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While I was teaching a sixth-grade sex-ed class recently, one of my students deviated from a discussion on the perils of puberty to ask, "Do you think Obama will have sex with his wife in the White House?"
Given the anti-sex climate of the previous administration, I thought the question was not just that of a twelve-year-old looking for a laugh. So puberty talk was temporarily shelved and I said, "I sure hope so." The kids looked a little miffed, but I meant it. A president in a sexless marriage is probably not someone we want with his finger on the button. If the last eight years have taught us anything about the subject, it's that a fear of sex doesn't make it go away. It just leaves people more vulnerable to the risks it can bring.
It's not that I envision the President endorsing the "Head O State" dildo, or promoting the benefits of masturbation for prostate health, but I'd like to think that in addition to having the occasional cocktail or staying up past nine, Obama will also be looser on matters regarding the sexual behaviors of the public.
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To be sure, people were still getting it on during the Bush era. But that era also saw a rise in unwanted pregnancies and infections, and I wouldn't be surprised if there was an associated rise in the numbers of folks walking around with psychological or emotional hang-ups regarding sex. Apparently, Bush initiatives like pushing welfare moms into marriage and promoting abstinence until the age of twenty-nine didn't quite succeed the way he probably hoped.
Of course, there were some positive developments on the sexuality front during those years. The '00s saw a repeal of the federal sodomy laws and the creation of both the HPV vaccine and the rapid HIV test. But for almost a decade, most of the work on sex was not in areas of science or education. Rather, inordinate amounts of time and energy were spent simply trying to hold ground on issues like abortion and reproductive health.
So what will sex ultimately look like under our new President? Since I'm not about to ask Michelle, I'll have to go on what Obama has said and done thus far. In the two years leading up to November's election, Obama painted himself as a pro-choice candidate who supported comprehensive sex education and increased protections for the LGBT community. His choice of anti-gay pastor Rick Warren to lead the inaugural invocation raised questions about his commitment to some of these causes. But Warren aside, the past few weeks have offered hope that even if Obama doesn't usher in an era of free love, his term sure will be a lot better for sex than that of his predecessor. Abstinence education
For ten years, public schools around the country embraced abstinence-only education, a program started under Clinton and significantly expanded by Bush. Kids were taught that "abortion is murder," that "half of all gay teens are infected with HIV" and that pledging virginity to Jesus (and/or daddy) offers better protection from STDs and pregnancy than does using a condom.
Amazingly, requests for abstinence-only-education funding continue to come from places like Alaska, which saw teen pregnancies skyrocket under Sarah Palin.
At the start of the program, California was the lone state to reject the money. Today, only about half the states still accept it. Amazingly, requests for abstinence-only-education funding continue to come from places like Alaska, which saw teen pregnancies skyrocket under Sarah Palin, and Mississippi, which boasts the highest teen-pregnancy rates in the entire country.
On the road to the White House, Obama pledged support for comprehensive sex education, which covers everything from condoms to birth control, sexual orientation, and yes, also the decision not to have sex at all. He got a lot of flack for doing so. The McCain camp ran an ad implying that Obama was a pervert who practically wanted to show porn to five-year-olds, and conservative pundits went wild with dire predictions for the future were such a sex-loving politician to be elected.
Now, a month into his presidency, the Obama party line is still one of support for sex ed. On the White House website, the administration promotes something called the Prevention First Act. If passed, this act will increase funding for family planning as well as for "comprehensive sex education that teaches both abstinence and safe-sex methods." That is a dramatic shift from the previous administration, which only supported teaching about condoms in relation to their failure rates, and which disapproved of teachers answering questions about things as benign as wet dreams.
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