Sex ed on the Web

Brian Alexander • E-mail

Time was when the eighth-grade boys were ushered into one room, the girls in another and for one hour everyone looked at line drawings of penises, vaginas, ovaries and testes. By then, however, every self-respecting eighth-grade boy had managed to get more information from Playboy, the Encyclopedia Britannica and a creepy friend of an older brother.

But according to a new NBC/People magazine poll conducted in conjunction with the Katie Couric special “The 411: Teens & Sex,” times have changed. Of the teenagers polled, 70 percent said they received some information about sexuality from their parents. How about that! Pat yourselves on the back, mom and dad.

About half the respondents, who could pick all answers that applied, cited friends and teachers, TV shows and movies. Slightly more than one-third said they received information from those most reliable of sources, girlfriends and boyfriends, who don’t have much incentive to provide accurate information at 11 p.m. in the backseat of a Ford Bronco.

Almost 20 percent of teens said they received information about sexuality from a newer source, the Internet.

Well, the Web is a very big place and there is, quite literally, something for just about every sexually curious teenager. Depending on your point of view, that can be either alarming or reassuring.

Advocating debauchery?
Take, for example, teenwire.com, a product of Planned Parenthood. Concerned Women for America, a politically connected fundamentalist Christian group, would have you believe that the site is “debauching our children.” A writer alerting parents to the danger says “you can just send your kids to it, and then feign astonishment when they start experimenting with every sex act known to fallen humanity. They might even come down with AIDS.”

Well, hardly. Teenwire is easily the best, most comprehensive site I have viewed.

A Katie Couric Special RELATED ARTICLES Main story: five parts Sex ed on the Web High school romances untangled Tackling the topic of teen sex RELATED DOCUMENTS Poll overview Full poll and results Methodology FROM THE EXPERTS Advice for talking to your teens Book: Dealing with teen peer pressure Book: The dangers facing teens

In one short film on the site, two girls make a pact not to have sex without first talking to the other one. That pact helps keep one of the girls celibate. Other short films, some with big-name directors and actors, explore realistic situations teens might face. “Nightmare on AIDS Street” follows a teen who sits in a health clinic awaiting test results after a night of partying that has become a blur.

Here’s an excerpt from the Planned Parenthood site: “Sexual relationships present physical and emotional risks. Abstinence is a very good way to postpone taking those risks until you are able to handle them. Women who abstain until their 20s — and who have fewer partners in their lifetimes — may have certain health advantages over women who do not. They are less likely to get sexually transmitted infections, become infertile and develop cancer of the cervix."

Sound like advocating debauchery to you?

Make no mistake, some information could make parents squirm. A pixilated video demonstrates how to use a condom with a pair of hands, the foil package and a dildo. There are sections on disease, abortion, masturbation, emotional consequences and anatomy, and they are realistic, but the more enlightening for that.      

The site does contain some misplaced political content, but kids are not recruited into a sex cult.

Some racy Web sites redirect people under 18 to Scarleteen.com, and I can see why. The site was created by Heather Corinna, a sex blogger, and while the information is mostly accurate, the site is decidedly “sex-positive.”

Scarleteen won’t send any kids rushing to high-school swingers parties, but may seem just a bit too celebratory. The Scarleteen shop markets Astroglide lube and the site contains links to, for example, Toys in Babeland, which I’ve written about before as being fine and even healthy for grown-ups but might understandably concern parents.

While most of the information is accurate, and while Corinna does a good job of debunking sex myths and discussing sexual responsibility, the site is written according to her point of view, which may not be the point of view parents wish to give their teenagers. Scarleteen reads like it is really meant for those grown-ups who wish we had savvy back when we were geeky.

CoolNurse.com does a better job at addressing kids with unbiased information. Best of all, the site features articles by health professionals on a variety of topics kids wonder about. But, as is the case with Scarleteen, sponsored links to advertisers hawk products, some of which seem iffy at best.

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