Moving Beyond Scare Tactics and Fear Mongering

Young People and Comprehensive Sex Education: Moving Beyond Scare Tactics and Fear Mongering in 2012

by Andrew Jenkins, OutServe via RH Reality Check

Knowledge is power.

I mean that in the most cliché way possible. Without knowledge, agency and self-determination become meaningless fragments of our imagination. Something that we desperately wish for but can’t quite grab onto.

This is especially true when it comes to young people.

Growing up in the United States is like playing a foucauldian game of discipline and punish. Disciplined by a morally bankrupt narrative about sex and sexuality and then punished for daring to question it.

I guess we shouldn’t be all that surprised. When young people are subjugated and disenfranchised, systems of power thrive. When we’re alienated from our bodies and fearful of our sexuality, we lack the resources and agency necessary to become responsible agents of social and political change. Suffice it to say; those in power have a vested interest in dislocating the nation's youth from real sex education.

Read the full article at RH Reality Check.