Trojan Wins Raves For Project Against Abstinence Ed

October 31, 2019 Christianists, Education

Ms Magazine reports:

Since 1981, Congress has spent over $2.2 billion on shame-based, abstinence-only sex education programs—even though data shows that those very programs are failing. One 2011 study funded by the University of Georgia Research Foundation concluded teens in states that prescribe more abstinence education are actually more likely to become pregnant.

Comprehensive sex education curriculums could be the solution for rising STI and teen pregnancy rates, yet the Trump administration has chosen instead to employ strategies to police young women’s bodies.

Young people are speaking back—and demanding better from their national leaders. In partnership with Trojan, Advocates for Youth today will erect a 20-foot activist billboard covered in chewed-up gum speaking truth to power. “You Are Not Chewed Gum,” it will read. “Information Is the Best Protection.”

Hemant Mehta explains the analogy:

It’s not unusual for abstinence-only programs to compare people (let’s face it — mostly young girls) who have sex before marriage to used gum, or roses without petals, or tape that is no longer sticky. The harmful (and baseless) message is that sexually active people have lost their value for a future spouse.

It’s not only objectifying on a non-religious level. From a Christian perspective, it implies that sexual sin is somehow the only one Jesus can’t redeem.

Teenage boys, on the other hand, are all but expected to have sex before marriage — and they’re easily forgiven for it — because, they’re told, they were created to be slaves to their impulses. It’s up to young women to keep them in check by covering themselves up and wearing those metaphorical chastity belts.

The replies to their tweet are really something.



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