Last week, sex education advocacy groups Advocates for Youth and the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States filed a complaint with the Department of Health and Human Services challenging federally-funded sex education programs.

The groups say the abstinence-only programs are ineffective and inaccurate.

"As we know from research we and other organizations have done, abstinence-only programs hold no weight," said Adrienne Verrilli, director of communications for the Sexuality Information and Education Council.

The federal government is required by law to respond to the complaint filed, a process that could take weeks, Verrilli said. As of Tuesday no response had been given, she said.

"We're looking for them to fund programs that have been proven effective, medically accurate and inclusive," she said. "You're going to grow up and you're going to need this information. If you're not getting it in high school, when are you going to get it?"

Sex and morality at Marquette

Susan Mountin, director of the Manresa Project at Marquette, agreed that abstinence-only programs "probably don't work."

But while the programs may not work, Mountin stressed the importance of finding ways to encourage understanding of sexuality and abstinence.

Mountin worked with couples in Marquette's marriage preparation program for almost 25 years before taking her current job with the university in 2000, and said from her expereince couples who remained abstinent before marriage were more prepared for the sacrament of marriage.

"It's too easy to have a physical relationship but not work on the rest," Mountin said. "The physical part is fun and exciting, but what they have to realize is if your whole relationship is bells and whistles, at some point it's going to wear off."

Bell-ringing and whistle-blowing are not part of the sex education program at Marquette University High School, which, like the university, is sponsored by the Society of Jesus. School officials did not return phone calls for comment, but Marquette High alumni explained their high school sex education experience.

Drake Dettmann, a 2005 Marquette High graduate and current freshman in the College of BusinessAdministration, said students were required to take a class on Catholic morals, which included issues including sexuality, but not a class on sex education alone. He said the class was usually taken during a student's junior year.

"What the class really did was outline Catholic teachings," Dettmann said. "They emphasized that we should be abstinent, but they also wanted to know what we thought about life and sex."

Not all sex educators agree that abstinence doesn't work.

Joneen Krauth-McKenzie, executive director of the Why Am I Tempted program, which enforces abstinence, finds fault with many of today's sex education programs.

By encouraging young people, especially high school students, to "make their own choices," parents and educators are removing their all-important guidance, she said.

"That's like putting a hungry kid in front of a buffet line," she said.

What counts as sex?

The sex education groups' complaint was filed two days before the National Center for Health Statistics released a study detailing sexual behavior among Americans, inlcuding adults and teenagers.

According to the study, "Sexual Behavior and Selected Health Measures," 55 percent of males and 54 percent of females ages 15-19 have engaged in oral sex. About 12 percent of males and 10 percent of females engaging in oral sex were virgins in the traditional sense. The study was based on interviews with 12,571 people conducted in 2002. The study's margin of error was not made available.

Oral sex among teenagers did not rise on the whole, but it did rise among virgins. According to Verrilli, these data are evidence that young people need comprehensive sex education.

"In keeping their so-called virginity, they're engaging in this sexual behavior," she said. "It's definitely a part of what they're doing, whether they're virgins or sexually active."

And what other people are doing weighs heavily in the minds of teens, Mountain said.

"It's really hard for anybody to think if they don't participate in the sexual culture that they belong," Mountin said. "I think a big part of what we need to do is put sexuality within the proper perspective of God's creation."

This article was published in The Marquette Tribune on September 22, 2005.