Oh, come on. This is just like drugs. As long as we make marijuana and cocaine and other drugs illegal, and crack down on their supply sometimes, no one will be harmed by them! Right?
Just as if we tell our kids to not have sex at all, they won't! Those 16-year-old high schoolers will certainly take their teachers on their word that sex is evil because it involves your naughty places. What's next, are we going to start teaching that masturbation is wrong too?
I for one think that sex needs to be discussed a lot more openly at a semi-early age. I liken it to the drinking age - if you teach kids about it in a controlled environment when they're younger and not completely independent, then it isn't such a huge deal once they're on their own. Getting totally piss drunk is a lot more likely to happen if you've been deprived of alcohol your whole life. Then again, if you're like me (or anyone else who was raised in a family that allowed light social drinking early on), then you know that alcohol really isn't that big a deal. It's just something fun to do once in a while.
Teaching abstinence only will make kids want to experiment more with sex. And once they go independent, they'll be a lot more ignorant to how things work than someone who was raised with the knowledge of what sex is, the risks involved, and how to be safe. I might even go so far as to actually encourage the teaching of techniques that these hormone-filled adolescents can use to enjoy themselves without the risks associated with sexual intercourse. Of course that'll never happen except maybe in some super-liberal school district in California or Oregon or something, but I can dream can't I? As ast3r3x said, it's not like not mentioning sex is going to prevent anything from happening. This is just some religious fundamentalist viewpoint being promoted as a viable method of teaching. Total BS.
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