Facts of life sexed up by US chastity lobby to keep lid on libidos

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Times

THEY call it the “hearts-and-libidos” campaign.
Sherry Smith, a 50-year-old former nurse from Pasadena, a leafy suburb of Los Angeles, is one of thousands of teachers across America who are promoting a new — or very old, depending on how you look at it — kind of sex education: condoms are “not what they’re cracked up to be”; mutual masturbation can cause pregnancy; and girls who have sex run the risk of suicide.

Much to the despair of liberal Americans, the statistics suggest that these so-called “abstinence-only” campaigns are working. According to the US Department of Health, the birth rate for American females between 15 and 19 years old was 43 per 1,000 in 2002 — less than half the rate of 101.1 in 1995. Even teenage boys seem to be less keen: only 31 per cent had sex in 2001, down from 43 per cent in 1995, according to the National Centre for Health Statistics.

Critics, led by the Californian Congressman Henry Waxman, say that more than 80 per cent of the abstinence-only curriculum contains “false, misleading or distorted information”.

In a report on the subject, Mr Waxman’s staff analysed the content of abstinence pamphlets with titles such as Sex Can Wait and Managing Pleasures Before Marriage. One claimed falsely that up to 10 per cent of women who had legal abortions would become sterile; another taught that women “need financial support”, while men need “admiration”.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1430075,00.html