PART 1: THE OP-ED

Theres no question about it: sex ed in this country is severely lacking.

Whether youre taught that if you get an STI, your sexual organs are damaged
goods, or that sex outside of marriage is like a fire out of a fireplace-it can burn
you-the information that students are taught in abstinence-only sex ed is
terrifying. However, every time comprehensive sex education reform seems a
little bit closer, theres a concerned group of parents who are afraid that the
mention of sex in a classroom will corrupt their childrens ears.
According to one concerned parent, the proposed addition of updated information
(for the first time since 1986) in the Omaha school district should not be
implemented because the new information would rape children of their
innocence. A lawyer in Arizona critiqued an Arizonas Senators attempt to repeal
a law that mandates the negative framing of homosexuality because he believes
that homosexuality is an unacceptable behavior that can be modified. These
parents and community members cite the Bible and American values as the
core reason for rejecting these proposed changes, but the average gap between
age of marriage and age of first sexual contact for the average American says
otherwise.
While the parents of these sexually active teens would prefer to bury their heads
in the sand, their kids ARE having sex (more than half of American teens have
reported having sex) but terrifyingly, a 2014 study by the CDC found that where
to find condoms and how to use them was the least covered topic by all the
schools surveyed in the nation.
With the lack of information and resources provided to these teens, can we really
be so shocked that people 15-24 are responsible for a disproportionate rate of
new STI cases?
This lack of information is indicative of a wider cultural fear of providing people
with any sex-related resources, in the hopes that people will not engage in sexual
behavior. At the same time young people are provided with plenty of sex-related
advice with the effect of shaming women into taking full responsibility for their
bodies without giving them the tools to do so. Whether its the CDC telling
women not to drink unless theyre on birth control, or men telling women that the
way to not get raped is to treat their body like a BMW, women are bombarded
by negative messages associated to their sexuality and their bodies daily.
Despite what proponents of abstinence-only education argue, these negative
messages do little to deter sexual activity. Instead, they contribute to a culture
where women are shamed for being sexual beings. With the widely documented
attack on womens rights, there has not been a documented decline in the
number of women engaging in risky sex. On the contrary, in Texas, the number of

babies born to low-income women has increased, since funding for reproductive
health services was cut, resulting in the closure of 82 clinics across the state.
This is proof that without access to reproductive health information and
resources, people will not stop having sex, but there will simply be more
undesirable consequences.
In California weve made progress by passing AB 329, which makes it harder for
school districts to opt out of teaching comprehensive sex education to all of their
students enrolled in public middle and high schools. Weve passed SB 967, the
Yes Means Yes law, which shifts the focus from lack of consent to affirmative
consent within a sexual encounter. Nationwide, gay marriage is now legal.
However in a nation where 4 states require that sexuality other than
heterosexuality is portrayed negatively, and 20 states require information about
coerced sex, aka rape to be taught but only in the context of how to avoid being
coerced, it is clear that these laws are too little, too late. Rather than having
comprehensive sex ed in a few, progressive states, we need to urge the public to
come together and fight for federally mandated comprehensive sex ed.
Without allowing all students in the US to reproductive health information and
resources, we will end up with a nation of sexually confused, emotionally
damaged young people burdened with a high STI rate and unwanted
pregnancies. If we believe high school students can make life-changing decisions
like what universities to apply to, why do we not trust them enough to make
informed decisions about their own bodies?
PART 2: REFLECTION
Writing the Op-Ed was much more difficult than I could have imagined. It
was hard to find only one exegens, and since there were so many different
potential ways to approach such a broad topic, I found it a little difficult to start
the introduction. I also struggled with finding my own voice for this piece. I joked
with my friends that writing an Op-Ed should be easy since I have a tendency to
write a quick and snappy indictment of current events on Facebook, but the
difference between this assignment and a FB feminist rant is that I know that a
majority of my FB friends are supportive, and are already on the same page.

For the Op-Ed, I found it difficult to incorporate my potentially snarky

comments in a way that did not turn off readers who were not 100% on my side
already. However, maybe that is one of the positive and negative things about the
genre of the Op-Ed. In a world where you (the reader) are constantly bombarded
with information, it may be nice to read an Op-Ed where you know the authors
position aligns with yours, and know that your opinion will be supported and
validated in their writing. I picture it almost like having a conversation with a
friend who you know gets annoyed at the same things, or feels happy about the
same things but still brings enough information that you didnt already know to
the table so you can learn from each other. I think my Op-Ed will force the
readers to take a critical look at the way the failures of sexual education translate
into a culture that shames women, and how that is dangerous. That is why I put
the laws that have been passed, to show that progress has been made, but
contrasted it with the varying state laws regarding what is taught in sex ed. I
urged the readers to advocate for federally mandated comprehensive sex ed. I
think the people that will read it are, like I said, people who are already slightly on
the same page. I dont think the genre of the Op-Ed is made to be persuasive to
someone on the opposite end of the political spectrum. However, that doesnt
mean that its not valuable.
I believe learning how to write in the genre of the Op-Ed is helpful for
learning how to write in public contexts because it forces you to truly understand
the concepts so you can simplify it for a wider range of readers. I am used to
writing academic papers at this point in college, where theorists and complicated

academic concepts are casually dropped in with no explanation, because the

assumption is that the reader has had the same academic training as the writer.
Writing the Op-Ed was a good way for me to interrogate my own academic and
cultural background, and evaluate what is common knowledge and what is only
understood in the Ivory Tower of higher education. I had a lot of fun researching
this topic, although there were many times that I felt pulled in another direction
and I started my paper over. Even today, before I started writing this reflection, I
saw an Op-Ed in the Daily Nexus critiquing SB 967, the affirmative consent bill
from an Op-Ed author Ive become very familiar with in the past year. It took
everything I had to not delete what I had written for this assignment and start a
whole new Op-Ed in response to his. I believe that learning how to respond to
other Op-Eds would be an interesting way to learn about the Op-Ed genre as
well.