Unfortunately, there are still many schools that employ abstinence-only education programs.
Not only are these programs so absurdly ineffective, but they also spread propaganda that can cause kids to become alienated from their bodies, feel guilty for natural sexual behaviors, and also learn a bunch of inaccurate information that can affect their health and futures.
On Reddit, folks are talking about all the things they learned in abstinence-only sex ed, and yikes.
It can be funny to see just how bewildering some abstinence-only sex ed is, but the harm such education does is very real.
1. Kinda like that weird robot bug from The Matrix.
“If a man ejaculates on or near your body the sperm will swim around and find your vagina and you will get pregnant.”
2. I mean, there are people who inflate their numbers this way.
“Having sex with 1 person is like having sex with 100 people.”
— KleinP7
3.
“My girlfriend’s sex Ed program in middle school included a wedding dress that they splattered with red paint.” — countrymac96
4. But…I hug my dad?
“Hugging a boy will get you pregnant.”
5.
“If a gay man and a lesbian woman have a baby the baby will be trans.” — Lestat1791
6.
So I’m Irish and Catholic. Growing up in Dublin we had church sanctioned sex education, some of the highlights:
-All penises are the same size when erect (we were 14 and this was hilarious to us)
-Being gay is just a phase
-No method of birth control is reliable (including oral sex and body rubbing).” — Khale77
7. Frech kissing is a gateway drug.
“If you are willing to make out with someone, you’ll end up having sex with them because you pass the point of no return on the mountain climb to sex.”
8.
“The instructor gave all the boys in the class chewing gum and let them chew on it for a few minutes. Then she asked them if any of them wanted to share. Of course none did. Then she asked if they didn’t want to share gum, why would they want to share sex partners? This was in a co-ed class so all the girls in the class got to see too.” — Diet_Coke
9.
“That the actual vagina opening is as small as the tip of a pencil. I also never knew women didn’t pee from their vaginas until I was 16. I’m 19 now and learned more from s**tposts on the internet than I ever had in school.” — moimoisauna
10.
“I was given a diagram of the female anatomy in which the clitoris had been erased– as in someone went into MS paint and whited it out on a line drawing of the exterior of the vulva. The urethra, vagina, labia, anus were labeled, and then at the top of the labia, it was whited out.” — fraulien_buzz_kill
11.
“I was convinced that saliva was involved in the baby-making process. Not that you’d kiss someone and then boom pregnant, but that someone’s saliva over time would make their baby look like you. The more saliva, the stronger the resemblance. Long story short I spit in my cousin’s drinks for a solid 2 months because I wanted her baby (she was pregnant at the time) to look like me (who was 8).” — Amaline4
12.
“My teacher said anal sex makes your anus irreversibly loose. She said butt plugs were used by gay men 24/7 to keep their anuses from leaking because they were all loose from anal sex. I really dislike that woman.” — pippyLONGsocking
13.
“Went to public school and had real sex ed but had a history teacher who told us that sex before marriage is a sin because every time you have sex you get pregnant and if a kid is born outside of wedlock they are going to hell and we will also go to hell for damning the baby’s soul before it’s even born. She said condoms and any other birth control is an insult to god and a way for atheists to try and outsmart him. She didn’t work there after that year. Wonder why…” — Rickrickrickrickrick
14.
“Condoms don’t always work so it’s better to not use them. If you ejaculate on a girl (yes, ‘on’) she will get pregnant. Regardless of if you had sex or not. Boys get so horny sometimes they can’t control themselves. So girls, it’s up to you to remove temptation for the boys. Birth control pills disrupt a girl’s hormones so badly she will become barren.” — Oregonja
15.
“The teacher said that you can only really love one sexual partner and that’s why it’s so important that your spouse be your first and only partner. One of my classmates raised her hand and said, ‘My mom died when I was a baby and my dad’s been married to my stepmom for ten years. Does that mean he only loves one of them?’ The teacher just looked uncomfortable and moved on to how premarital sex causes depression.” — Jazmadoodle
16. Somewhat related, I’d liken my first time to getting smashed by a brick.
“I just remember this video I was shown in my church youth group of a guy holding a brick over a teen’s head and saying there was a 1% chance he was going to smash his face in. He was trying to illustrate how the 99% effectiveness of birth control doesn’t seem so good when put in different terms, but ya know, those are the actions of a psychopath.”
— seth3511
17.
“We were told that the g-spot and clitoris/female orgasm doesn’t exist and that if your hymen is broken before you are married, you may as well give up because a man would never want you (which is wrong in so many different ways). there was a girl in that class that had been recently raped that just put her head down and started crying in the back of the class. (everyone knew about it somehow, rumors spread quick here) the teacher knew about it and either said it as a dig at her or just said it and didn’t care. he also stated to never use tampons since you ‘basically lose your virginity’ from them. thankfully, high school students are much more aware about these topics now so everyone would make fun of the teacher behind his back and many understandably hated him after his comment about hymens.” — peachieboba