What are sex education studies REALLY measuring?

Any time you see a report saying "comprehensive sex ed. works" or "abstinence-only fails" its important to know what they're measuring. The GOAL of comprehensive sex ed (CSE) is to "reduce number of acts of unprotected sex." A CSE is successful even if teens who weren't having sex before, are now having sex using condoms.

Yep, according to the folks who study this stuff, if you can turn a whole school of kids who were AVOIDING the risk of STDs and pregnancy before you got there, into teens who are now having "protected" sex, you gotcherself a successful CSE.

But in the Real World, using a condom "sometimes" is a whole lot riskier than not having sex at all. And that's the argument you never hear. It's not like teens don't know condoms exist. They do. But they have funny ideas about how they're supposed to use them...

For instance, the consistency of use is about the same as brushing their teeth or doing their homework. In a teen's world, once you "really trust your partner" you stop using protection to prove it.

The truth is, according to the Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 9th graders who've just received their sex education on condoms, report using a condom about 75% of the time. But by their senior year of high school, condom use drops to 54%. By then, they're relying on other forms of birth control. But they have a much greater chance of getting infected with a sexually transmitted disease than they do of getting pregnant. (Think about it, only one way to get pregnant, only a few days a month v. every type of sexual contact can transmit disease, 24/7).

If teens weren't teens, a "safe sex" strategy might work. But they are teens ---and ALL teens think their invincible and NO teen can predict the consequences of their behavior. If we can teach them not to drink & drive, not to smoke, not to use drugs and not to pollute... what's the problem with applying those same behaviors to adolescent sexual activity?