Why the change of plans? There are simply too many opportunities here for me in Xela. Yes, I would have loved to get to know another country. But in order for me to have an adventurous life living all over the world, working for NGOs in some sort of development-related field, I need to think slightly more practically now. And practically speaking, I need more experience working “in the field,” in a job that has more responsibility and will teach me more hard skills.

Yes, this change of plan kind of blows, because a large part of me wants to run around Latin America for the next year.

But on the other hand, I love it here. I will learn a ton, and hopefully contribute to a great organization. I will really get to know this beautiful, crazy country, and my Spanish will be awesome. Hopefully, by March, I’ll have enough money left over to head down to Nicaragua, Costa Rica and fly out of Panama in order to satiate my wanderlust. And, hopefully, my resume will be sufficiently pimped that I will score the next job in this-or-that country, then the next job in another country, then the next…

Anyways, so while I will still be traveling away from Xela plenty of times over the next eight months, yelkaye.net is going to take a very Guatemala and especially Quetzaltenango-focused slant.

So… change of topic.

I am currently having a rather large ethical dilemma.

On one hand, I have learned from experience that it is important to be culturally sensitive, that different actions can have different meanings or consequences in different countries.

But, on the other hand, shouldn’t it be important to be a good, loyal gal in every country?

Luckily, at this point I am starting to get to know many Guatemalan women and men. This is great – while my foreign friends here in Xela are great, these people mostly come and go, so it is important for me to make Guatemalan friends if I am to be happy and sane over the next year.

One female Guatemalan friend, however, recently made a troubling request.

Her husband, let’s face it, is a huge jerk. She’s had enough.

She’s met someone else who might be able to offer a new, more healthy relationship.

However, some people, including her husband, are jealous and possessive. It is almost impossible for her to sneak away and see this potential new love.

She asked me: Can you help me? Can you invite me out to coffee, and then bring me to him?

If I was in Canada, the answer would be simple. Yeeeeaah. Let’s ditch that douchebag and help you upgrade to a better model.

But here, I don’t know if I should get involved. It might not be safe for her, I might get myself in way over my head. Because I don’t know a ton about marriage, relationships or Guatemalan culture, I think I’m more likely to fuck stuff up.

So, unfortunately, I think I am going to have to decline involvement, and offer my support in other ways. But gosh, darn, damnit do I feel crappy about that.

“Is it easy for any foreigner to get a girlfriend in Burkina Faso?”

Now, I was in a grumpy mood already, so I shot back a rather bitchy response: “Yes, it is easy for any foreigner to get a girl/boyfriend in Burkina Faso. But I’ll tell you this: if you meet a woman that you really, genuinely care for, then by all means, date away. But otherwise, I’d think hard about your decision, because I have found that many relationships between foreigners and locals contain a troubling power dynamic.”

Anyways, I’m might have come off as unnecessarily harsh, because of the aforementioned bitchy mood. However, I’ve been thinking about the question and my response for the last week, and I can’t really resolve the debate in my head.

On one hand, I don’t want to portray those potential Burkinabe significant others as passive and victimized. Surely, young people everywhere have agency, and are capable of deciding whether to become involved with a given foreigner. If a young man or woman in Ouagadougou decides that it would be enjoyable to date a pasty nasara, then who am I to tell that nasara that their actions are wrong? And, besides, the romantic in me wants to believe that nationality, race and class can’t stop two people from caring for each other.

But, on the other hand, some issues still nag at another part of me. I am the product of a liberal, late 20th century Canadian upbringing, and I have always thought that a healthy relationship involves an even distribution of power. If one half of a couple has all or most of the power and leverage, how can the other person participate in a meaningful way?

And in the case of many Burkinabe-foreigner relationships (certainly not all, as the country’s people are not a homogeneous group), unfortunately I feel that usually the foreigner wields the majority of the power. In a country where 70% of the population lives on less than 2$ a day, a foreigner’s wealth and status has enormous leverage.

I guess I don’t know too much about what I’m talking with, because I’ve never been really involved with anyone in Burkina Faso (or Africa). I felt a few hints of the power dynamic, however, when I went out on a couple of innocent dates with a young man in Ouagadougou. Nothing ever really happened between us (maybe because the young man told me “the reason I like you so much Caitlin is that you are Canadian. Otherwise a woman is a woman.” That’s a direct quote.) Regardless, though, I had this overwhelming sensation that I could act however I wanted, and a relationship could progress as far as I wanted. I went to the wedding of the young man, met his lovely family, and I knew: if I decided right now that I wanted this to be my family, it would be. Because I felt I had all the power. Even after a couple times hanging out with the guy.

Anyways, I still don’t really know what I think. I have, after all, seen some of these relationships work. The wedding I went to in Ouagadougou was between a Burkinabe man and a French woman. They had been together seven years and nobody could dispute that the expression on both their faces were genuinely happy. So I guess, if the two people care enough about each other, these issues can be overcome. But I still think that the idea of “get me to that country so I can easily pick up some hot local lass” is dangerous, because the power dynamics are far, far more complicated and even unfair than they would be at home.

_______________________________________

Our youth deserve medically accurate information on contraception and STDs, including HIV/AIDS… It is time that society puts public health in front of ideological agendas and recognizes that abstinence education is the best health message for America’s youth.

The belief in abstinence education is based on ideology, not science. In a democratic society, public monies should be expended on programs with proven efficacy and not on those that promote particular ideologies.

These two statements – the first from American abstinence-only sex education advocates, and the second from their critics – show how values as “evidence” can be intertwined. Both insist that their own viewpoint is based on fact, while the other’s is based on ideology. How do we sort through these contradictory claims?

Nick Black points out that the last couple of decades have witnessed a growing emphasis on “evidence-based policy” in healthcare. The argument, he writes, is that “if doctors are expected to base their decisions on the findings of research surely politicians should do the same.” However, many scholars, including Black, argue that policy-making, like science, cannot be as value-neutral, as this argument suggests.
Mark J. Dobrow et al. argue that there are two ways to consider “evidence.” The “philosophical” orientation evaluates evidence purely based on its evidence, “with the supposition being that higher quality evidence should lead… to higher quality decisions.” But real life usually uses the “practical operational orientation” – that “what constitutes evidence is context-based, with evidence defined with respect to a specific decision-making context.” This is why, they claim, different policy-makers can use the same evidence to come to very different conclusions. Black, too, stresses context, and argues that policy-makers are constrained by criteria other than evidence, including strategic, social and electoral goals.
Part of the difficulty of arriving at evidence-based, and not ideological-based policy, Sylvia Noble Tesh argues, is the “predominant understanding that science is neutral.” Such a conception suggests that if two scientists disagree, then “something must be wrong with one of the scientists” – either he is lying, incompetent, or politically biased. Instead, Tesh claims, it is important to consider how values will affect how scientists collect and interpret their “evidence.” As such, it is no wonder that “evidence-based policy” is not the neutralizing panacea that some have suggested.
This essay, then, will examine the value-laden debates surrounding abstinence-only sex education in the United States. Two main arguments will be made. First, the controversy surrounding abstinence-only education illustrates that public health policy cannot be determined neutrally by appealing to the weight of scientific evidence. Instead, sex education policies, whether abstinence-only or not, will be determined through normative frameworks that are informed by certain interpretations of evidence.
If evidence can’t be used in a neutral, automatic way, how can we evaluate abstinence-only education in the United States? In an attempt to acknowledge the importance and interwoven nature of evidence and values, the essay will use the following normative framework. First: the goals of sex education policy should be to reduce the incidence of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and unwanted pregnancy. Second, sex education policy should also strive to encourage one of the broader determinants of health: inclusive community. For the purpose of this essay, this will be defined as community that respects and includes a wide variety of life experiences and allows members to make their own decisions. Using this evaluative framework, then, the second argument of this paper is that abstinence-only education fails at its public health goals.
Before continuing, it would be useful to define the terms used in this paper. Abstinence-only sex education, which will often be referred to as “abstinence-only” for the sake of brevity, is any sex education curricula in elementary, middle or high schools that teaches that abstinence until marriage is the only acceptable form of sexual experience, and prohibits instruction on condom or other contraception use (besides discussing failure rates.) Comprehensive sex education (also called “abstinence-plus” in the literature) refers to programs that teach about both abstinence and contraception.
Regardless of its faults, abstinence-only education is a response to some real sexual health problems in the United States. In 2007, the United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS estimated that 0.6 percent of the population of the United States are HIV-positive, compared to 0.4 percent in Canada, 0.2 percent in the United Kingdom and 0.1 percent in Germany. HIV prevalence rates also reflect existing inequalities in the United States. For instance, African Americans accounted for 50 percent of new HIV transmissions in 2007, although they account for only 12.8 percent of the population. What is more, HIV rates among young people are growing, with 25 percent of new infections occurring in those under age 22, the majority of whom were infected through sexual activity. United States also has the highest rates of other STIs in the western world.
The United States, write Chris Collins et al., also has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy of any industrialized country in the world. One million American teenagers become pregnant each year, and half of them give birth. While treating teenage pregnancy as a health problem is a value-laden statement in itself, it has been shown that teenage mothers are more likely to drop out of school and live in poverty than their peers. Teenage pregnancy, then, is a pressing issue in the United States, if different than that of HIV and other STIs.
Obviously, calls for abstinence until marriage are not new, but for the purpose of this essay, the history of abstinence-only education began in 1981 with the passing of the “Adolescent Family Life Act” in Congress. Referred to as the Chastity Act, it invested federal government funds in sex education programs focusing on “chastity and self discipline.” Several groups argued that the Chastity Act “violated the separation of church and state.” So, in January 1993, an out-of-court settlement declared that all state-funded sex education programs “may not include religious reference, must be medically accurate [and] must respect the ‘principle of self-determination’ of teenagers regarding contraceptive referrals.” One might think that this would point the way to more comprehensive sex education policies, but three years later, the opposite occurred.
During the creation of a major welfare reform law in 1996, the U.S. federal government attached the Title V provision. Title V offered up to $50 million US annually to states for abstinence-only programs. These programs were required to follow a fairly strict set of guidelines, known as the A-H definition of abstinence-only education. These eight requirements include: “teach that a mutually faithful, monogamous relationship in the context of marriage is the expected standard of sexual activity” and “teach that sexual activity outside the context of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects.” Moreover, any state that accepted abstinence-only funding could not also provide comprehensive sex education, even if it used other funds for this purpose.
During the George W. Bush administration, funding to abstinence-only education increased dramatically, increasing to $102 million in 2002 and $135 million in 2003. Of course, not all states accept the Title V funding. In 2008, Tracy Hampton found that seventeen states have declined Title V funding, so comprehensive sex education could be pursued. These states include California, Pennsylvania, Virginia and New York, and thus constitute a significant proportion of American teenagers. Regardless, fully 35 percent of American school districts follow strict abstinence-only education guidelines, and require that “abstinence be taught as the only option for an unmarried person.” At the other end, Chris Collins et al. found that only 14 percent of school districts offer “truly comprehensive” sex education that gives complete and inclusive information about contraception and more. The remainder of school districts fall somewhere in the middle, requiring that “abstinence be taught as the preferred option but also permitting discussion of contraception.”

What are the general arguments for and against abstinence-only education? Those in favour, such as the National Abstinence Education Association, argue that it is important to send a clear message to teenagers: that the only way to avoid STIs and pregnancy is to abstain from sex. Teaching “how to engage in so-called ‘safe sex’,’’ they argue, “would send youth a mixed message,” just like needle-exchange programs “undermine anti-drug campaigns.” Discussion of contraception and condoms, in the classroom, then, would only condone and encourage teenagers to have premarital sex.
Most critics of abstinence-only education agree that abstinence is the preferable choice for teenagers, but concede that it is unrealistic to expect this from everyone. The majority of teenagers, they argue, are sexually active by the time they finish high school. To deny these students valuable information about condoms and other birth control is to risk higher rates of STIs and unwanted pregnancies. For practical public health reasons, then, comprehensive sex education is a desirable option. What is more, these abstinence-only critics argue that teaching children about contraceptives will not encourage more students to have sex.
The content of abstinence-only programs varies, but in addition to following the A-H requirements, several themes are common. Alesha Doan and Jean Williams conducted a content analysis of common abstinence-only program in 2008, and found that all devoted a large proportion of their curriculum to “Expected Standards of Behavior.” Generally speaking, they argue, “instructions about behavioral expectations predominantly hinge on traditional notions of a nuclear, heterosexual family” with gender roles, marriage and family, commitment and values and relationships forming the most common topics. Virginity was discussed in most, but divorce and homosexuality receive no or barely any attention in all the programs Doan and Williams examined. Of course, the merits of abstinence received the bulk of the attention in every program.
Taking a broad perspective, much of this content is not problematic in and of itself. A discussion of abstinence is certainly important to include in sex education. After all, undoubtedly abstinence is a choice that will generally lead to healthy outcomes. However, at a closer look, several problems with abstinence-only become apparent. For one thing, several scholars have pointed out that much abstinence-only curricula contain “basic scientific errors. “ For example, Hampton found that many programs state that “in heterosexual sex, condoms fail to prevent HIV approximately 31 percent of the time and that a pregnancy occurs 1 of every 7 times that couples use condoms.” Sara McClelland and Michelle Fine, too, found that two-thirds of the most popular abstinence-only programs contained similar errors. Such glaring inaccuracy, as they point out, robs students of their right to accurate information. Not to mention that, if students believe these statistics and have sex anyways (as the next section shows, students in abstinence-only education programs have pre-marital sex at the same rates) it’s foreseeable that they might decide a condom wouldn’t be worth the bother.
McClelland and Fine write that abstinence-only also imparts incorrect information about the differences between married and unmarried sex. This “ideological binary” of “premarital sex as inherently dangerous and marital sex as inherently safe” ignores the evidence that even marriage can contain STIs and HIV, unwanted pregnancies and violence. And while this essay argues that “evidence” is value-laden, as I interpret evidence, abstinence-only education steers far away from fact. Or, at least, it is selective in which evidence it chooses to use.

In the 13 years since the creation of the Title V legislation, several studies have examined whether abstinence-only sex education programs meet the goals they purport to solve. Generally, studies on abstinence-only programs can be split into two broad categories. First, many studies examine attitudinal changes. Many of these studies show that students who have taken abstinence-only education programs state that they intend to delay sex and that premarital sex is wrong. The studies, then, conclude that the programs are successful.
However, as McClelland and Fine argue, people’s intentions and attitudes do not always translate to real-life actions, so these studies fail to convince that behavior outcomes and health outcomes will change. What is more, they claim that studies in favor of abstinence-once programs are overly “embedded” in politics. For instance, in 1998, the Department of Health and Human Services commissioned an evaluation of abstinence-only programs by a supposedly nonpartisan research institute. This research project, McClelland and Fine argue, was too closely tied to the federal government, and the “structures that it [was] tasked with evaluating.” Lacking independence, they state, the research institute’s findings (in favor of abstinence-only) are not entirely credible.
The second group of studies examines actual behaviors of teenagers after participating in abstinence-only programs. What kind of behavioral measures do these studies use? Almost all examine teen’s sexual activity and health outcomes, such as STI incidence and pregnancy rates. The vast bulk of studies in peer-reviewed journals show that abstinence-only education programs have no significant effect on a number of behavioral outcomes. Christopher Trenholm et al., for instance, found that in a sample of young people from “backgrounds that put them at relatively high risk,” program and control groups did not differ on any behavioral measure. Average age of first sexual intercourse was 14.9 for both control and treatment groups, and the average number of sex partners was also the same for both groups . Teens in both groups reported having unprotected sex in the same numbers. (It is important to keep in mind that this is not due to the failure of comprehensive sex education for the control groups, because these teens did not receive any sex education). Pamela Kohler et al. found similar results in their study, which (unlike Trenholm) was not limited to “at-risk” teens.
As would be expected (since rates of sexual activity and unprotected sex are the same) studies also find that abstinence-only education programs do not meet their health goals. Trenholm shows, for instance, that rates of STIs and pregnancy between control and treatment groups were identical. Critics of abstinence-only also argue that comprehensive sex education achieves better results. Naomi Starkman and Nicole Rajani, for instance, point to several studies (by the World Health Organization, UNAIDS and several American scholars) which all indicate that comprehensive sex education does not increase the rate of teen sexual activity, but does decrease the incidence of pregnancy, HIV and other STIs.
Interestingly, many of these studies still employ much of the same normative language of the abstinence-only programs they criticize. Trenholm et al., for instance, claim that abstinence-only education fails because it does “not reduce teen sexual activity.” They conclude that research needs to be done to find more effective ways to “combat the high rate of teen sexual activity.” Collins et al., too, state that abstinence-only education does not “lead to positive behavior change among youth.” The tone is similar among almost all other critics of abstinence-only education. It appears, then, that these critics are still operating in the same normative framework of those they criticize – that teenage sexuality and pre-marital sex is a problem to be resolved. Of course, these scholars might just be using the same normative framework as abstinence-only advocates simply in order to be more persuasive – in other words, to convince those advocates that they are failing at their own goals.
In any case, if abstinence-only education is not achieving any changes in behavioral outcome, how can it be advocated as a public health policy? In 2004, President Bush claimed that he planned to double federal funding to Title V programs because “abstinence for young people is the only certain way to avoid sexually transmitted diseases.” But was reducing the incidence of disease really his primary goal? Instead, it appears, as many have argued, that abstinence-only policies are not designed to meet public health needs, but to serve political and ideological purposes. The United States Medical Institute for Sexual Health, for instance, states that “there are core ethical values that are held, more or less, universally” and this should be the appropriate subject matter for sex education programs. The Mathematica institute, hired by the federal government to evaluate abstinence-only programs, even admitted to a bias in their methods. Their questions were “loaded in one direction,” he conceded, because they “had to weight scientific validity with community interests.” One abstinence group claimed that abstinence-only education was more about dealing with public health problems, such as “illegitimate births [and] the breakdown of the nuclear family” – but these are actually normative goals in themselves! Doan and Williams summarize the ideological nature of abstinence-only education:
The political battle over the approach and content of sexuality education shares the same key characteristics… found in other morality conflicts. Constructing teenage sexual activity and the subsequent risk of pregnancy and disease as a case of weakening morals begets a policy solution that simply requires a strengthening of values as a solution to the problem.

As mentioned earlier, it is ironic that abstinence-only advocates often criticize their opponents for their ideological bias in much the same way. Abstinence-only education critics, they argue, are ignoring “medically-accurate information” in order to further their “ideological agendas.” In response to studies that show the failings of abstinence-only education, they claim that this research is “simply data-mining.” What is more, they argue that these studies ignore the “emotional risks of casual [i.e. premarital] sex.” Of course, it is true that studies critical of abstinence-only education are not without their own ideological bias – they simple work under a value structure that takes a broader view of what is right and wrong in the context of sexuality.
Clearly, as Collins et al. argues, “no quantity of research will settle the moral and religious disputes that circle around the sex education debate.” Since “evidence” and “research” are used and interpreted in different ways by either side, it seems unrealistic to expect the debate to be solved by choosing an “ideologically neutral” position. But, again, if we choose to examine the issue through a normative framework that prioritizes inclusivity as well as the reduced incidence of disease and pregnancy, comprehensive education appears to be the better choice.
As mentioned earlier, one of the central arguments of abstinence-only education proponents is that pre-marital sex is likely to have harmful psychological consequences. Of course, they simply state this as fact, without pointing to any actual evidence that sex outside of marriage is harmful to mental health. It is likely that this statement is just another part of their ideological agenda, for some studies have shown it to be false. Joseph Sabia, for instance, conducted a study to determine if teenage sex led to an increase in depression, feelings of worthlessness, or suicidal thoughts. He found no causal link between teen sex and depressive symptoms, although he did indicate that teenagers with depression were more likely to engage in early sexual activity. Regardless, he concluded that “recent claims about the… consequences of early teen sex have been overstated.”
Even if, hypothetically, it was true that sexual activity has harmful psychological effects among teenagers, it is arguable that these harmful effects could be due to the homogenizing social pressures that abstinence-only programs place on teenagers. It is easy to speculate that young people, especially young women, could become depressed only because they are told in school that their behavior is wrong. Of course, research would be needed to confirm this idea, but it is an interesting question to keep in mind.
Indeed, the potentially alienating aspects of abstinence-only sex education are one of the main public health issues that merit attention. Social cohesion, self-esteem and inclusion are often cited as important social determinants of health. The Canadian Determinants of Health Working Group Synthesis Report, for instance, shows that “resilience, the ability to bounce back, to recover strengths and spirits quickly” (all important for maintaining mental and physical health) can stem from healthy communities as well as individuals. Healthy communities, the report continues, are those that “pull people together, including those who are usually left out.” Inclusion in the community, then, increases individuals’ “self-esteem, an enhanced sense of control, a greater sense of belonging… and, ultimately, better health.”
It is arguable that abstinence-only education will harm the community and self-esteem aspects of the social determinants of health, by alienating those individuals who do not fit into the curricula’s narrow prescription of sexuality. The first potential source of alienation is abstinence-only’s portrayal of female sexuality. Generally speaking, McClelland and Fine argue, the abstinence-only discourse generally portrays women as heterosexual, passive and disinterested in sex. For example, in one government-sponsored survey of program participants, girls are asked to “assume the position of someone who wants to abstain.” When asked what they would do if their boyfriend pressured them to have sex, their choices are to talk about not having sex, avoiding situations that would lead to sex, and “saying ‘NO’ to sexual intercourse.” This question, they argue, “consistently situates girls as passive… beings who are responsible for controlling (uncontrollable) male sexuality.”
Doan and Williams, too, assert that the curricula “portray girls as lacking sexual desire.” Even more problematic, they position girls as the gatekeepers who are ultimately responsible for the sex that does occur. To illustrate, consider the following excerpts from sex education manuals:

Because they generally become physically aroused less easily, girls are still in a good position to slow down the young man… The girl may be showing her interest in the guy, but he thinks she is interested in sex. If their communication isn’t clear, the boy may sometimes misread this behavior and get carried away by his physical reactions to that behavior.

If a boy and girl do get into a situation that threatens to get out of control, it is almost always up to the girl to control the situation. She usually must say “no” to further sexual involvement… the male is more sexually excitable than the female. Many girls do not take this into consideration.

Statements such as this send a clear message to young women: it is not normal or acceptable for women to have a high level of sexual desire. If they do have sex, is it because they are inappropriately giving in to what a man wants. What is more, this message veers dangerously close to a blaming-the-victim mentality around forced sexual activity. It is conceivable that, receiving this message, sexually active young women could feel ashamed or alienated.
Furthermore, these two excerpts are very similar, and read as though they could have come out of the same manual. However, the first is from a popular contemporary abstinence-only sex education workbook. The second is from a sex education book from 1967, the same book that refers to homosexuality as a mental illness.
Of course, it is not only young women who receive potentially alienating or shaming messages about their sexuality. In general, sexually active young people are portrayed as “dysfunctional” by abstinence-only advocates. One report by abstinence-only advocates, Doan and Williams write, suggests that “remediation” could be given to those teenagers that “deviate from the best choice.” This “sexually dysfunctional faction” should be given private counseling, the report argues, but should not be allowed to have a harmful influence in a normal sex education classroom.
Similarly, Jessica Fields points to one abstinence-only advocate, Helen Wilson, who claims that there is a “20-60-20” divide among all adolescents. Ten to 20 percent will have sex (which she equates with drinking and driving) regardless of the sex education they receive, she argues. Another 10 to 20 percent are “high achievers” – in other words, they will abstain no matter what. The remaining students will choose to abstain or have sex depending on the message they receive in school. Essentially, then, the needs of the “high-risk” 20 percent should be sacrificed for the sake of the students who are salvageable. These statements show that abstinence-only education threatens the idea of inclusive community, by shuffling the so-called “dysfunctional” youth and their interests off to the side. Due to these messages to teenagers (especially girls), it is no wonder that critics such as Collins et al. argue that such programming “runs the serious risk of leaving [some] young people…. uninformed and alienated.”
Abstinence-only education also has the potential to alienate individuals based on racial, class, and sexual orientation lines. Throughout American history, African American and white young women have been sexualized in different ways. White young women, especially of middle and upper classes, have been sexualized as virginal and innocent. African American girls (and often lower-class white girls), on the other hand, have been portrayed as overly sexual, corrupt temptresses. As a result of this history legacy, in the United States the idea of “at-risk” teenagers has generally evoked the image of an African American teen mother. Unfortunately, due to the existing inequalities in the United States, African American and other minorities have, in fact, been more at risk of the negative consequences of sex. For instance, African American and Hispanic women aged 13 to 24 account for “75% of all HIV infections among American women.” For abstinence-only advocates like Helen Wilson and her “markedly white, middle-class coalition,” the needs of the “dysfunctional” (and predominantly African American and lower class) “20 percent” would have to be ignored, even though providing comprehensive sex education could potentially save their lives.
The statement that “monogamous relationships in the context of marriage is the expected standard of sexual activity” is also likely to be alienating on several fronts. First of all, it is estimated that 43 percent of all marriages in the United States end in divorce after fifteen years. As well, about 50 percent of African American children are born to unmarried parents. How, then, are students supposed to feel when their life experiences are deemed to be unacceptable?
Obviously, the focus on traditional marriage is also heterosexist. It leaves no space for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered students to find “acceptable” sexual expression, since gay marriage is illegal in the vast majority of American states. (It would be interesting, however, to see how such programs would adapt in states where gay marriage is legalized.) Moreover, as explained earlier, Doan and Wiliams found that abstinence-only programs had virtually no mention of homosexuality at all. Clearly, abstinence-only education fails to provide the important community and self-esteem social determinant of health, which includes and respects different lifestyles and experiences.
Despite all these troubling problems of abstinence-only education, again it is difficult to use this “evidence” to resolve the debate. Perhaps, then, the only way to draw any conclusion would be to examine the opinions of the general American public. In other words, in an attempt at democratic decision-making, perhaps the only route is to ascertain which values are the most widespread. In fact, several scholars have found that, indeed, the majority of Americans would prefer comprehensive sex education to abstinence only. Amy Bleakly et al. surveyed a representative sample of Americans and found that a majority of respondents “disagreed with the belief that abstinence-only programs were effective.” They found that this held true across different racial groups and even among more religious people: a full 60 percent of people who attended more than one religious service a week disagreed with abstinence-only education. Collins et al., too, found similar figures when surveying American parents. Eighty-four to 85 percent of respondents said they want sex education to teach how to acquire and use condoms and other birth control, and 76 percent wanted homosexuality discussed in class.
Besides the Americans’ opinions on sex education, how much does abstinence-only education reflect the current social norms in the United States? First of all, the average age at first marriage has gone up considerably over the last twenty-five years in the United States, from 22.1 to 25.8 for women and 24.4 to 27.4 for men. The number of years young people are expected to abstain, then, is considerably larger. What is more, premarital sex is, in fact, the norm for most Americans. By age 20, Lawrence Finer finds, 75 percent of individuals in the United States have had sex before marriage, and by age 44, 95 percent have had premarital sex. As a result, he argues that “premarital sex is a highly normative behavior” in the United States. It is arguable, though, the actual behavior does not necessarily correspond with social norms. (After all, as argued earlier, attitudes do not always correspond to behavior) However, the prevalence of premarital sex does, as Finer argues, “suggest that establishing abstinence until marriage as normative behavior” is an unrealistic policy goal.

What then does the future for sex education in the United States hold? As the Obama presidency is still in its infancy, it is hard to know for certain at this point in time. However, on March 17th, 2009, New Jersey Senator Frank R. Lautenberg and Congresswoman Barbara Lee (both Democrats) introduced the Responsible Education About Life (REAL) Act, which will provide federal grants to comprehensive sex education programs. President Obama seems in favour of this move – not only did he support the REAL Act during its planning stages (while he was still a Senator), but has also introduced the first funding cuts to abstinence-only education since Title V. This does indicate that the climate around sex education is shifting somewhat. But, as this essay has shown, policy is wrapped up in ideology as much as evidence, so it does not seem feasible that radical shifts in sex education will happen overnight.
Regardless, though, what possible directions could sex education take in United States or other countries? Several critics of abstinence-only education have offered compelling suggestions. Hampton points to the difference between Dutch and American approaches to sex education. The United States, she argues, “has dramatized adolescent sexuality” while the Dutch have “normalized” it. As a result, sex education in the Netherlands gives “adolescents the right and responsibility to make decisions about their sexual behavior.” The Netherlands, she writes, has the lowest teen pregnancy rate in the Western World. Indeed, Fields also argues that sex education should move away from “adultism,” or the idea that “young people are categorically less able, less intelligent, and less responsible that adults,” and instead respect teens’ ability to make their own choices.
Of course, the idea of “normalizing” adolescent sexuality does not mean that sex education should not offer any behavioral guidelines at all. The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy argues that sex education should still emphasize a “right thing to do.” The difference, though, is that this would include abstaining or “using contraception consistently.” This way, they claim, “there is a clear message” while “reflect[ing] the age, sexual experience, and culture” of different youth.”
Finally, when it comes to young women, instead of telling girls that they should be passive and sexually disinterested, Douglas Kirkby suggests that sex education ought to teach female students to “choos[e] sexual experiences based on their own experiences of sexual desire instead of [that of] a male partner’s.” This would allow those teenagers who do abstain to feel confident in doing so, while also accommodating those who don’t.

We had already taken sex ed before, so we already knew the drill. Two years ago, our teacher had split up the boys and girls, and caused fits of giggles when she showed us a condom and made a tampon expand in a jar of water. Only two months ago, boys and girls together, our hip young teacher had told us that if we wanted to “get into someone’s pants” we had to be comfortable enough to talk with them about birth control and sexually transmitted diseases. At the time, we never heard about any of our peers having sex, except the girl in another class who was dating a sixteen year old.

Three young adults climbed on stage, all good-looking and wearing trendy clothes. The brown-haired woman – tall, beautiful and modelesque – started the tirade. True love waits. Sex has too many consequences. It’s irresponsible. It’s for making babies. We’re too young. We don’t know any better. It won’t be special until later.

“I’m a virgin, but I’ve had boyfriends before,” the young woman told us. “A year ago, my boyfriend at the time invited me over to watch a movie. We didn’t have sex, but it definitely got hot and heavy and I even took my pants off. After the movie, I slept over in his bed. The next morning, I felt awful about myself. I didn’t have sex but I knew I had gone too far and that made me uncomfortable. I know that if I had actually had sex, I would have felt a thousand times worse.”

The one guy came forward then, grabbing his microphone confidently. He had spiky blond hair and wore baggy jeans with Airwalk shoes. Probably hand picked for his ability to look cool and relatable to teenage boys, he fit the part perfectly.

“I have something to tell you guys,” he said. “I am a virgin, and I’m proud of it. You might think it’s really weird for a guy my age to be a virgin, but it’s not. I know that when I meet the right girl that I waited to share sex only with her.” He jumped off the stage suddenly, ran through the aisle, heads turning as he went. A the back of the gym at the emergency exit, he swung the metal door open and the bright outside light flooded the room. “Hello world,” he yelled out the door. “I am twenty-one, and I am a virgin!”

I don’t remember whether people laughed or cheered, but I do remember what came next. The third performer, a curvy Southeast Asian girl in a low-cut top, finally took her microphone. “I’ve had sex before, but I wish I hadn’t,” she started softly. “But I decided a couple years ago that abstinence was still important to me and I would wait until marriage to have sex again.

“Think of it like this. If you were dating someone, and they gave you a beautiful necklace, that would be pretty special, right? But what if you found out that your boyfriend or girlfriend had given the same necklace to lots of other people? Wouldn’t that make the necklace less special? Sex is like that too. If you have it with lots of people, it becomes less valuable, less special for when you want to share it with someone you love.”

I didn’t really get the whole situation straight until recently, because it’s sort of hard to figure out who’s who in a Burkinabe family. Why? Well, in West Africa a home is a courtyard with several small houses. The small houses can be allotted to different wives, extended family or renters like me. But everyone sleeps outside, so you can’t really tell who belongs in which house. Not to mention that extra people seem to sleep in the courtyard all the time, and the gate is always wide open so everyone in the whole neighborhood is always coming and going.

Anyways, it turns out that the second wife was away visiting family in the countryside during my first week in Ouaga, so it wasn’t until this past weekend that I met her. I was introduced without flourish – the father just said “this is my second wife – you know we Africans are like that, right?” Yup. But besides this brief acknowledgement of the extra wife, I can hardly notice polygamy in the family. Life passes as normal… the kids play with each other, the women sit around chatting after the day’s chores are done, and the husband drinks tea and chats with his friends. Not much different than the (monogamous) family I once stayed with at the other end of Ouagadougou.

Of course, with my research I have to think about the topic a lot more actively. (Yes, the project is going rather badly, since I’ve only had one interview and only have a couple more lined up. But I am still thinking about my research topic a lot, and I’ve had a lot of candid conversations!) My first interview went quite well… while we deviated from the exact purpose of my study from time to time, he gave me some excellent soundbites.

A middle-aged man working as an administrative director for a large regional NGO, he told me – to my delight – that my study is completely irrelevant for Burkinabe people. Being a tradition, polygamy is something Burkinabe people don’t see. It just is. As a result, NGOs don’t notice it, don’t consider it in their planning, and certainly don’t debate it! He said that if men are happy to have more than one wife, that NGOs can only applaud them!

Here is where it gets difficult not to judge. Here is a man (who has one wife but who is currently trying to arrange a second, he confessed) who seems to mostly emphasizes that men are content with the arrangement. When he talked about voluntary, forced (when a younger brother is forced to marry his deceased older brother’s wife) and “socially obligatory” polygamy, he always framed it as a man having choice, as a man being forced.

Maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to judge this gentleman. He may not have meant to explain things mostly from the man’s side. And, if things are really as he said – that people (not just men) are happy to live in polygamous relationships, that we “the intellectual and educated” (his words, not mine) should clap.

However, I still get stuck on one point – the aspect about polygamy that’s had me from the start. Two years ago, I was sitting at a quiet macquis in Po, with my Canadian friend Danielle and a few young Burkinabe men. One of the guys, a particularly opinionated and articulate fellow, told me that polygamy was the number one problem facing gender issues and development more generally in Burkina Faso. He said that as long as there was polygamy, women would be married not for love or for who they are as people, but as an additional piece of property.

Of course, the director I interviewed on Monday did not refer to women as property. To be fair, the gentleman – despite everything – works in development and seems to genuinely believe in the benefits of projects that aim to improve the lives and positions of women. However, he did describe polygamy in a way that hinted at this distasteful aspect.

A man of a certain level of prosperity and maturity will be expected to have multiple wives, he said. Why? Polygamy is good for the image of a family, having additional wife is a display of prosperity.

And me, stuck in my North American, “Western”, “Northern”, “1st-world” ways couldn’t help but think: So an extra couple women is just another sign of prosperity, like a car, a big house, or a gold watch.

The stars here are amazing. You can see so many. Last night, when it was still 30-some degrees at midnight, the three of us and a Burkinabe friend lied out on a mat and stared at the stars for hours. We counted over a dozen shooting stars and argued over whether the light in the sky was the Milky Way or a narrow cloud.

Also, I miss dairy products. But I think I will get over this second complaint. The status of women here is likely to continue to haunt me, however. I have grown quite fond of the small girls and teenage women living near me here, and it depresses me to think about their futures.

It’s now October 2007, and I still feel pissed off. Cultural relativity can be a good thing. A month after getting back, I realized that some of the things that perplexed me about Burkinabe society – overwhelming emphasis on family and community, not individuality, for example – made more and more sense when I reflected upon the cultural context of the village. Suddenly, the slow pace of life in West Africa seemed a whole lot more civilized than my lonely commute every morning, rushing from bus to train to streetcar without so much as looking at my fellow passengers.

But I will never accept the argument of cultural relativity when it comes to what I hold to be basic human rights. One of these, of course, is women’s right to equal opportunities, equal treatment, and, most importantly, a life free from abuse.

Saying this, I can already hear the groans from the uber politically-correct development studies students. I’m unfairly imposing my beliefs on a different culture, they might say. Gender equality is not valued in all cultures, and it is ignorant of me to expect otherwise.

But fuck it, seriously. Any such arguments are only suggesting that the little girls and young women of Sapone don’t deserve the same things that I take for granted. And no matter what I hear in development studies I’m not going to accept otherwise.