Sex Education

Make Healthy Sexual Choices

Black Gay Men

Too many people are dying because they are having random and casual unprotected sexual intercourse. Too many people are getting sexual transmitted diseases because they are choosing ephemeral pleasure over safe sexual intercourse. Now, I know there may be times when sexual intercourse cannot be planned, but the one thing you can do is make sure you use protection during sexual intercourse. As you know, a condom cannot protect you from everything. A condom cannot be used during every type of sexual act to make every sexual act safer. You will, therefore, have to exercise some control and good judgment. The way that many people are acting it seems that they value a penis or vagina more than they do life itself. In case you did not know, there are real diseases out there you can get that can kill you.

I would like to recommend to student organizations on college campuses that are seriously concerned about students making healthy sexual choices to be more serious and use less entertainment in your approach to students. When you engage in acts that are intentionally over-the-top to get students’ attention, they remember the over-the-top things you did and not the serious messages about good sexual health you are offering. While I do support abstinence only sex education in middle and high school, I do not think that abstinence only sex education is realistic and effective on college campuses. We should make more investments in helping students to make healthy sexual choices and help them to do more things that prevent unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases. I do not, however, want student organizations on college campuses telling students about using abortion as an option to terminate unwanted pregnancies.

Although women should not have to worry about if what they are wearing will make them more likely to get raped, the reality is you do have to worry about it. Women, make sure that you dress in a way that is going to make you less likely to be raped when you are out late at night. If you can, try to go out with at least another woman so that you are not traveling alone. Making a healthy sexual choice involves you dressing in a way that is going to make you less likely to be victimized by someone who is not concerned about your sexual health. Mothers, please let your daughters know when they are leaving the house looking like whores. If they get raped, then you will at least have protested them leaving the house looking like whores.

Many people think it is cute to go around and have sex with everyone possible. Please get wiser than this. We live in a time when just one wrong sexual choice can lead you to death. It’s time out for trying to sleep with as many random people as you can. Make a commitment to improving your sexual health by reducing the number of people you have sex with and the number of times you are having risky and unprotected sex.

To men and women, don’t allow random people to ejaculate in your mouths and swallow it. A condom will not prevent you from a potential disease that you may get from engaging in such an act. If you are going to do this, then make sure it is with someone you have had a committed relationship with.

Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Responding to Dr. Marc Lamont Hill on Sex Education

In a recent article (http://theloop21.com/society/sex-education-or-sexuality-education-danger-of-saving-ourselves), Dr. Marc Lamont Hill, Columbia University professor, contended that abstinence-only sex education is “ineffective,” “flawed,” and “dangerous.” Just as I disagreed with Dr. Marc Lamont Hill for “hating” Drake, I also disagree with his opposition to abstinence-only sex education. Dr. Hill is one of the leading public intellectuals of our time and someone I deeply admire. As much as I respect, admire, and appreciate the work of Dr. Hill, I cannot disagree more with him on abstinence-only sex education.

As a person who experienced sex education in high school, I found that it only increased the desire of everyone in the class to engage in sex—risky sex at that. How do I know this? Everyone said it! We never had the opportunity to experience abstinence-only sex education in my high school. Although that we know that our young people are having sex at early ages, we cannot give up on promoting abstinence-only in the classroom and in curriculums. Pre-K – 12 should instill in our children character—not hand them a condom.

The decision to tell children about condoms and how to prevent getting sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) should be left to parents to decide. Parents do not send their children to school to have teachers telling them all kinds of things about condoms and how to prevent getting an STD. Our children should receive an education that teaches the best and brightest aspects about life and America. Even from the advent of American education, character education has been a mainstay. We should never give up on telling our children to just say no to sex while they are still in the Pre-K-12 educational pipeline. Schools should be promoting civil behavior—not saying, “Hey, if you’re going to go ahead and have sex, make sure that you put on a condom.” Children are exposed to so many dangers when we assume that they are going to have sex anyway.

We have to continue to promote abstinence-only sex education because we must insist that our children are going to be responsible individuals who wait until they have graduated from high school before they have sexual intercourse. Now, Dr. Hill certainly believed in the rhetoric of hope that then Senator Obama was selling, so I expect for him to have hope that abstinence-only sex education can be the most effective and appropriate form of sex education we can deliver to our students. Although comprehensive sex education may sound like we are fully education our children about sex, I contend that this is an improper thing for schools to do. Schools should leave the more controversial aspects of sex education to children’s parents.

Do you really want some man or woman in a classroom telling your child how to use a condom? If we devote more time, resources, and money to abstinence-only sex education, then we can see better results emerge and we can see it become more effective. The problem is you have people like Dr. Hill saying that it is not enough, and this ends up having such an influence on curriculum developers. Dr. Hill, why don’t you just dedicate more time to thinking about better ways to make abstinence-only sex education more effective instead of trying to demean it as you have in the aforementioned article? In your criticism of Drake, Dr. Hill, you say that he “leaves much to be desired.” On this issue, I say that you leave much to be desired. You are still one of my favorite and most admired public intellectuals, however.

Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison