Sex! the Podcast: The State of Sex Education

[Music] Hello everyone. Today I really would like to talk about the state of sex education in the United States as we know it today. So I think it's important, I think sex education is important period, but I think it's important to talk about what is the state of sex education because it is so varied and this is often where our sexual knowledge begins. Not everybody has parents or caregivers that give them solid foundation and knowledge about their body. So for some people this is the only information they ever got and sometimes it's pretty limited. So I really want to talk about this before I dive in. I actually got to do sex education in my previous job where I was working with people who had committed sex offenses and that often the information that they had was pretty limited and some of it was outright misinformation. So I became pretty passionate about how does this look across our country. So I want to kind of jump into the research and jump into some resources and we're going to have a little fun in a long way. So what are we currently talking to kids about sex in schools? What are we doing? Well it actually really depends on what state you live in which is to me fairly sad. I think all of our kids in every state no matter where they are they should have equal opportunity to get information and get education. So what does research say actually works? So overall and I'm not here to debate or have a political debate or anything like that. I care about what does research say what are people's experiences and things like that. So what do we know something we know and what research has proven time and time again is that comprehensive sex education has been is effective. Now what does comprehensive sex education mean? It means that it includes information about sexual anatomy. It includes information about HIV, STIs, how to use birth control. And it also now and it includes what does it mean to have different sexual identities. And that's really important because we have so many kids with so many different kinds of experiences in this world. So we need to touch every part of their education about their bodies however it looks. And I think that's I think overall it is so important for not even one kid to feel shame about this because oftentimes there there comes a time in their life whether it's from a parent whether it's from a caregiver whether it's from a peer that they will encounter shame about their bodies. So I think that it's so important that this education is well rounded includes many many facets. So evaluations generally of comprehensive sex education programs show that these programs help help youth generally delay the onset of sexual activity. It reduces the frequency of sexual activity and reduces the number of sexual sexual partners overall increases condom use increases contraception use. Importantly the science and research shows that youth who receive comprehensive sex education are not more likely. I'll say that again not more likely to become sexually active. It's that old adage like I used to hear when I was young that if you showed someone something they're more likely to do it. Oh, if you show them or talk about this thing they're more likely to do it. That is not at all the case. They they're less sexually active and increase it. It does not increase sexual activity or or experience negative sexual outcomes either. So effective programs exist for youth for many many racial cultural and social and socioeconomic backgrounds and that is super important because kids need to be able to identify with the information they're receiving. It's receiving. It cannot just be about one group of people. So there's there's been a lot of research done specifically the national survey of family growth to deter they determine what they did was they tried to determine the impact of sexuality education on youth sexual risk taking for young people ages 15 to 19. They found that teens who received comprehensive sex education were 50% less likely to experience pregnancy than those who received as abstinence only education. Now abstinence only education for those of you who don't know is when they teach kids to not have sex and that's the only option that they shouldn't have sex and that's the best prevention from anything. When I was a kid I got a combination of these two things so I got comprehensive plus abstinence only so it was here's all the things here's all the things to prevent STIs and here's how you prevent pregnancy. Here's the body and by the way kids don't have sex don't do that. It's wrong. That's the message we were given when I was young. So the research bears out that comprehensive all of the pieces giving the kid giving kids all of the information is the best course of action. So research it looks like researcher Douglas Kirby from the national campaign to and teen and unplanned pregnancy exam and studies of prevention programs which had strong experimental design and used appropriate analysis. So the second two thirds of the 48 comprehensive sex education programs studied had positive effects so 40% delayed sexual initiation reduce the number of sexual partners or increased condom or contraceptive use 30% reduced the frequency of sex including a return to abstinence and 60% reduced unprotected sex. I think overall in our country we are adults and are nervous about sex generally so amplify that by 10 when they think about teenagers having sex. And that is a very very tough place to be I understand that caregivers and parents all you want to do is protect your kids all you want to do is create a space where your your kids won't make choices that they are not ready to experience the consequences for and get it. I have parent myself here's the thing comprehensive sex giving them all of the information is what is actually helpful to them. So this information that some of the information I'm sharing with you is from advocates for youth they're really great nonprofit organization and I'll make sure all of this information is in the show notes so that you can if you're interested take a look at it yourself. So that's the same nonprofit advocates for youth they they look they looked at a whole lot of reviews so they looked at they looked at reviews of sex education programs and they compile list of programs that have been proven effective by rigorous evaluation so 26 effective programs were identified 23 of which included comprehensive sex education and at least one component of the program. The other programs were early childhood interventions of the 23 effective comprehensive sex education programs 14 programs demonstrated a statistically significant delay in the timing of first sex. 13 programs showed statistically significant declines and teen pregnancy HIV and other STIs 14 programs helped sexually active youth to increase their use of condoms. 9 programs demonstrated success at increasing use of contraception and other than condoms so and any other so they're saying that that's those programs showed increased use of things other than just the condoms. 13 program showed reductions in the number of sex partners and or increased monogamy among program participants 10 programs helped sexually active youth to reduce the incidents of unprotected sex so basically helping helping people engage in family planning and engage in having children when they're ready to have children not necessarily when they're unready to have children when they're young. So all of that being said, I just threw a lot of numbers at you. The bottom basement point is that comprehensive sex education has been proven effective and it is what every kid in every state deserves. They deserve to have all of the information in front of them. They deserve to be able to make the best choice they can possibly make and the safest choice they can possibly make. And when they have all the information, it appears that that's what they do. So there is also some argument that abstinence only program can actually cause harm. So there was the same program or the nonprofit part of me advocates for youth also looked at the research that looked at only the abstinence only programs. So it looks they they talk about. It says a Congressional mandated study of four popular abstinence only programs by Mathematica found that they were entirely ineffective. Students who participated in the programs were no more likely to abstain from sex than other students. Evaluations of publicly funded abstinence only programs in at least 13 states have shown no positive changes in sexual behaviors over time. I'll say that again. 13 states have shown no positive changes in sexual behaviors over time. That's that is a big deal. Oftentimes what will happen is that people want to legislate based on fear and whatever concern that they have of something that might happen. When in reality, when people have the most information and the best education, they're more likely to make positive life decisions. So all of that being said, I do want to bring this home a little bit here here in Eastern Washington here in Spokane. There's been a debate about adding a comprehensive sex ed program to our schools and change how it looks. This program that they're looking at, they've actually delayed the implementation of it. So this program was developed by Planned Parenthood. So of course, then it becomes political. This program focuses on creating a safe space to be able to talk about not only the scary, potentially scary biological things, but also talking about people's identities and how to be accepting of people who have different issues than them. The curriculum teaches about LGBTQ issues and terminology, which is part of the Washington State sex education requirements. So they've actually put this on hold in spite of having lots of lots of opinion from lots of different people. And even though that sex education curriculum meets all of the state requirements, they're still holding off. It sounds like yet again, fear. It sounds like being afraid of what might happen. If a kid has all of the information, that fear of what are they going to do with it comes up. We have a lot of research that shows that what they're going to do with it is actually have less sex. And if they're going to have sex, they're going to do it safely. That is what I care about. As a parent, that's one of the biggest things I care about. That if someday when my children are old enough to make those decisions, that they do it safely and they do it in the most educated way that they know. My kids will probably roll their eyes every time they hear about sex because they'll be like, "Mom, oh my gosh, I don't want to hear anymore about sex." So it's so very important to take a step back and try and look at the why of the fear that you have about sex and specifically the fear you have about your children knowing about sex, knowing about their bodies, knowing about healthy sexual development, which can look different for different people. And they should know that because once they come up to problems or come up to complications or they have a health problem, what my hope is is that they go, "Oh wait, this is different. This isn't what I'm used to. I need to go to the doctor. I need to make sure that I get the care I need. Not, "Oh, I should be ashamed. Let me put this off." So to me, that brings us to why comprehensive sex education is important. Why do we need it? We need to help people and kids feel that their bodies and the things they experience are normal. And so they also understand what it is when things are not what is typical or if someone is harming them. We need to reduce shame to help protect our children so that they do know that if something is happening to their body, they can go to their trusted adult and say, "Hey, something is happening to my body and I don't know what to do. We need to normalize this so that children have the opportunity to get help they need if they ever need it." So I do want to talk a little bit about the Colorado study because there's some really amazing things that have come from the the LARC initiative. So I'm getting this information from the Department of Public Health and Environment from Colorado's statistics that they keep track of since this program went into effect. So this family planning initiative came from a foundation from Warren Buffett's late wife. So they created this this foundation and Colorado used this money to create opportunities for access to long-acting reversible contraception or LARC. And the Colorado Family Planning Initiative drove a 50% reduction in teen births and abortions. They avoided nearly 70 million dollars in public assistance costs and empowered thousands of young women to make their own choices on when to start a family. So that private donor's investment, which I talked about, in the State Health Department's Family Planning Program, allowed that the State of Colorado to train healthcare providers and support family planning clinics and remove the financial barriers to women choosing the safest most effective form of contraceptive. So typically, what they would use is an IUD. So that is an interunorant device. They are long-term birth control options. They have various types of them and they have various types of them for young people. Now I think these numbers are incredible. Thanks in part to the Colorado Family Planning Initiative, the teen birth rate was nearly cut in half. Teen abortion rate was also nearly cut in half and births to women without a high school education fell by 38%. Second and higher order births to teens were cut by 57%. Birth rate among women ages 20 to 24 cut by 20%. Average age of first birth increased by 1.2 years among all women. Rapid repeat births declined by 12% and costs avoided. These numbers are just blown away. Costs avoided. 66.1 to 69.6 million dollars. That is so much money saved by the Colorado State Government. Now it sucks to put human experience and dollars and sense, but that's a huge amount of money and opportunities for families and young women to be able to accomplish the goals that they were meant to accomplish, like getting a high school education. That is such a huge deal. I think it's important to think think about what could that do if we were to enact something like that and give access to that across the country to many, many young women. What could that do? What kind of futures could they build? What kind of opportunities would they have to take advantage of? So this was also pretty amazing. For every dollar spent on that initiative, the state saved five point. So $5.85 over the next three years reduced family benefits and assistance payments. So basically for every dollar they already spent that they invested, they saved $5.85. That's insane. That's wonderful. It's such a wonderful opportunity. I'm just gushing. I just can't. I can't even help myself. So again, I think the Colorado study is an excellent, an excellent example of why we need good sex education, why we need good options and good access for all of the teenagers in our country, not just some. So all of that being said, I'm going to ask you, have you been worried to talk to your kids about sex? Do you know where to begin? Do you know what to say when they ask those questions? Well, here's the thing. Let me help. I have created a checklist that has age appropriate, healthy sexual development that will help you kind of look at it as a whole picture and go, okay, this is where my kid is at. This is where they might ask questions about and how to prepare yourself. It's a free offer that I have for you that I think would at least get you started. So you can check that out at ericamyly.com. You can shoot me an email at [email protected]. MyleasMIL. You can also check out my practice. I am taking new clients in the state of Washington for telemental health. If you don't know what that is, that's video counseling and it's an online HIPAA compliant video platform. That's a lot of things for me to tell you. But if you're interested, get in contact with me at [email protected] or ericamyly.com. There's also going to be groups available. So please contact me. Also subscribe to this podcast, rate and review. I would love to hear your feedback. I would love to hear the things that you want to talk about. So again, go to my website ericamyly.com to get all of the information there. It's good to talk to all of you. Bye. [Music]