This week on the blog, we\u2019re doing something a bit different: each day, we\u2019ll be featuring a new topic and a new take on issues related to sexual health, from STDs and birth control to the language of the \u201cwar on women\u201d and what needs to be done to make it more inclusive.<\/p>\n
According to the CDC<\/a>, the average age of \u201cfirst sexual intercourse\u201d for Americans is 17. Unfortunately, this limited definition of sex means that all other sexual encounters, particularly those between same-sex partners, do not factor into the statistics, but it still seems likely that a significant portion of the population has not had sex before high school graduation\u2014and may choose to first engage in sex while in college.<\/p>\n Why is this important? Even among our blog team, the grade in which we had our most recent sex ed class varied widely, from fifth to tenth grade. Can you really expect a ten- or eleven-year-old to retain that information for six or ten (or more) years before their first sexual encounter?<\/p>\n In February, President Obama proposed eliminating<\/a> the Department of Health and Human Service\u2019s $10 million-a-year abstinence-only sex education grant program from the federal government\u2019s fiscal year 2017 budget. This is good news, considering that abstinence-only education doesn\u2019t work<\/a>, but those of us who have already completed our secondary educations may still be left with incomplete or inaccurate ideas about our bodies and the choices available to us.<\/p>\n