Just Say No? Well, Not Exactly.

If you're wondering who thought it was a good idea for Bristol Palin, pregnant at 17, to warn America's teens not to have sex until they're married, you're not alone.

This week Jessica Wakeman of The Frisky reported that advocates of abstinence-only education are re-branding its message with the selection of Bristol Palin as their spokesperson about the hazards of pre-marital sex:

But it's hard to figure out what, exactly, the well-meaning adults who preach "no sex until marriage" to teenagers are thinking, considering a 2007 study confirmed abstinence-only education does not work.

Jessica Valenti, editor of Feminsting.com and author of The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession With Virginity Is Hurting Young Women, has written a piece for The Nation about how the groups that comprise what Valenti calls "the virginity movement" have finally realized they need new PR.

I've written before about the need for parents and schools to focus their energies on comprehensive sex education so that teenagers can make better informed decisions about engaging in sexual activity (or not). But I'd like to submit that perhaps the abstinence-only movement doesn't need re-branding. What they need is to refram abstinence and the reasons for _why_ youth should abstain.

In many churches - particularly in the Black church community in which I came of age - teens are told to just "not have it" because sex is bad. But the abstinence-only crowd instead told teens to wait because, well, sex is a _good_ thing? What if they took it a step further and said, "Because sex is good, we want teens to be inform on how to protect themselves"?

Perhaps organizations supporting abstinence-only sex education could get real and admit that some kids just aren't going to wait until they're married and start educating you on how to prevent STD's and pregnancy. That's the model my parents used when they began a Rites of Passage Program for youth at my church back home in Los Angeles. And lo and behold: many of us waited longer to have sex and - gasp! - there were fewer unwanted pregnancies.

This story brings to mind the "sex-as-taboo" meme that Americans seem to be so obsessed with. Female sexuality is still seen as a bad thing, particularly when complicated by race and ethnicity. Girls in general and Black girls I particular are told to just "not have it" by their parents and places of worship. On the flip side, women are also seen as mere sexual objects by pop culture and the media.

I cannot walk on a DC street wearing a maxi dress in peace. Instead, I still have to hear calls like "Hey, Chocolate!" by men on the block. And believe me, I don't take it as a compliment.

Perhaps by providing comprehensive sex education, society could finally address the discomfort we have with female sexuality and with sexual behavior as a whole. Maybe then, we will see sex beyond a biological destiny and more of a realistic act of intimacy.