Federally funded abstinence-only-until-marriage programs must adhere to a strict eight-point definition and even stricter federal guidelines. ( See What Programs Must Teach for more information. ) Many aspects of the definition and guidelines are in direct opposition to the goals and tenets of comprehensive sexuality education, which seek to help young people navigate adolescence and become healthy adults. Though they are often presented to communities and school boards as programs designed to prevent pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), including HIV/AIDS, abstinence-only-until-marriage programs consistently ignore many youth who are most in need of information, education, and skills training.

Although abstinence-only-until-marriage curricula vary, they share a number of common characteristics: they promote marriage as the only acceptable family structure, ostracize lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth, stigmatize youth who have been sexually abused, and deny information to sexually active youth.

Promote Marriage as the Only Acceptable Family Structure

Federally funded abstinence-only-until-marriage programs are required to teach young people that all unmarried individuals (both adults and youth) should, and actually do, remain celibate. This is unrealistic in a time when:

• The median age of first marriage is 27.1 for men and 25.3 for women.¹
• Fewer than seven percent of men and 20 percent of women ages 18–50 were virgins when they were married.²
• Only 10 percent of adult men and 22 percent of adult women report their first sexual intercourse was with their spouse.³

Today, there are more than 98 million American adults who are classified as single because they have either delayed marriage, decided to remain single, divorced, or entered into gay or lesbian partnerships.⁴ It is not reasonable to expect these adults to adhere to this “standard,” nor is it accurate to teach young people that this is reality.

In order to comply with the federal definition, abstinence-only-until-marriage programs must present one family structure as morally correct and beneficial to society. Programs go beyond prescribing marriage and suggest that only married people have happy, successful lives. By focusing on the importance of raising children in a two-parent, heterosexual marriage, the guidelines may alienate young people who have single, divorced, widowed, or gay and lesbian parents.

Ostracize LGBTQ Young People

By their very nature, abstinence-only-until-marriage programs exclude gay and lesbian youth who cannot legally marry in this country.⁵ Unlike their heterosexual peers who may someday marry, gay and lesbian teens are essentially told that their sexual feelings will always conflict with society's standards and that they should never engage in sexual activity. Programs often ignore sexual orientation completely except in discussions of STDs where they seem to suggest that gay and lesbian individuals are simply vectors of disease. Gay and lesbian students, especially young men who have sex with men, are at increased risk for STDs, including HIV, yet abstinence-only-until-marriage programs fail to provide these students with any realistic strategies for protecting themselves from these risks.

In fact, new guidelines for Community-Based Abstinence Education (CBAE) grants mandate that “throughout the entire curriculum, the term ‘marriage' must be defined ‘only as a legal union between one man and one woman as a husband and wife, and the word ‘spouse' refers to only a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife.'” This stipulation is straight out of the controversial 1996 Defense of Marriage Act. By excluding lesbian and gay people from this definition, and therefore from the “expected standard of sexual activity,” the guidelines are unabashedly admitting that abstinence-only-until-marriage programs are intended only for heterosexual students. (See SIECUS' report, It Gets Worse, for more information on the new CBAE funding announcement.)

Stigmatize Sexually Abused Youth

An alarming number of young people in this country have been the victim of sexual abuse during their young lives. There are nearly 85,000 of reported cases of child sexual abuse each year⁶ or 1.2 cases per 1,000 young people.⁷ Unfortunately, abstinence-only-until-marriage programs fail to provide this vulnerable group of youth with information or skills that could help them cope with the issue of sexual abuse.

In fact, these programs most often portray abstinence from sexual activity as a conscious choice over which a young person has total control. In reality, many young people do not have the choice to remain abstinent due to sexual abuse, rape, and/ or molestation. Federal guidelines for abstinence-only-until-marriage programs associate sexual abstinence with all things virtuous and sexual activity with a life doomed to failure. Not only is this untrue, but it serves to inflict greater harm upon those who have had survived coerced sexual behavior. Such messages are likely to cause further feelings of hurt, shame, anger, and embarrassment in these already victimized young people.

Deny Information to Sexually Active Youth

While it is true that unprotected sexual activity can lead to unintended pregnancies and STDs/HIV, and that some intimate relationships can be harmful for a variety of reasons, this is a possibility regardless of marital status. The reality, however, is that the majority of people have had sexual relationships outside of marriage and negative repercussions are far from inevitable. Today, sexual behavior is almost universal among American adolescents and the vast majority of adults did not wait until they are married to become sexually active:

• 85 percent of young adults ages 18–24 and 56 percent of adolescents ages 15–17 report having “been with someone in an intimate or sexual way (including but not limited to intercourse).”⁸
• 47 percent of all high school students and 62 percent of high school seniors report having engaged in sexual intercourse.⁹
• 66 percent of adolescents and young adults ages 15–24 report having engaged in oral sex.¹⁰
• 80 percent of college students ages 18–24 years report having engaged in sexual intercourse.¹¹

Abstinence-only-until-marriage programs dismiss the majority of today's high school students who are sexually active by suggesting that they are less worthy than their abstinent peers and should feel ashamed of their sexual behavior.¹² Federal guidelines go as far as to suggest that abstinent teens should avoid those who are sexually active.

Abstinence is certainly a good choice for young people and is the most effective way to prevent pregnancy and the transmission of STDs, including HIV/AIDS. However, it is unconscionable to provide young people with information solely about abstinence. Unfortunately, as it has been interpreted by Congress, the federal definition of “abstinence education” prohibits federally funded programs from discussing the effectiveness of condoms and contraception in preventing unintended pregnancy and disease transmission, except in terms of failure rates. Some programs actually discourage the use of contraception, especially condoms, and many programs give teens medically inaccurate information and exaggerated failure rates.

Programs that teach students that condoms or contraception do not work will not dissuade them from having sexual intercourse. Such programs may, however, discourage teens from using protection when they do become sexually active, thereby putting them at risk for STDs and unintended pregnancy. In recent years, public health officials have witnessed a positive trend of increased condom use among sexually active teens.¹³ If abstinence-only-until-marriage programs continue to give young people negative messages about condoms, this trend may very well come to an end to the detriment of our nation and our youth.

References

1. Jason Fields, Current Population Reports: America's Families and Living Arrangements: March 2003 (Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau, November 2004).
2. Edward Laumann, et. al., The Social Organization of Sexuality—Sexual Practices in the United States (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1994).
3. Ibid.
4. Jason Fields, Current Population Reports: Children's Living Arrangements and Characteristics: March 2002 (Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau, June 2003).
5. Recent court decisions in Massachusetts have granted same-sex couples the right to marry in that state. Numerous court challenges and legislative hurdles remain and it is therefore unclear whether this right will be permanently guaranteed in that state or other states in the country. Today, Massachusetts is the only state that recognizes legal marriage between individuals of the same sex.
6. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration on Children, Youth and Families, Child Maltreatment 2004, “Chapter 3: Victims,” (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2006), accessed 21 April 2006, <http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/pubs/cm04/chapterthree.htm>.
7. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration on Children, Youth and Families, Child Maltreatment 2004, “Figure 3-3: Victimization Rates by Maltreatment Type, 2000-2004,” (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2006) accessed 21 April 2006, <http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/pubs/cm04/figure3_3.htm>.
8. Tina Hoff, et. al., National Survey of Adolescents and Young Adults: Sexual Health Knowledge, Attitudes, and Experiences , (Menlo Park, CA: Henry Kaiser Family Foundation, 2003), 14.
9. Jo Anne Grunbaum, et. al., “Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance — United States, 2003,” Surveillance Summaries, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 53.SS-2 (21May 2004): 1- 95.
10. Ibid.
11. “Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System—National College Health Risk Behavior Survey, 1995,” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 46.SS-6 (14 November 1997).
12. Ibid.
13. Grunbaum.