Hello!

My name is Jessica Valenti and I am here to discuss my experiences regarding sexual

education in the United States.
My experience regarding the topic I am about to discuss stems from my history as a
Journalist (Bachelors from State University at New York) and as a Womans and Gender
Studies advocate (Masters from Rutgers University).
Through my time as an advocate, I worked for the Women’s Environment and
Development Organization, Legal Defense and Education Fund, and even wrote and
managed my own blog journal “Feministing” until 2011.

Consistantly through my career as a journalist and womens advocate, I knew that

there was something up with the way sex was addressed in schools.
To teach HIV awareness, to not, to address abstinence or enforce it- all the way down
to talking about contraceptive and menstruation, many states have this concept of
what they think is the most effective idea to teach our youth about their own bodies.
How is that so, when many states have pregnancy rates significantly higher than the
national average?

The problem is the way it’s taught. We teach less of what is medically accurate and
more of what fits inside of our moral and religious agenda.
Two of the biggest issues we face when addressing education in the united states
comes from the concept of abstinence and consent education to young students. Often
they choose to wait to teach about consent until later in highschool, and for some
students they may have become sexually active long before and suffered the
consequences of ignorance.

How is this problem combatted?

The system decides to fearmonger the students into shaming sexual contact and
removing its normalcy from society. Abstinence and Lack of Sexual Consent.
Studies that address this problem already show that waiting to teach about healthy
sexual relationships is already detrimental to the students, as consequences continue
to pile up and stand as obstacles in their paths.
When only “[11%] of states are promoting and teaching sexual consent education [in
the classroom]” (Willis), You know there has to be something wrong.
Furthermore, addressing the issue that a majority of sexual assault victims (68%) are
within the ages of 12 to 24 years old (Department of Justice), neglecting to teach
students about what it means to consent to sexual contact further propagates the
issue of child and young adult sexual assult and rape that goes unreported or
unchecked.
Ignorance is not the path to take.
Furthermore, addressing the fear mongering of abstinence that lazily accounts for the
lack of education they provide to children, studies all around the world show that
abstinence does not work.
“A study published recently in the American Journal of Public Health attributed most
of the 14-year birthrate drop to wider contraceptive use. ‘Abstinence-only programs
are ideology driven,’ says Marilyn Keefe, director of reproductive health and rights at
the nonprofit National Partnership for Women and Families,” (Kotz).

When the topic is addressed again and again that promoting safer sex through the
introduction of contraceptives is more effective, why don’t states education boards
make the change? Well my book, The Purity Myth, a best seller from the year 2009,
addresses society’s desire to keep women in this state of purity, something that
revolves entirely from their bodies and whether or not they are ‘tainting’ them with
sex before marriage.

“The desirable virgin is sexy but not sexual. She's young, white, and skinny. She's a
cheerleader, a babysitter; she's accessible and eager to please (remember those ethics
of passivity!). She's never a woman of color. SHe's never a low-income girl or a fat
girl. She's never disabled. "Virgin" is a designation for those who meet a certain
standard of what women, especially young women, are supposed to look like. As for
how these young women are supposed to act? A blank slate is best.” (Valenti).
Society has this perfect picture woman that they want to enforce on younger girls
starting early in their primary and secondary education. They don’t think to teach
them about safe sex or concraceptives and consent until after many of them have seen
the consequences for themselves and faced avoidable turmoil that society’s imposed
ignorance has forced upon them.

The plan is to break down these walls and put up an era of change, to promote the
body as something to be cherished in a way that is both safe and empowering, to teach
girls how to take care of themselves without scaring them into secrecy or removing
their birth control pills or other contraceptives. Individuals should be looking at the
scientific facts that prove their moral agendas are wrong, and using that as the first
step forward to teaching medically accurate and helpful sexual education.

Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Sex

Offenses and Offenders (1997).
Willis, M., Jozkowski, K. N., & Read, J. (2019). Sexual consent in K-12 sex education: an
analysis of current health education standards in the United States. Sex
Education, 19(2), 226–236. https://doi.org/10.1080/14681811.2018.1510769
Kotz, D. (2007). A Debate About Teaching Abstinence. U.S. News & World Report,
143(23), 28. Retrieved from
http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=28024570&
authtype=shib&site=ehost-live&scope=site
Valenti, Jessica. The Purity Myth  : How America’s Obsession with Virginity Is Hurting
Young Women . Seal Press, 2010.