On the Contrary, Absentee is NOT the Right Way

According to a recent article on alternet.org;

Magazines. Fashion. Dating. Comedy. These are all large parts of contemporary teen culture. Who would have thought they could also become the latest weapons in conservatives’ war against sexual autonomy?

But after a decade of the Bush administration pouring millions of taxpayer dollars into abstinence education programs, only to see them fail, that’s exactly what’s happening.

Study after study has shown that those schooled in abstinence rhetoric are just as sexually active as those who aren’t, leaving the right wing with virtually no credibility on the subject. Now, conservatives have to be a little savvier if they want to lie about condoms’ effectiveness against sexually transmitted infections, make bogus claims about a link between abortion and breast cancer, or manipulate teens into thinking that premarital sex is damaging to one’s self-worth. That’s why conservative ideologues have taken abstinence-only discourse outside of the classroom and are trying to woo students through a different strategy: by making abstinence the teen trend of the year.

To boost the no-sex-’til-marriage cool factor, conservatives are co-opting everything from teen magazines to fashion to comedy routines. But behind the trendy talk are the same shame-inducing tactics and medical misinformation that could potentially put teens’ self-esteem, health and lives in danger.

Read the rest of this amazing article at alternet.org.