Sexuality breeds contradictions in America
Katie Yslas
Mesa Legend
We’ve all seen that commercial: beautiful young woman licks her full red lips before proceeding to slide an overpriced hamburger into her mouth in a way that very strongly suggest something. All of us have seen Cosmopolitan’s glossy pink letters crying out from newsstands announcing that this month, they’ve finally discovered how to have the “BEST SEX NOW.” And enough of us saw Fifty Shades of Grey on its opening weekend that it is still one of the highest grossing movies to date. It seems that here in the good ol’ USA, you can buy, sell, and even peddle badly written book series all about sex.
Yet, to date, there is still no federal standard for sex education in this country. Many states then proceed to omit information about contraception in favor of abstinence-only education. Abstinence-Only education only continues this hypocritical attitude towards sex, telling students to wait until marriage while Axe tells them to score as many chicks as they can with the help of their body spray. We love the idea of sex, but as a society, we are just so reluctant to deal with the realities of it, such as teen sexuality and unplanned pregnancies.
Take the recent actions to defund Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood provides a wide range of reproductive services including free contraceptives and sex education services. However, the majority of the American population remains fixated on the fact they also provide abortions. So much so, that Planned Parenthood has recently been attacked by a group of anti-abortion activists who claim to have secretly infiltrated and filmed their employees selling extracted fetal tissue. Selling baby parts? We’re really getting desperate here folks.
It’s all incredibly hypocritical. We use sex as an extremely useful tool to sell our goods and boost our ratings, but still continue to be absolute prudes when it comes to comprehensive sex education and reproductive rights. With the highest teen pregnancy rates in the developed world, yet without a standard for worthwhile sex education, it’s high time someone taught America to use a condom.
