Condoms have never been anyone’s favorite sexual accessory, but in recent years, it appears that more people are choosing to have protection-free sex. This new reality is disturbing.

A false sense of security

A recent study released by Online Doctor, a United Kingdom-based online physician consultation and prescription service, found that 55.1 percent of Europeans and 65.5 percent of Americans have unprotected sex. The most disturbing figure the study revealed was that 29.1 percent of Americans didn’t use protection every single time — the gender breakdown for this statistic is 36.8 percent women and 23.5 percent men. Europeans don’t use protection 18.2 percent of the time — the European gender breakdown is 20 percent women and 16.8 percent men.

Although this study is less than perfect — the people who created the study only surveyed 2,000 people (1,000 Americans and 1,000  Europeans), the study doesn’t describe who these people are, how old they are, etc. — it does highlight that many sexually active people don’t use protection during sex.

Why condoms have fallen even further out of favor

Although we live in the age of drug-resistant gonorrhea, teens, adults, and seniors often still choose to forgo protection.

The reasons people make this dangerous decision are simple and sadly, classic.

Lack of education

Lack of education about sexual health comes in many forms, but the most damaging seems to be that people are unaware how to obtain condoms, have a difficult time communicating the desire to use protection, and people tend to not be able to grasp the probability that something could go wrong — they don’t understand how susceptible they may be to unplanned pregnancy, or sexual infections.

“A poor understanding of probability is a real problem,” Nicole Prause, Ph.D. at Liberos LLC, says.

“If you tell people about the dangers of HIV or risk of pregnancy, but they fail to understand that this very rare risk occurs with every sex act, people are lulled into false security.”

According to the CDC, in 2014, there were an estimated 37,600 new HIV infections. In 2015, youth aged 13 to 24 accounted for 22 percent of all new HIV diagnoses in the United States. The CDC also reports that there was a significant increase in sexually transmitted infections over the last 5 years. And of teenagers who become pregnant in high school, there is a cycle of low education, poverty, single parenting, and teen parenting — 70 percent of teen mothers do not finish high school, Grubb adds.

And often, the choice to not wear a condom comes during the heat of the moment. Also: If a person doesn’t see an obvious sign of a STI, he or she may not think a condom is necessary. And, unfortunately, most people don’t ask their partners if they have a STI.

Other methods of birth control work

The pill, contraceptive shots, IUDs, and great period tracking apps have also helped condoms become less “important”.

The U.S. health system has effectively increased contraceptive usage among adolescents and young adults. These methods include long acting reversible contraceptive methods. But because of contraceptives’ effectiveness, adolescents often forgo condoms.

Part of this is because more people associate condoms with preventing pregnancy and not a barrier to STIs. So, women who are using various contraceptives — or their male partners — may think a condom is unnecessary.

Change sex education

So, how can we stop this dangerous trend? A combination of methods is key.

First, sex educators need to be able to rewrite sex education curriculum for the next generation of teens. Comprehensive curriculum is integral and should include scientifically accurate information. Topics that deserve attention are abstinence, condoms, contraceptive methods, pregnancy, STIs, and healthy relationships.

“We need to make sure our kids grow up respecting their bodies and their self. [We need to] talk to them about how to manage situations that they may find themselves in,” Cath Hakanson, founder of Sex Ed Rescue, says.

“It is about respecting yourself enough to do what is right for you. Not what the ‘condomless’ partner wants.”

Second, people of all ages — especially teens — need easy access to condoms. Location, price, privacy, etc. is important.

“If an adolescent must ask a pharmacist to unlock a cabinet for condoms, they are less likely to purchase them,” Grubb says.

Access to free or low cost condoms that are easily available in a non-stigmatizing manner will improve condom usage.

And lastly, educators should teach teens how to safely, kindly, and effectively communicate with his, her, of they’s partner.

“Strong communication skills and being in a relationship that has open dialogue improves condom usage,” Grubb adds.

“Adolescents and young adults must feel empowered to discuss and negotiate condom usage with their partners.”

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Abstinence-only sex education doesn’t provide any reproductive health education. If anything, it may put teens who receive it more at risk.

Just wait until marriage

Although some abstinence-only sex ed programs ended when George W. Bush left office, the Trump administration is ushering in the return of this useless curriculum.

Back in May, the Trump administration approved a $277 million increase in spending for “abstinence-until-marriage programs.” Salon reported that Valerie Huber, head of Ascend—a pro-abstinence organization, will join the Department of Health an Human Services as chief of staff to the assistant secretary for adolescent health. Huber’s new position will allow her to push for more abstinence programs directed toward teens.

Abstinence with a twist

Although most of these religious-right backed abstinence programs used to be known as “abstinence-only,” current republican-supported abstinence curriculum was recently rebranded. Abstinence programs are now known as “sexual risk avoidance” programs.

Instead of pushing the whole “wait until marriage” agenda, schools now teach that abstinence as the way—the only way—to avoid health risks related to sexual activity. Those risks, according to these “just say no” sex ed programs, don’t properly educate teens about contraception. And Salon reports that two Ascend-backed programs—REAL Essentials and Choosing the Best—still teach that having sex makes a person “dirty.”

“REAL Essentials explains that glue (i.e., sex) is a bonding agent that works best on a surface that is ‘clean and dry’ (i.e., virgins),” the Texas Freedom Network, an organization that advocates for the separation of church and state, reports.

“Choosing the Best includes a similar exercise using adhesive tape. The exercise involves placing tape on a student’s skin, then removing it to show what has transferred from the skin to the tape. What remains on the tape is supposed to represent the emotional baggage resulting from sex.”

Abstinence-only sex ed just doesn’t work

Abstinence-only education so ineffective because it shames students, and doesn’t provide essential information about sex. And these programs aren’t relatable. Over half of high school students have had sexual intercourse before finishing high school.

However, comprehensive sex education programs—curriculum that discusses abstinence among other contraceptive information—can help teens choose to delay sexual intercourse. They also increase condom usage among young people.

So, why do abstinence programs still exist?

Fear and control can’t win

Kris Gowen, a sex educator at the Oregon Health and Sciences University, thinks fear is the heart of the issue.

“Adults are afraid that young people will make poor decisions about their sexual health if they are given too much information,” Gowen explains.

“I can see the logic in that—the idea that if you expose a young person to certain facts about safer sex they will be more likely to engage in sex—but it’s simply not true. Research has shown that providing young people with accurate information about sexual health decreases the likelihood they will participate in unhealthy sexual behaviors.”

In addition to being absolutely ineffective, abstinence-based programs are dangerous and isolate kids who don’t identify as heterosexual.

Gowen hopes all sex ed programs will expand, become comprehensive, and acknowledge the relationship component of sex.

“Unless you are talking about masturbation, sex happens with another person,” Gowen adds.

“In addition to teaching about different methods of contraception and how to avoid STIs, we need to talk more about consent, listening to a sexual partner, and understanding what a healthy relationship looks like.”

After all, truly healthy sex is what every parent wants their child to eventually experience. If educators teach teens how to make responsible decisions, they’ll respect this, and make it a reality.

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ColumnSex education in many American schools in severely lacking.

Similar to most Americans, I grew up in a school district that did have sex education classes, but what we talked about in the class wasn’t all that informative. Most every topic had an abstinence-only message, and STIs were used as sex scare tactics.

America’s sex ed problem

“From 1998 to 2009, federal funding for sexuality education focused almost exclusively on ineffective and scientifically inaccurate abstinence-only-until-marriage (AOUM) programs,” The Daily Dot reports.

“Since 2010, the largest source of federal funding has gone to Office of Adolescent Health’s Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative, which focuses on EBIs (evidence-based interventions) that address things like preventing teen pregnancies and STIs.”

This means teens are not taught about self-love, consent and having a happy and healthy sex life, or LGBTQ, economic and race issues, etc. This lack of information leaves America’s youth essentially clueless about sex.

Well, other countries are, luckily, not following in America’s footsteps. In fact, France is introducing a new “model” that’s meant to help students become more informed about something most think is a mystery: the female body.

The model

French school children aged primary to secondary level will now interact with a 3-D printed clitoris in sex-ed class. The model will be used to teach the kids about this typically misunderstood sexual part. The model was made by sociomedical researcher Odile Fillod.

“From Fillod’s sculpture, pupils will learn that the clitoris is made up of the same tissue as the penis,” The Guardian reports.

“That it is divided into crura or legs, bulbs, foreskin and a head. That the only difference between a clitoris and a penis is that most of the female erectile tissue is internal – and that it’s often longer, at around 8 inches.”

“It’s important that women have a mental image of what is actually happening in their body when they’re stimulated,” Fillod adds.

“In understanding the key role of the clitoris, a woman can stop feeling shame, or [that she’s] abnormal if penile-vaginal intercourse doesn’t do the trick for her – given the anatomical data, that is the case for most women.”

A-MEN.

The importance

This type of tool is incredibly important. While I knew what a clitoris was when I was a teen, I sure didn’t understand how it worked or how to ask a partner to interact with it. Seeing something like this would have been incredibly helpful. And while this model is mostly helpful to women, young men could stand to learn about this important body part, too. After all, sex should be fun for both people –and god knows women know how the penis works because for some reason, that information isn’t taboo.

In the future, it would also be quite useful if more models like these were used to help illustrate the various parts of other female anatomy: the vulva, different styles of pubic hair, etc. Normalizing these body parts and their quirks could help women feel less shame about their bodies. Because as we all know, the typical female body doesn’t look like a porn star’s.

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Image of girls learning via Shutterstock

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I know a thing or two about sex education. Sure, I went through the god awful courses in junior high and high school. I gazed at the photos of untreated herpes and found out that sex makes babies. But I also wrote my master’s thesis – around 100 pages of research that no one will ever read but my thesis committee and me – about sex education in America.

So, what did I learn from hours and hours of research, and interviewing a few handfuls of teenaged women about their sex lives and experiences in sex education? They learned nothing about sex from sex ed and wished they knew more about all sex acts, contraception and how to own their own sexuality.

Well, thank freaking goodness there is at least one high school teacher out there who gets that sex education needs to focus on sex-positive subjects rather than sex-negative subjects.

In Al Vernacchio’s classes he covers anatomy and safe sex, but he also discusses orgasms and masturbation. The Philadelphia high school teacher doesn’t even show kids those terrible photos of sexually transmitted diseases and infections gone awry.

So, what does Vernacchio do to ensure that teens get the whole picture – the whole, positive picture – about sex and how awesome sex can be? He teaches the following principles and wants to attain the following goals:

1. “Sexuality is a force for good in the universe”: Sex can lead to awesomely close connections with others. If teens are taught that sex is a happy, positive thing, they will most likely respect the entire act more.

2. Get the parents’ support: Sure, this isn’t always easy, but it’s worth doing. He explains that one of the things he does in order to secure parents’ support is to ask them what they want their kids to get out of their relationships. Most any parent will say they want their child to experience love, pleasure and closeness. But what if a parent thinks sex is morally wrong?:

“If someone believes that sex before marriage is morally wrong, one of the things I want to engage that parent about is, OK, how do we help this young person develop the skills so that, if that is a value that they also share, that they actually can achieve that. How do we teach them negotiation skills? How do we teach them how to have conversations about sex and sexuality with partners? Also, what is an appropriate form of connection, pleasure, closeness that they can engage in? For every no we give a kid, we have to give them a yes.”

3. Get the right teachers and parents in on the education: Sex ed should be taught by people who are trained in sexuality education. Also: Parents are often the best resources for kids when teens want to understand the difficult issues, such as “how do I know if I’m still in love with someone?”

4. Sex isn’t dangerous but there can be negative consequences to having it if you aren’t prepared: Unhealthy sex and not understanding safer sex practices can lead to problems. No one wants to have an unintended pregnancy and no one wants a STD. Give kids the right information about understanding their bodies to help them have safer sex.

5. Kids want to understand the emotional side of sex: Teens already know what sex looks like and the various ways it sounds. (Oh, Internet porn!) But they don’t really know what true love means. Kids need and want to understand the emotional, human elements of sex.

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ColumnFrom Amanda Knox to a kindergarten girl’s short skirt, the message is clear: You should be ashamed.

Last night I watched Chris Cuomo interview, if you can call it that, Amanda Knox on CNN. Throughout the interview, he interrogated her, called her a sexually perverse deviant, berated her for pausing to think before she spoke and told her she needed psychological help. Sitting curled into herself, she was slow to respond, her voice was catching and she seemed to be in physical pain. Clearly, she felt like each word she said was being scrutinized, as were her reasons for writing a memoir and doing the interview (which Cuomo referred to as an “opportunity” numerous times, as if by merely allowing her to use her voice he was doing her a favor).

I don’t know if Knox is guilty of murder, (and she was found not guilty in Italian court) but I do know that Cuomo is guilty of some serious slut-shaming. Seems to be the season.

Despite an increase in public conversations about women—in the workplace, in the home, in the military and in schools–the message that women who own their sexuality are sluts, especially young women, is repeated over and over in a variety of overt and subtle ways.

Lawmakers are Trying to Deny Teens Access to Healthcare

In North Carolina, a measure advancing in the legislature would require teens to get notarized, written parental consent for testing and treatment for STIs, birth control prescriptions, pregnancy care, mental health counseling and substance abuse treatment. Supporters claim this measure would ensure parental rights.

This law doesn’t seem to take into consideration that some people are being abused by family members or living in households where, for whatever reason, it simply isn’t safe to ask for permission. Laws like this will lead to more and more kids taking desperate measures to get access to the care they need. And issues related to birth control and sexual health impact girls far more than boys, who can buy condoms at a local drugstore and, obviously, can’t get pregnant.

The addition of mental health counseling and addiction treatment to sexual health is interesting—and goes back to the themes in the Knox case: sex, drugs and promiscuity mean you are a crazy slut.

…And to Information About Sex

Did you know my mom hates me? Me either! Apparently it’s because I take the pill. In April, Pam Stenzel, an abstinence-only speaker, said this to a group of West Virginia high school students: “If you take birth control, your mother probably hates you,” and, “I could look at any one of you in the eyes right now and tell if you’re going to be promiscuous.”

Despite overwhelming evidence that it doesn’t work, abstinence-only sex education (rather, the opposite of education) is still alive and well in schools and churches. Speaking on a panel at Johns Hopkins University last week, Elizabeth Smart made a strong case against abstinence-only sex education, explaining that feelings of worthlessness after being raped influenced her ability to escape from her abductor.

She said: “I remember in school one time, I had a teacher who was talking about abstinence. And she said, ‘Imagine you’re a stick of gum. When you engage in sex, that’s like getting chewed. And if you do that lots of times, you’re going to become an old piece of gum, and who is going to want you after that?’ Well, that’s terrible. No one should ever say that. But for me, I thought, ‘I’m that chewed-up piece of gum.’ Nobody re-chews a piece of gum. You throw it away. And that’s how easy it is to feel you no longer have worth. Your life no longer has value.”

Your life no longer has value. Translation: Women are only good for making babies—and no one wants your impure babies.

The timing of Smart’s remarks, just a week before three women in Ohio were found after a decade of imprisonment as sex slaves, was a coincidence (Smart herself was imprisoned as a sex slave for nine months). But hers is an important voice—a reminder that abstinence isn’t always a choice and that adding shame to sex has consequences.

Boys Will be Boys—And Girls Should be Modest

In schools across the country, girls are reminded that their slutty clothes are distracting the boys—who obviously can’t be trusted not to get all rapey. This reinforcement of the idea that girls ask for it and boys can’t control themselves is dangerous. (See Steubenville.)

Think Progress has a great rundown of some school dress codes designed to shame girls into mom jeans and baggy turtlenecks. While there are lots of cases of strapless prom dresses, my favorite story on the list is the one about the kindergarten student in Georgia who was forced to change her “short” skirt because it was a “distraction to other students.”

I guess if we live in a world where nine-year-olds are called cunts, this shouldn’t be a shock. But to me, sexualizing a kid seems to work against the goal. And maybe the adults in that case are the ones with the problem.

Most of the people quick to label children and young adults as sexual deviants are the same people working to make sure they stay uneducated and without access to sexual education and healthcare, and don’t have the tools to control their own bodies and become responsible sexually active adults.

Starting to control and sexualize women at such a young age has an impact on society, which we can see as the details of what has happened in Ohio continue to unfold. If reports are accurate, we are now so accustomed to this kind of treatment of women that police ignore reports of naked women tied up like dogs in a backyard.

Image: spanginator

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