Lisa Westermann’s 14-year-old son told her he’d had a bad day in English. She thought he’d flunked a test, but later he explained that an upper classman told him how to put a condom on a banana. And then told him that when he wanted to have sex to go to a clinic, and that since the law does not force you to tell your parents that it was OK to keep it a secret from them. And how they broke up the class into small group discussions with male and female peer leaders.. male and female 14-year-olds in groups…He told his mom that the class had made him feel “very strange, weird, confused and really embarrassed.”

Lisa’ son had been graced with a peer-led presentation by juniors and seniors at Clearview Regional High School in Mullica Hill, NJ. They’d been trained in “Teen PEP” (Teen Prevention Education Program) sponsored by the New Jersey Department of Health.

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Chapter 3

Teen PEP provides faculty advisors with a 900-page handbook, which includes the So What’s An Abstinence Anyway?” which seems to be identical with the Planned Parenthood activity discussed earlier where students are asked to circle behaviors they believe a “person can engage in and still be abstinent.” Among the “abstinent” choices are “mutual masturbation,” “cuddling naked,” “anal intercourse,” “showering together,” and “watching porn videos.”

In defense of the program at Clearview High School, the faculty advisor, Michael Porter, an English instructor, explains that at the end of the pregnancy prevention workshop, the following dialog is delivered to the freshmen participants:

Student 1: If you can’t talk about it

Student 2: Or if you have too many questions about it

Student 3: Or if you just don’t want to take the risk-

Student 4: Maybe you’re just not ready for sex.”

Student 5: And that’s cool.

Students 6 and 7: Sex can wait

All students: Masturbate.

Students 6 and 7: That’s cool.

While some parents may object to the advocacy of masturbation, Teen PEP’s defenders point out the chant’s positive promotion of the idea that “sex can wait,” that the program is used in 54 schools in New Jersey, and that “teens learn best about issues like sex from their peers.”

It looks like an innovative way to educate 9th graders about “sexual responsibility” using dedicated and well-trained students, but consider the reverse implications of the dialog or chant: you’re ready for sex IF 1) you can talk about it, 2) you don’t have too many questions about it, and 3) you’re willing to take the risk.