In the latest episode of his video series American Savage, journalist and activist Dan Savage discusses why sex education programs need to include gay and lesbian-specific guidance.
"When gay people, queer people are left out of sex ed, that is a problem, particularly when you look at the HIV infection rates," Savage says in this clip, recorded in March at Northern Missouri State University. "Then we have sex ed that send young gay and bi men out into the world knowing nothing because the only things covered in their sex ed classes were reproductive biology and vaginal intercourse... That's not going to help out lesbian gay or trans. It will help out bi people half the time."
One of the many problems is that the education system does not acknowledge gay children because culture at large "has pretended for 40 years that gay adults leap out of the backs of gay bars at the age 18 fully formed, as if we don't have childhoods, as if we don't have families, as if we don't come from places, places in MIssouri, and we do, and we are badly and poorly sexually educated." But the largest problem is the religious right's assault on sex education programs for all students, meaning that increasingly younger generations are learning lessons from porn, not trained professionals.
As Savage says in this video, "Porn is not realistic. Porn is to sex as action movies are to dinner."
