. One girl was so uncomfortable that she went to her teacher in Living Skills class to explain that she was not sleeping with her boyfriend. " It’s like the adult world invading our world," another girl commented.
Yet they are embarrassed to ask the questions they care about most. " What should I look for in a guy?" " How do I know if it’s morally right?" “How will I feel afterward?”
Behind their “correct,” value-free facade lurks a deep sense of loss. They lament the lack of guidelines and moral structure. One girl described it this way: “It used to be that people got married and then they had sex. Then when the baby came there was a place all prepared for it. Now technology has taken away the worry of having children. That leaves sex to float around in everyone’s life when there’s no guy who’s going to stick around.”
“It used to be that kids wouldn’t want to disappoint themselves or each other,” a boy remarked. “I think it’s really lonely,” said another. “It’s sad.”
It’s as if the gap between sex and marriage had opened up a huge empty hole in which there were “no real sure thing.” A loving relationship that lasts. Hasn’t that always been the goal and bottom line? Isn’t the real C word for sex education commitment, not condoms?
It’s time to give the thousands of couples in this country who have been happily married 20, 30, 40, 50 years equal access to sex-education classrooms. One boy told me, “I’d like to hear more stories … how they met … how they kept the love alive.” If you have built a marriage and family the " old-fashioned" way, go to a classroom and tell your story. Share the wisdom gained by keeping the promises of your youth. Let them ask the questions they care about the most.
In coming face to face with other human beings, how much do we value the self that we glimpse through their eyes, that flutters past in a gesture or a smile? Sex education is about nothing less than how and when we hand over this astonishing gift of the self. The goal is that we can love and trust and believe enough to commit our whole self and our whole future.
