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Ignorance Is Bliss, And Then You Get an STD

During the Clinton administration, frank talk about teen sex and safe sex cost Joycelyn Elders her job as surgeon general of the United States.
During the Clinton administration, frank talk about teen sex and safe sex cost Joycelyn Elders her job as surgeon general of the United States. (By Bill Haber -- Associated Press)
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Back in 1993, President Bill Clinton appointed as his surgeon general an African American woman, Joycelyn Elders, who all but predicted the STD epidemic that teenagers now face. And her controversial remedies brought much-needed attention to an impending crisis.

Elders believed in capturing the attention of young people by making sex education fun while keeping it real. She wanted students to receive condoms from their schools (instead of trying to shoplift them from pharmacies, many of which keep them under lock and key).

She also suggested that schools teach the safest sex this side of abstinence -- masturbation. In the ensuing uproar, Clinton asked for her resignation. She left office in 1994.

And frank talk about sex left with her.

A 1997 book by the evolutionary biologist Jared Diamond has a title that I especially like: "Why Is Sex Fun?" I didn't think I needed to read the book because I already knew the answer.

It just is.

But that was then. This is now.

"Our silence has killed more young people related to AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases," Elders said at a recent conference on women's health. "Those vows of abstinence break a lot easier than a latex condom."

E-mail:milloyc@washpost.com


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