The Trouble of Teen Sex: The construction of adolescent sexuality through school-based sexuality education

This paper examines the reliance of American school-based sexuality education (SBSE) programs on a moralistic agenda and several presuppositions of adolescent sexuality, resulting in a biased and inadequate approach to sexuality education. Furthermore, by virtue of its authoritative position, SBSE serves as an influential force in the construction of 'normal' adolescent sexuality and in the pro duction of a particular kind of sexual teen. A multidisciplinary collection of comments and criticisms of SBSE are organized into a three-pronged critique: (1) SBSE attends exclusively to the dangers and risks associated with teen sex; (2) SBSE reifies narrow definitions of normal teen sex as heterosexual and coital; (3) SBSE fails to address the interplay among gender, race, class and sexuality, while simultaneously propagating sexist, racist, and classist notions of sexuality. Through these presumptions and stereotypes, SBSE (mis)informs teens, projecting a particular message and vision of who and how teens are and should be.