Several different forms of sexual education exist in the U.S. for high school students. Some schools have what are known as "comprehensive" programs, in which students learn about contraception and STD-prevention methods. Others have no sex education programs at all.
But an increasingly common form of sex education is "abstinence-only." The federal government provides huge amounts of funding to schools that choose to use the curriculum outlined by the administration - over $100 million annually.
In these programs, educators teach that abstinence until marriage is the only sexual option for unmarried individuals. Teachers are required to refrain from disseminating any information about contraceptive or STD-prevention methods, other than statistical failure rates.
According to Psychology Professor Joe DeBold, there's a current lack of thorough examinations of these programs - and even with such studies, it would be difficult to interpret the results.
"It's a hard issue to study because the results are complicated by community views, different teachers' approaches to the topics, and how the students started out before high school," said DeBold, who teaches a course at Tufts on human sexual behavior.
For students leaving high school with an education in abstinence, the transition to a college "hook-up" culture may be an uninformed one. Without a formal education about STDs and contraceptive methods, many students have learned from peers how to protect themselves.
"I basically learned from my friends and through personal experience," freshman Evan Dreifuss said. "I just kind of figured it out."
"I read a lot; I've had talks with various people," freshman Raven Anderson said. "I don't think it was a problem not learning it in school for me personally."
A complete lack of sexual education can lead to the spread of misinformation, however: DeBold described a class he taught in which he discovered that "students were surprised at the amount of inaccuracy" in what they had learned about sex.
Many students said that comprehensive programs in high school are probably a good idea for learning correct information. "I think that it makes things much easier ... I don't think not teaching it is going to keep people from [being sexually active]," Anderson said.
"Students might as well be educated," Dreifuss agreed. "Abstinence-only is one route, but another route is to make sure that they're doing it safely."
One student who experienced abstinence-only education had a teacher in another course who taught about contraception and STD-prevention methods.
"I actually got sex education because I took anatomy and physiology, and my professor taught it because she knew we wouldn't get it otherwise," freshman Meredith Posner said.
Posner's school was a large public high school in the second-poorest county in Florida. Because of the abstinence-only curriculum's high levels of federal funding, schools like hers are more likely to choose that curriculum than a comprehensive one.
Posner said that her particular school, however, instead chose to ignore sexual activity altogether. "The school tried to pretend it doesn't even exist," she said.
To treat the issue of young adults becoming sexually active, Posner's high school chose to establish rules that would prevent situations that could lead to sex.
"Instead of teaching people how to do it safely, they tried to make more rules," she said. "They made rules like no dancing - we weren't allowed to dance at prom - and no standing in the parking lot because people might be doing something in the car."
Abstinence pledges are also common in conservative schools. Students sign cards or get rings signifying their promise to wait until marriage to have sex. The rings' effectiveness, however, is debatable.
"I think for a while it lasts, but I don't actually think it makes a difference - they say one thing and do another," Posner said of students who pledged abstinence.
One study in the Journal of Adolescent Health found that STD infection rates among abstinence pledgers were the same as rates among non-pledgers, but that the non-pledgers had fewer partners.
"This means they have sex with fewer people, but they are as many STIs going around," DeBold said. "There is a problem there."
One argument against having sex education taught in schools? That teaching kids about sex is the job of the parent rather than the educational system. Various studies have shown that parents play a significant role in their children's knowledge about sexuality and sexual health.
Some students who never received sex education in school, however, never received such an education from their parents, either.
"The word 'sex' is not spoken in my house - if there is a sex scene in a movie or whatnot, we all leave the room and make popcorn or something," junior Lindsey Overstreet said. "It's just not discussed at all. Although I am expected to be a virgin until marriage - I know that much."
Overstreet also missed out on sex education in high school because of transferring. "There's still a lot that I'm probably in the dark about - I was really never taught anything," she said.
