In Search of Sex Ed

I was fortunate enough to be in middle school when the western world was focused on AIDS and HIV. Ryan White had passed away a couple of years before and now MTV, musicians, designers and actors were making sure they used their voice to let us know the reality of sex and sexually transmitted disease. Remember Salt 'n' Peppa sing the alternative song to "let's talk about sex", "let's talk about AIDS"? Madonna and George Michael were walking ads for sex but they also supported STD awareness.
That message ceased and a new generation of fame and angst hit the spotlight. Brittney shows her Mons pubis, Hillary Duff and Lindsay Lohan are tag teaming some off shoot of the backstreet boys and between rehabs these new stars exchange partners, fluids and diet tips all for page 6 to record and give to the ever hungry American public.
That isn't really the problem, more just a sign of the times...if you're under 35, rich and famous. What I am more perplexed about it is why we are selling sex in everything and showing sex so flippantly in everything and not educating people at the same time?
OK sex sells and is used ad nauseam, we get it. So why then did the government want an abstinence only sex ed program?
If teens are the largest consumer demographic, largest television and web followers and host to surging hormones don't ya think we ought to give 'em some kind of information? I mean accurate, clinical, sex education? maybe something that goes deeper than just the content of semen or the various forms of contraceptive. How about a foray into what can happen to you emotionally when you have sex? the chemicals released in your brain? The different types of hormones that make you fall in love? the psychological pitfalls of feeling pressured to have sex or having it when you don't really want to but do anyway because you don't know how to say no, which almost ALL of my female friends as well as myself experienced in high school or college.
I have two friends with full blown AIDS, one with HIV, dozens with herpes and I have been a part of a few sex talk groups where I have seen countless women, young women and men talk about the emotional "i though it was just me" aspect of sexual trauma or confusion.
I think a sexually free world is awesome but you cannot have true freedom until you have been educated. Haven't you heard knowledge is power?
With Barack Obama coming into office in January and this summers revelation that HIV and AIDS cases were grossly underestimated, we should be looking at a more extensive plan for sex and STD education. In the meantime let's hope that these kids start finding the sexuality section at the bookstore half as interesting as they found Paris Hilton's sex tape.