Wake up and smell the condoms: An Analysis of Sex Education Programs in the United States, the Netherlands, Sweden, Australia, France, and Germany

In summary, the United States has failed its youth and put their health at great risk by denying them adequate sex education and sexual health services. The Netherlands, Sweden, Australia, France and Germany all show better results on measure of teenage sexual health than the United States. While these countries each have unique sex education programs, they all provide comprehensive information about sexuality, STDs, and contraception, and represent sexuality as a normal and positive part of human development. Teen sexuality is normalized in these countries and youth are encouraged to set their own boundaries, respect others, and make informed, responsible choices. In addition to their sex education programs, all of these countries have social programs in place to provide youth with sexual health services and contraception. The United States needs desperately to abandon the abstinence-only approach to sex education and develop comprehensive sex education programs and should look to these countries for inspiration. Social programs providing sexual health services to teens similar to the ones in each of these countries should be developed to supplement the new sex education programs.

Of course, there are obstacles to achieving these goals. Sex education is a largely moral issue in the United States and many religious groups fight adamantly against anything but abstinence-only programs. Many adults have misconceptions about comprehensive sex education, believing it will cause youth to become sexually promiscuous, which has been proven untrue (Labauve & Mabray, 2002). The foreign countries presented in this paper have much more open, matter-of-fact attitudes about sexuality, as opposed to the puritanical views prevalent in the US. The US will need to adopt a fact and research based approach to human sexuality before any of the programs I suggest can be initiated at a national level.            

Discouragingly, even if the US adopts a comprehensive sex education curriculum and funds sexual health services for youth, the entire problem will not be solved. Other major causes of poor sexual health in the US are the high poverty rates and uneven distribution of wealth (Lottes, 2002). As long as high numbers of American youth are living in poverty, US teen sexual health will continue to rate worse than that of other industrialized countries. Addressing these issues is extremely complicated and a topic that must be saved for another paper.

While the US situation appears grim right now, there is hope. The recent election demonstrated a shift to the left in US politics. Hopefully the new administration will abandon unsuccessful abstinence-only policies in favor of research-based comprehensive sex education programs. Citizens should encourage national and local governments to fund sexual health services for youth and push for a national health insurance system that covers all citizens. When these goals are accomplished, we should begin to see a much more sexually responsible youth.

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1.) Data for US teen births differs from previously mentioned data because it is taken from a different study. The previous study did not include Australia.