Abstinence-Only Sex Ed: America’s Favorite STD Distributor

Abstinence-only sex education—America’s proudest tradition of pretending that if we just never mention sex, teenagers will simply forget that it exists. It’s like trying to stop a wildfire by hiding the matches and whispering, “Fire? Never heard of it.” But instead of preventing disaster, this brilliant strategy has given us some of the highest rates of teen pregnancies and STIs in the developed world.

For decades, religious zealots, conservative lawmakers, and pearl-clutching suburban moms have insisted that if we just tell kids not to have sex, they totally won’t. Because if there’s one thing teenagers are famous for, it’s their impulse control. These are the same people who eat Tide Pods for fun, but sure—let’s assume they’ll all suddenly develop the patience of a Buddhist monk when it comes to hormones.

Abstinence-only sex ed is the educational equivalent of handing a blindfolded kid the keys to a semi-truck and shoving them onto the highway—except instead of causing a 20-car pile-up, they’re careening headfirst into a gonorrhea outbreak and a teen pregnancy rate that would make a medieval peasant village look responsible.

The Abstinence Myth: “If We Don’t Talk About It, It Won’t Happen”

America is one of the only developed countries that still clings to this medieval approach to sex education, despite actual data showing that it fails spectacularly. The logic behind abstinence-only programs is simple: if kids don’t know about sex, they won’t have sex. That’s right, folks—the key to stopping drug use is to never tell kids about drugs. The way to prevent car accidents? Burn all the driver’s ed textbooks. Cancer awareness? Ban it. If we just keep everyone in blissful ignorance, society will magically fix itself.

Except—and I know this is shocking—teenagers are still having sex. The only difference is that thanks to abstinence-only education, they’re doing it dumber. They’re about as prepared as a contestant on Survivor who thinks fire just sort of appears when you believe hard enough.

The Results: More Babies, More STIs, More Regret

What do we get for our investment in “education through ignorance”? A steady pipeline of confused, underprepared teens stumbling into adulthood saddled with preventable diseases, unplanned pregnancies, and zero understanding of how their own bodies work. In states where abstinence-only sex ed is the norm, teen pregnancy rates are significantly higher than in states that teach comprehensive sex ed. And yet, the same conservative lawmakers who push this nonsense are also the first ones in line to cut funding for single mothers, block access to contraception, and scream about “welfare queens.”

It’s a brilliant cycle of misery, and—like all great American failures—it’s wildly profitable for someone. More pregnancies mean more struggling parents, which means more low-wage workers desperate to feed their kids, which means more cheap labor for corporate overlords. Meanwhile, Big Pharma rakes in billions from treating preventable STIs, and evangelicals get to smugly judge the young, unwed mothers they helped create. It’s capitalism and religious hypocrisy working hand-in-hand, like a Hallmark movie from hell.

Abstinence-Only = State-Sanctioned Disinformation

And just when you think this can’t get any dumber, remember that abstinence-only sex ed isn’t just bad science—it’s deliberate disinformation. The same people who scream about “liberal indoctrination” in schools have no problem forcing children to sit through medically inaccurate horror stories about how condoms don’t work, birth control causes infertility, and premarital sex will doom you to a life of regret and shame.

Some programs even go so far as to compare people who have premarital sex to chewed-up gum or a used toothbrush, as if human relationships function like a Dollar Tree hygiene aisle. Meanwhile, in countries where actual sex education exists, teens are having sex later, getting pregnant less, and contracting fewer STIs—because, shockingly, giving people information helps them make better choices.

But hey, why learn from literally every other developed country when we can keep pushing a failed, regressive, Puritanical fever dream? Nothing says “freedom” like a bunch of evangelicals dictating your reproductive choices and having a full-blown meltdown every time a health teacher dares to say the word clitoris.

The Solution? Teach Teens Like They’re Actual Humans

If America actually cared about preventing unwanted pregnancies and STIs, we’d do what the rest of the civilized world does: teach comprehensive, fact-based sex education. Studies show that when teens are given real information, they actually make better decisions. They don’t have more sex—they just have safer, smarter sex.

But that would require admitting that teenagers aren’t just miniature adults waiting to be factory-reset at age 18. It would mean trusting young people with real knowledge instead of treating them like fragile, sex-crazed deviants who must be kept in a state of perpetual ignorance. It would mean prioritizing public health over religious dogma—and we all know that’s a huge ask in a country where people still think the earth is 6,000 years old.

So instead, we’ll keep failing our kids while pretending we’re doing them a favor. We’ll keep letting lawmakers who couldn’t pass a 9th-grade biology test decide what kids should learn about their own bodies. And we’ll keep pretending that not talking about sex is a viable way to stop teenagers from having it.

And when it inevitably backfires, we’ll just do what we always do in America—blame the liberals and cut funding for condoms.