Sex Education

Sex education classes in America are painted to be something out of the movie, Mean Girls; a classroom with a boring teacher telling you not to have sex or you will “get pregnant and die” (Michaels, L). While this is perceived as humorous, there are some truths to this scene. Sex education today has become something that many students are not interested in and do not take seriously. This is a problem because sex education is an important part of today’s society in America. This lack of interest in sex education courses is something that must be addressed. In order to continue the decrease in teen pregnancy rates, sex education courses need to be drastically changed in the education system.
In the past, many couples would wait until marriage before they would partake in intercourse. Premarital sex was considered taboo. However, in the twenty-first century, most couples are not waiting until marriage. According to newstrategist.com, the average age for an American youth to lose their virginity is seventeen. Only around three percent of Americans wait until marriage before they have sex and approximately only twenty percent of people in highly religious groups successfully wait until marriage before having sex. There was also a study done that showed twenty-two percent of couples that waited until marriage to have sex had a happier relationship (Crystal). Unfortunately, this increase in adolescent sexual activity has brought issues. Many young people who are engaging in sexual activities are not always being informed at a young age, some are partaking in it without having any prior knowledge. Because of this, they do not fully understand the concerns regarding having sex. Clearly, sex education is a significant issue that needs to be reformed. In order to increase interest in sex education classes, the teaching structure of the classes must be changed from just teaching about abstinence to young people.
In 1991, teen birth rates were at it’s highest; there were around sixty-two million births to teenagers alone. Over the next decade these rates began to decline. We are now at the lowest we have ever been with only four million births. Experts believe that the cause of this is what the youth are being taught in comprehensive sex program. These programs help educate young people to make healthy choices when it comes to sex and how to make safe decisions (Effective Sex Education). Results of comprehensive programs show that exposing the young people to the information about HIV and AIDs does not increase the sex rates in the youth, and does not increase the numbers of partners that the sexually active youth will have. There are no highly effective government funded HIV programs to help educate the youth about the dangers of HIV. The government has spent over one billion dollars on a system that is not effective. Another flaw in these programs is that they do not allow the school systems to educate the young people about the benefits of condoms and contraception. The government has spent over one billion dollars on a system that is not effective. Sadly, there are no highly effective HIV programs that federal funding is able to contribute to help educate the youth about the dangers of this disease. These programs also do not allow the school systems to educate the young people about the benefits of condoms and contraception (Henry, P).
Sex education needs to inform the youth more about STDs and how they will affect their lives.
Though the rise in teenage pregnancies is lowering, the rise in sexually transmitted diseases is continuing to rise. Research shows that young people around the ages of 15-24 represent twenty-five percent of the sexually active population and are more likely to obtain an STD. There are around 9.5 million new STD cases a year. There are around 3.2 million young women that have an STD. The average ages for these young girls are between the ages of