"When kids start experimenting with abstaining, it should be no surprise that things can get out of hand"

You may remember a few weeks ago that a report came out saying that abstinence-based sex-ed programs don't work. Well, Jon Swift knows why:

If these programs have in fact been a failure, I don't think it is because kids were being given too much inaccurate information. I think the real problem was that they were given any information at all. We need more ignorance about sex, not less. The word "abstinence" itself is probably too explicit. Once you tell kids to abstain from sex until marriage, you have already told them too much. When kids start experimenting with abstaining, it should be no surprise that things can get out of hand and that they will move on to actually having sex.

Kids who are told to abstain from something are naturally going to start wondering what they are abstaining from. Instead of then telling them what sex is in explicit detail, and then telling them not to do it, it might be better if teachers described sex using vague, confusing metaphors the way adults used to back when teens were not having sex. For example, instead of outlining the mechanics of sex, a teacher could say, "Are you familiar with the workings of the internal combustion engine?" After an hour of talking about pistons and carburetors and spark plugs and power strokes, the class would be over. Typical questions such as "Where do babies come from?" could easily be deflected by talking about storks illustrated by cartoons. Cute stories like this have worked for centuries.