Sex education is a vital issue for any country, but within nations there are divisions over how it should be delivered. As a psychologist specialising in research on sex and relationship education in the United Kingdom, I was interested to see how a similar Western country (the United States) managed.
Figure 1.
Janice M Irvine
University of California Press, £16.95/$24.95, pp 282 ISBN 0 520 23503 7 www.ucpress.edu
Rating: ★★
Janice Irvine details the struggle between the Christian religious right and liberal sex educators (primarily SIECUS—the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States) since the 1960s. Her book describes how the liberal groups who want to broaden sex education believe that sexual problems—particularly teenage pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections—arise from a lack of comprehensive education (a view that I support). On the other hand, she points out that the religious right, which support abstinence until marriage, believe that sexual problems result from the availability of sex education. Irvine describes continued and hopeless divisions around issues of sex information, access to abortion, understanding of HIV and AIDS, and sexuality. The book constructs liberals as caring and understanding, while the religious right are homophobic, misogynistic, and generally bigoted.
In view of the book's subtitle, this is perhaps predictable. Yet a more balanced overview might have been to broaden the debate out from the splits between SIECUS and the old and new religious right. Perspectives on sex education have evolved since the 1960s—particularly as a result of lesbian and gay studies, feminism, and the growing men's movement—adding much to the debate. Yet these perspectives are largely absent. The book also underplays the view of other religions towards sex education, particularly Judaism and Islam.
However, the book does offer a fascinating insight into how two fundamentally different groups have tried to persuade the rest of the United States to believe them. Both have used the media, politicians, and schools to promote a comprehensive sex education curriculum. Irvine humorously describes how, in the 1980s, certain Christians (jokingly referred to as “fundies in their undies”) promoted sex within marriage through popular selling books. Irvine is quick to point out that this approach firmly placed the woman in an obedient and subservient position—providing sex to her husband as part of her marital role. But the book also muddles “liberal” with “sex positive,” forgetting that many of the underlying messages within liberal sexology are still underpinned with ideologies that may polarise the sexes and rely on stereotypes.
Anyone interested in the history of sexology will find this book invaluable—it is certainly easy to read and seems unlikely to date. However, I was left feeling that this was not the book for sex educators or healthcare providers wanting to know about delivering sex education.