Sexual Repression in Public School Sex Ed.

Both “Why Black Sexual Politics?” and “Sex ‘R’ Us” in Enlightened Sexism discuss the surprising sexual repression of our culture despite the obsession and commodification of sex and sexuality in the media. My public high school had (and still has) high teen pregnancy rates and many low-income students, but continues to teach abstinence-only sex-ed. in health class. I remember a particular assignment in which we were supposed to write a letter to our future children (because we would all definitely have children!) that they would read as a teenager, advising them in their sexual decision-making. I grew up in a conservative Christian household in which sex was rarely discussed and my exposure to media (television, etc.) was limited and closely monitored, so I wrote what I had heard at home and in school, which was to abstain until marriage. The four best essays (unsure if this was determined by content [abstinence-only or a more open conception of sexuality for young people] or quality of writing) in the class received an “Abstinence Works” t-shirt which listed reasons why abstinence is the safest choice, even though it was clear that many students in the school were not abstaining or writing letters that necessarily advocated for their future child to abstain.

A component of sexual repression, in my high school and in other venues, seems to also be sexual denial, a complete disregard of the actions and needs of those who are being educated. I did not need the school’s sex ed. message; I had already received it at home. The individuals in my class who were sexually active or were considering being sexually active needed to learn about safe methods. An interesting point that Patricia Hill Collins brings up in her chapter is the silence of African American politics “on issues of gender and sexuality” (Collins, 2004, 35). A lack of discourse allows stereotypes to prevail. A lack of discourse in school sex ed. classes allows another type of discourse to prevail, the discourse that teenagers are rampantly sexually active, unsafe, and must be controlled, when the reality is that they must be educated in order to make decisions that will ensure their own safety and health and will encourage better planning and less sexual abuse. Similar inaccurate discourses for women have emerged: that "women of African descent [are] associated with animalistic, 'wild' sexuality" (Collins 27), "that women's only value comes from their sex appeal" (Douglas, 2010, 167), that heterosexuality is "a hegemonic or taken-for-granted ideology" (Collins 37), and the list could go on. Serious conversations and discussion about sex and sexuality seem to be one of the few hopeful efforts to combat against these reinforced stereotypes.