Most Americans take pride in our traditions of free speech, freedom of the press and open scientific inquiry and debate. However, if research is done in a biased way, it is not science, it is propaganda. When science becomes politicized, with unspoken hidden agendas, it loses its value as a trusted source of objective information to inform our country’s discourse and decisions. It becomes a political tool, a weapon to manipulate an unsuspecting public.

    Many readers may be surprised to learn that a vast censorship underlies much of sex education and reporting about sexual health today, both in the classroom and in widely repeated pronouncements of the mainstream media. A disconcerting pattern of omission, redefinition, and repression of language, concepts and research regarding sexual health is a tragic story that few journalists make effort to understand, much less attempt to report.

INTRODUCTION

    The War on Intimacy incorporates:

    1)    first-person testimonies from teenagers and health educators about what really goes on in many health ed classrooms,

    2)    tools of cultural and language analysis applied to public health announcements, sex education curricula and science journalism,

    3)    historical inquiry into the origins of current sex education and the transformation that came after the fraudulent, but widely reported and celebrated findings of Alfred Kinsey,

    4)    research on teenage brain development and the neuro-chemical changes that occur during different stages of intimacy,

    5)    epidemiological findings on the sexual health of different populations, which allow us to judge empirically why Western-funded AIDS “prevention” in sub-Saharan Africa has largely been a colossal failure, contributing to the unnecessary deaths of millions,

    6)    social science inquiry regarding the impact of fatherlessness on millions of youth in America and throughout the world,

    7)    reflections on the ethical vacuum and downright dishonesty inherent in much of what leading institutions and “experts” say about sexual health and intimacy.

   It is our contention that we do not have a youth problem in America, we have an adult problem. Many adolescents and young adults suffer because unexamined cultural assumptions and adult agendas that have little to do with their true well-being distort what is said and not said in the health education classroom and in influential news outlets.

Urgently needed is an honest reexamination of the content of sex education and even the language we use to describe sexual intimacy, which affect not just how we approach the most intimate and deeply personal aspects of our lives, but also sabotage the physical, social and emotional health of millions around the world, both now and possibly for generations to come. It is our hope that The War on Intimacy will lead to a deeper level of conversation about intimate relationships that will allow both teens and adults to see new possibilities for making them more fulfilling, healthy and lasting for all involved. In addition, we have provided action steps for parents to bring whole person sexuality education to their children’s schools.

    A March 30th, 2008 New York Times magazine article, “Students of Virginity,” opens with a study in contrast between Janie Fredell, President of a Harvard University student organization called “True Love Revolution,” and Lena Chen, another Harvard coed who advocates sex for fun.[1]

    Janie describes how, as an incoming freshman, she was educated in safe-sex practices. A Harvard pamphlet called "Empowering You": instructs students to make sure "the condom [is] on before the penis touches the vagina, mouth, or anus. . . . Use a new condom if you want to have sex again or if you want to have a different type of sex."

    The safe-sex approach that prompted Janie to found “True Love Revolution at Harvard is common on other campuses as well. At Princeton University, freshmen are “strongly encouraged” by the University to attend “Safer Sex Jeopardy.” Modeled on the long-running television game show, this residential-advising study break invites students to show off their knowledge of such topics as anal intercourse, flavored condoms, dental dams, sex toys, and sado-masochism. In the words of a freshman woman who regrets accepting the “strong encouragement” she received to attend, “Sex Jeopardy” is “suffused with sexual bravado and conveys the strong impression that only someone with hangups would have a moral problem with hookups.”[2]

    In Palm Beach County, Florida sixth-graders are taught how contraceptives work. Seventh-graders are given tips on how to store and use condoms and teachers are encouraged to invite a “medical professional” to demonstrate their use. In Portland, Maine, 6th grade students are given condoms at school-based health clinics without informing their parents.

How did we arrive at such a place where the first University-sponsored conversation about male-female intimacy is "put the condom on before the penis touches the vagina, mouth, or anus?” Why are we having this kind of conversation not just with college students, but with 11-year-olds, many of whom have not yet reached puberty? More important, what has this inescapable discourse, presented nonstop to us in subway ads, 30-foot-long billboards, mandatory sex ed classes, in urgent, moralizing tones warning, preaching, scolding, cajoling us about the dangers of “unsafe sex” done to the way our children, and we ourselves, understand intimacy? How did the mantra of “safe sex” become one of the core concepts of our culture and how does that influence the way we approach romantic relationships?

In the U.S., in Europe, in the “developed” world, we believe that we are a compassionate people, who do everything we can to protect our children. We immunize our children. We strap them into car seats. We ban smoking indoors, and sometimes even outdoors, to protect them from second-hand smoke. But what if we told you that, concerning issues that touch the very core of what it means to be human, we are deeply, possibly even criminally, negligent? What if we told you that in future decades we will look back at our times as an age of gross misunderstandings, missed opportunities, damaged lives, and unnecessary deaths?

    The way our society understands, and teaches about, sex, love, and relationships is deeply flawed. The way we send our teens, and even preteens––into a world of sexual Darwinism to fend for themselves, often with little or no guidance, except for some polite half-truths and maybe a few Trojans––is not compassionate or responsible.

    Many cultural critics have lamented the sexual “hook-ups” practiced with “friends-with-benefits,” but what most of them fail to see is that the “hook-up” world is pretty much the flip side of the “condom world,” the natural outcome of the mantra of “safe sex” that teens have been taught since before they entered puberty. They have learned their lessons all too well–– Love, commitment, fidelity—these are obsolete concepts in condom-spawned, hook-up world.

    Consider the following questions: Is the purpose of most AIDS prevention to prevent the spread of AIDS, or is it to make people feel comfortable with having uncommitted sex with a succession of partners? Is the comprehensive sex education advocated by leading medical organizations in the U.S. and in the world truly “comprehensive”? Or is it shockingly narrow, repressive and one-dimensional?

    Why, nearly two decades after ACT-UP activists proclaimed “Silence = Death,” does AIDS continue to plague our cities, especially among those who can recite the rules of “safe sex” like a catechism? Why are STD infection rates often highest among those who report the highest rates of condom use? Why did participants at an international AIDS prevention conference boo and hiss when Bill Gates mentioned abstinence and fidelity as two ways to prevent the spread of AIDS? Aren’t these conferences supposed to be attended by scientists guided by ideals of objectivity and searching for what is truly in the interest of public health?

    We read the paper and are disturbed and shocked to read stories about women in mostly Islamic countries who were raped by gangs of men and then rejected by their own families or prosecuted for being in the company of men who were not their relatives. But, as we will attempt to make clear, our own culture is not without its own deep-seated, and even cruel, moral contradictions.

    Much has happened since 1997 when a book the first author[3] wrote called Condom Nation: Blind Faith, Bad Science was published. An expansion of government funding of abstinence education that began––and some may find surprising––under President Bill Clinton has led to a proliferation of abstinence programs that forced even advocates of comprehensive sex education (CSE) to claim that they too taught abstinence, or, as they put it, “abstinence-plus.” As we will see, their versions of “abstinence” often involve creative redefinitions of language, reality and human nature itself. When federal funding for abstinence reached a level approaching almost one quarter of that for the federal funding for condom and contraception promotion,[4] enraged advocates of Comprehensive Sex Education devised a comprehensive plan to discredit and shut down the competition in cooperation with willing allies in the research community, publications like the New York Times and allies in Congress.

    We would like to suggest that there is another way to approach these issues, one that is honest, yet respects the intelligence of young people. A discourse that is blunt, which taps into the ideals and hopes that many teens hold, but often feel compelled to keep hidden in the hard culture they inhabit.

    Consider the following poem by Hilary Collins, a 13-year-old from Harlem, NY called “Real Love”:

                When he says “Let me whisper in your ear” or

                “I’m gonna give you the world”

                And stuff like “when you gonna come get with me?”

                That’s not real love.

                When he calls you “Shorty,” “Baby Mama,” and “Sexy Lady,”

                That’s not real love

                Real love is not conditional,

                Involving STDs

                Or pregnancy before marriage.

                But real love is

                Commitment

                Significant

                And symbolizes the life-long journey to find…

                That special one.

    There are those who will say that Hilary is not representative of all young people, and that’s true. They will say that when Hilary becomes 16 or 17, and is going out with her boyfriend, she may be guided less by her ideals and more by her passions, and that could also be true. They will say that, because 60% of teens have sexual intercourse by age 18, they need to be taught about condoms and birth control.

    We do not disagree with giving young people accurate information about these things. But information in a values vacuum is not adequate sex education. We know from common sense and decades of experience that values––what we believe to be right or wrong, good or bad,––affects behavior more than mere knowledge. And so we find it deeply disturbing when “risk reduction” through condoms is the only conversation offered to young people, when the possibility of a committed lifelong love relationship is not mentioned, much less seriously examined.

    The evidence indicates that young people are in fact very much open to considering marriage. A 2007 MTV/Associated Press poll found that 96% of unmarried youth and young adults ages 13 to 24 DISAGREED with the statement that “marriage is an outdated institution.” Ninety-two percent said they definitely or probably would get married someday; 64% thought it was “very likely” they would remain married to the same person for life.

    You may dismiss this as the idealism of youth. You may say that even if they do get married, half of them will divorce within five years. But consider this: Does the high divorce rate for new marriages reflect the fact that we have focused too much on preparing young people for so-called “safe sex,” and not nearly as much time preparing them for the formidable challenges of a committed love relationship, that is, a healthy and enduring marriage?

    You may be thinking that all of this sounds fine, but in the real world, people are dying from AIDS, or suffering from other STDs, or becoming teen parents. We agree: The real world must be dealt with, we do need real solutions to the threats to life and health posed by sexually transmitted infections and unwed teen parenthood. But the current approaches are NOT WORKING. Merely giving teens “facts” or coaching them how to put condoms on bananas will not make them act “responsibly.” As we will show, the power of ideals––the attraction of real love––is sorely missing from our sex education arsenal, much to the detriment of AIDS prevention programs here and around the world.

    Consider the scene from “Stephanie Daly,” the popular-with-critics 2007 movie about a 16-year-old girl who gives birth in a bathroom and lets the baby die in the trash can. In this film, the health ed teacher says in a flat, cynical voice, “I am required by the school board to tell you that abstinence is the only 100% sure way to avoid pregnancy and STDs.” What do students with such teachers learn? That their health teacher is only sharing this information out of obligation, that he/she doubts that any or many of them aspire to, or are capable of, delaying sex. In such an environment, students who do have such hopes or intentions know to keep these thoughts to themselves.

    We’d like to share an email sent by Linda Haft, an educator in Hudson County, New Jersey, affectionately called the “Sex Lady” by students and teachers alike because of her blunt style. She is so much in demand that schools compete to be included in her speaking schedule:

                I am currently in a particularly disorderly High School. However, for me, it is a breath of fresh air as I feel most comfortable with these students. I am allowed three 10th grade Health classes for three days each. I have three ninety-minute classes to turn their lives around. On day one after a brief overview of STDs, one "thug" complained loudly with expletives, "What am I going to do if I can’t get any [sex]?!!!"

                At the finish of the third day he came to me, shook my hand (this is almost never done by them) and looked straight into my heart with a smiling, bright clear face, saying "I thank you so much.

                You have completely changed my head on all this. I am going to be more focused on my goals now." I smiled, looking deeply into his eyes, saying, " You WILL be successful. [I knew at this moment he believed it himself]. Don't let the shorties (girls) distract you". He was so serious and said he understood. It was as if now, he has received permission to become successful.

                Then a young "couple" came up to me. The young man is a virgin and was so ecstatic after the first day saying, "I KNEW IT!" because he knew abstinence was best but was being ridiculed for being a virgin. He recently began a relationship with a cute, little Latina with many piercings. She came up to me with him and sincerely asked, "How do I become a secondary virgin?"

                INCREDIBLE!!!!! Usually young people think, "Oh I have been saving my virginity and now I will give it up to this person." The opposite happened! She knew that if she wanted such a fine young man she had to rise to his standard!

    Some readers might be suspicious about the motives of educators like Linda Haft, who speak about delaying sexual involvement as a realistic choice, perhaps thinking that they are really trying to impose their judgmental, repressed, religiously-based beliefs in public school classrooms. Others might simply be skeptical about whether delaying sex and fidelity in marriage are realistic messages for teens in this early part of the 21st century. Our goal in this book is that all readers will come to see that this kind of education as not about using scare tactics or propaganda to force a rigid “just say no” morality on teens, but rather about showing young people new possibilities for their lives. Often, when young people are exposed to these new possibilities, their reaction is, “WHY didn’t anyone explain this to me before!!!”

    They also feel liberated. The ones who are virgins no longer feel they have to pretend to be players. The ones who have had sex see new choices for themselves that did not exist before. And there are some who ask bitterly, “Why didn’t you come here a year ago?” 

    In contrast to the cynicism of many adults, we see intelligence and hope in the eyes of these youth. But we also wonder what possibilities students in condom-centric schools see for themselves. Let’s take a look a look at what exists in the world of “comprehensive” sex ed programs…

 
[1] Randall Patterson, “Students of Virginity,” New York Times Magazine, March 30, 2008.
[2] Robert P. George and John B. Londregan, “Princeton and the hookup culture,” Princeton Alumni Weekly, March 4, 2009. http://paw.princeton.edu/issues/2009/03/04/pages/7001/index.xml.
[3] Richard Panzer
[4] Health and Human Services Funding for Abstinence Education, Education for Teen Pregnancy and HIV/STD Prevention and other Programs that Address Adolescent Sexual Activity, U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, December 16, 2008.

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