How I ended abstinence-only sex education in my school

I am not a piece of tape.

This particular metaphor was a favorite of Amnion Pregnancy Center, a crisis pregnancy center (or faux abortion clinic) that visited my health class sophomore year to talk about “healthy relationships.”
Even though more and more studies have shown that abstinence-only sex education impacts students negatively, neither reducing teen pregnancy nor the transmission of STDs, abstinence-only organizations still play an active role in sex education in my home state of Pennsylvania and across the United States.

Recently, many have resorted to scare tactics to convey their one main point: No one will love you if you have sex before marriage. They use disturbing metaphors to relay this frightening idea, including comparing young women who have premarital sex to tape that has lost its critical feature — its stickiness.

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