Saturday, Jul 5, 2008
Jun 19, 1998 | My last Salon column found me speculating on the late-'90s model of the Angry Young Man, specifically the very, very youthful ones who have been littering schoolyards with bullets and dead bodies in the past few months. After the latest kindercide, I found myself getting nauseated as I watched officials blame the tragedy on violent TV programs and Nintendo toys. I wanted deeper explanations, and I had to wonder if the intense sexual repression and loathing I see in the adolescents around me has anything to do with some of their anger. I began my investigation with a new survey published in Oregon, one that said that while the state's teen suicide attempt rate was up, the good news was that teenage sexual activity was down.
I don't think that's good news myself. I'm probably one of a handful of Americans willing to say in public that I think sexual exploration and intimacy between young people has the possibility of being beneficial, not just traumatic. Why is it so frightening to admit what so many of us know from experience? The idea that sex, by definition, is psychologically harmful to teenagers is repugnant to me.
In my rant two weeks ago, however, I got a couple of major facts completely wrong, and I'd like to correct and apologize for those now. I said that Oregon endorses a sexual education program for young people called S.T.A.R.S. (Students Today Aren't Ready for Sex). That's true, it is a state program, but it is not mandatory in every Oregon school, and in fact, the Springfield schools don't use it.
After my story was published, I got an e-mail from Kathy Dimond, a founding board member of the S.T.A.R.S. foundation in Oregon. She explained to me that S.T.A.R.S. "does not preach against masturbation. We refuse the demands of some conservative parents who want us to tell their kids to wait until marriage to have sex. We won't. We tell SIXTH graders it's better to wait. Not how long, or until what age, but we hope until they can make a better decision about their bodies ... What S.T.A.R.S. really teaches is refusal skills."
I also found some material on the Web that I erroneously believed to be S.T.A.R.S. curriculum on the subject of masturbation, but I was wrong. As Dimond corrected me, "The word (masturbation) never appears in S.T.A.R.S. curriculum. If kids ask about it, the student mentors say, 'Stick around after class and talk to whoever the health department sends along as the adult facilitator.'"
Why isn't S.T.A.R.S. being used in Springfield if so many Oregonians think it's great? I have called several junior high school principals in Springfield to ask what kind of sex education program they use, but despite my most respectful requests, I have yet to get an answer. Dimond speculated that, "the reason that S.T.A.R.S. is not in all classrooms is that some communities feel we are too liberal."
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