There are those rare moments when an audience has a palpable group response. This occurred in March during a screening of SEX(ED): The Movie (sexedmovie.com). The new documentary explores the history and current status of sex education in the United States using sex education film clips from the 1920s to the present day.
For the first portion of the screening, people laughed while the film shows the discomfort adults have discussing the birds and the bees with children. This transitioned into a lot of nods and murmuring as the film traces important events, like the publication of the Kinsey Reports on human sexual behavior and the birth control pill becoming available. Then came the group gasp. SEX(ED) reveals how much federal funding is being spent on abstinence-only education, jumping to $60 million by 2000 and rising steadily to $176 million in 2008.
Community outreach coordinator for Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, Mia Noel, laughed the loudest during the SEX(ED) screening. “It is hilariously disturbing how sex education is so subject to politics,” Noel said.
Wisconsin used to have the Healthy Youth Act, considered gold-standard sex education legislation by Sara Finger, executive director of the Wisconsin Alliance for Women’s Health. The Healthy Youth Act mandated instruction about all FDA-approved forms of contraception for school districts teaching sex education. Any parent could opt out of having his or her child participate in this instruction.
This changed in April of 2012 when Senate Bill 237, introduced by Republican Sen. Mary Lazich, on a party-line vote became Act 216. This new law has every Wisconsin school district establish its own human and growth and development curriculum emphasizing that, “Abstinence from sexual activity before marriage is the only reliable way to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.” The Healthy Youth Act required that if a school district in Wisconsin chose to teach sex education, it had to be comprehensive, medically accurate, age appropriate and evidence based.
Under Act 216, local school districts have three options. They can decline teaching sex education, which was an option under the Healthy Youth Act; offer abstinence-only programs; or adopt more comprehensive programs that emphasize abstinence. “It was devastating to see a reversal of progress,” says Finger. “It is now hit or miss whether youth are receiving the accurate information they deserve.” Unfortunately neither the Department of Public Instruction, nor seemingly any other organization, is collecting data about what all the school districts in the state are doing.
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In November of 2014, Milwaukee Public Schools posted its revised, comprehensive program online. Under “Family Planning and Contraception,” high school curriculum covers the high percentage of Milwaukee high school students reporting they had engaged in intercourse in 2009 (63% compared to the U.S. average of 46%), lessons about the value of committed relationships, and thorough instruction about the use and effectiveness of various contraceptives.
When the Cedarburg School Board adopted an abstinence-until-marriage program, upset parents rallied to form Cedarburg Parents for Responsible Human Growth and Development Education. With a local pediatrician, a psychology professor and a parent from Planned Parenthood, it developed two-day comprehensive sex education workshops for Cedarburg students. Funded with donations, the program is in its third year. The Responsible HG&D website notes the Choosing the Best program selected by the Cedarburg School Board, “Suggests that any sexual activity outside of marriage leaves a person dirty, damaged, guilty, shamed and incapable of healthy relationships.”
Caitlin Krapf located all the archival film clips for SEX(ED). She watched at least 350 films. According to Krapf, there are only a few other people in the country who have seen as many sex education films as she has. What concerns her the most about Wisconsin’s current situation is, “Almost everything else taught in high school is justified as something necessary for down the road, but sex ed is arbitrarily limited to what’s necessary for the immediate moment.” In SEX(ED), Unitarian Universalist Rev. Debra Haffner argues for a broad curriculum for teens who are forming a sexual sense of self by providing information on not only sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy risks, but also “relationships, sexual orientation and gender identities.”
Krapf points out that due to local control of sex education, which is prominent across the U.S., individuals can bring about change. Wisconsin’s statute requires school districts to establish human growth and development advisory committees that include residents. You could get on that committee.
Full disclosure: Krapf is Pegi Christiansen’s daughter.
