“Pet Your Cat, Not Your Date. Save That For Your Permanent Mate” – People Who Grew Up With Abstinence-Only Sex Education Are Sharing What They Were Taught
by Benjamin Dzialdowski · BuzzFeedFor many of us growing up, sex education was... limited. Much of what we were 'taught' seems somewhat useless, outdated, or just plain wrong.
It appears, however, that sex education in a more religious or abstinence-focused setting was a whole different level. So, when RelevantNothing4653 asked r/AskReddit, "People who had abstinence only sex education: What were the biggest lies/misconceptions you were taught?" We thought we'd share some of the top responses.
1. "That if I got pregnant, my family would disown me, all of my friends would hate me, and there was no chance the man would stick around. Unless, of course, we were married – in which case life would be all sunshine and rainbows!"
2. "This is more of a 'withholding of information' rather than a blatant lie, but the existence of birth control. Birth control options were never brought up in my sex education because 'we shouldn't be having sex in the first place'. I didn't even know what the pill was until high school, when one of my friends went on it."
3. "That sexuality and morality were essentially the same thing."
4. "All I remember is this catchy mnemonic: 'Pet your cat, not your date. Save that for your permanent mate.'"
5. "That I could pray away a fiery case of the hornies."
6. "That condoms don't prevent STDs. They also rarely prevent pregnancy. My graduation class of 25 students had three or four pregnant girls."
7. "I was in public school, so the curriculum wasn't as aggressively dishonest as religious schools."
"The information I was given wasn't wrong (they didn't go around saying kissing would get you pregnant), but it was lacking. We weren't taught anything about birth control, masturbation, the actual mechanics of sex beyond 'penis enters vagina', etc. They also kept it purely clinical. There was absolutely nothing about the emotional or social side of things – we didn't learn about consent, arousal, foreplay, etc.
One thing I did appreciate: the abstinence-only part was state-mandated (thanks for nothing, Virginia), but my teachers clearly thought it was stupid and made sure we knew that. We had three sex education units across three years, and all three teachers began the unit with some version of, 'The state of Virginia requires that we only teach abstinence. I'm therefore not legally allowed to tell you about condoms or other forms of birth control, so definitely don't research those in your own time if you're curious.'
Really appreciated those teachers."
8. "Super-religious Church of England primary school in the mid-90s."
"Had a woman come in to teach basic sex education, but only to the girls, when I was 10.
According to her, abortion wasn't real, and she showed us wildly inaccurate models of babies' growth stages. The models showed that the second the baby was conceived, they were a tiny, perfectly formed baby, and they just got bigger over the nine months.
Oh, and she also tried to teach us about periods in such vague terms that no one had a clue what she was on about."
9. "I once went to a strongman show that turned out to be an abstinence-only Christian presentation."
"Basically, these bodybuilders did stuff like rip phone books in half while preaching.
I remember this one story he told about a girl who was saving herself for marriage and her boyfriend kept pressuring her. Eventually, he proposed, then kept pressuring her. She figured that since they were engaged, it would be OK, so she had sex with him and got AIDS. He kept saying that if she had waited, she would not have gotten AIDS, but I was pretty confused by this because if she had married the guy, she would have still gotten AIDS.
That was 30 years ago, and I still think about it sometimes."