"America is mildly erotic-phobic," said Debra Haffner, M.P.H., former CEO of the Sexuality Education and Information Council of the United States. "We have sexuality with guilt, and try to get that guilt down to a reasonable level so we can enjoy ourselves," she said. "Some of us deal with this pleasure/guilt scenario our entire adult lives."

Haffner spoke in Hartford on June 2, 2000 at "New Avenues in Teen Pregnancy Prevention," a bi-annual Adult Advisors Academy Conference sponsored by Breaking the Cycle. The conferences examine the role adults play in helping develop sexually healthy youth and preventing adolescent risk-taking behavior.

"Both federal and state policies actually work against kids," said Haffner. "The abstinence-only education programs state that marriage is the expected standard of all sexual activity, otherwise there is grave mental and physical harm. If that were true, with the numbers of single adults engaging in sexual behavior, our country would be in serious trouble."

There is no professional research to support the effectiveness of abstinence-only education, but extensive data – over 300 studies – show that comprehensive, skill-based programs work and do not cause young people to become sexually involved. There are four important criteria common to successful programs, according to Haffner.

Successful programs:

• Teach kids before they have sex. High school is too late.
• Talk about abstinence and contraception and STD protection. It is up to families to communicate moral issues and expectations to their children.
• Are taught by specially-trained teachers. One-day teacher training is not sufficient.
• Is not a one-shot deal. The days of bringing everybody into the auditorium for the "big sex-ed class" are not over, but should be. It is not possible to "immunize" youth with a class.

Not surprisingly, given America’s ambivalence about sexuality messages, only 5% of young people get all of these program elements. Only 14% receive even part of them. The topics most likely to be missing are what Haffner calls "HAM" – homosexuality, abortion and masturbation. Only 19 states require sex education, despite vast support. Connecticut is not one of them. Polls show that 93% of parents want sex education in high school, 84% in middle school, including information about contraception.

"Youth development alone is not enough," says Haffner. "It is critical that youth have their sexual and reproductive health needs met. We are running separate programs as if teens are different people – information here, services there." Haffner cited Hartford’s school-based health centers, which offer reproductive health exams, testing and information, but not access to contraception. "Teens don’t want to wait for referrals," she said. "Teens need access to affordable, confidential reproductive health services at their school-based health centers too," she said.

Other factors, such as family life, also influence adolescent risk-taking behavior. A major factor is poverty. Six out of seven teens nationally were poor before they became pregnant, but studies also show that children with three caring adults in their lives are more successful in navigating the turbulent teen years.

So what should we be teaching our youth that will help them grow up to become sexually healthy adults? Haffner stresses that we should be teaching them the differences between behaviors that are life-enhancing and those that are destructive. She cites the following five characteristics to identify healthy relationships.

Healthy relationships are:

• Consensual;
• Non-exploitive;
• Honest;
• Mutually-pleasurable; and
• Protective

"We need a new paradigm for sexual health and morality, but we have not defined what we want," Haffner said. "Children need hope and promise for the future – and their futures are in our hands."