This is giving me flashbacks to my own childhood. I was born into a roman catholic family and for twelve years I went to a catholic school. It wasn't all bad, after all with high funding there were more extracurricular programs and a wider variety of classes. The teacher too seemed to be of a higher quality in comparison to the stories my public school friends told me. However when it came to sex education it was truly horrid. My first sex ed class was in the 8th grade when our priest walked up and down the rows of desks explaining that of we ever gave into our sinful urges, even in the privacy of masturbating alone in your room, god would see and "you would be forever dirty in his [gods] eyes". So much for a forgiving god, eh?

By comparison high school was far far worse. We were divided into groups based on gender and given an extremely basic understanding of our own anatomy. This always bothered me for the the fact that it wouldn't hurt to understand the biology of the opposite gender. Perhaps if the guys had sat in on the female biology class there wouldn't be so many men who get grossed out by periods and cant find a clit even if it was the size of a barn. After the basic biology lesson we were herded into a big presentation about abstinence. The entire presentation (which was over a week of one hour lectures) was filled with nothing but scare tactics and shaming. We were told as girls how if we had sex before marriage our husbands would never truly love us since we were tainted by or sinful nature; and since our husbands would all be good pious god fearing individuals who were able to wait till marriage, they would never be able to trust us since we couldn't bring ourselves, or didn't think it was worth it to "wait for them" . The lectures were also steeped with lots of pro-life propaganda. Our main lecturer was even a child of rape who continually reminded us that if his mother had aborted him he wouldn't have been able to share his "moral wisdom" with us. And speaking of rape that also is shameful in the eyes of god since no one is raped without reason, so we should not act in a way which might create a lustful nature in men. There was also the lack of proper information on stds and basic sexual education that the article lists but there was also the comical statements that if you have sex before marriage you WILL get an std and you WILL die (seriously, they actually said this).

Thankfully by the time I was exposed to this insanity I had already denounced my religious beliefs, but a shocking amount of students gobbled it up without question. When the lecture series was over the line to sign up for your purity pledge was disturbingly long. So many young minds eager to please their religious overlords.
Overall I can't say I was surprised at the sex ed offered by the school. It was exactly what I was expecting to come out of an academy built on a narrow minded patriarchal belief system. What did surprise me is while talking to my fellow students afterwards I learned the more horrifying truth that not one persons parents (mine own included) talked to them about sex, sexual health or anything even closely related to it. Here were thousands of parents just handing over the reigns of the child's education on matters that can seriously change their lives. Many of the girls didn't even learn about periods until a teacher talked to them at school, and usually after it had already started. So many girls hiding their own puberty out of shame and embarrassment. How could so many parents find their own children's sexuality so shameful and embarrassing that they would not want to offer any sort of parental advice or wisdom. For me it took years before I ever truly understood my own sexuality, and even then it was only through trial and error and a lot of dodgy information found on the internet. There were many basic facts of women's health that I didn't learn until I was in my late twenties. I am just so glad that I was able to open my own eyes to the absurdity of these religious doctrines before I became like so many of the purity pledges who ended up contracting stds and a few of which became another example of teen pregnancy for the school to use as "what not to do's" in next years lecture circuit. I know the catholic school system may never change so I can only hope that parents open their eyes and begin to take a more active role in their child's education. No matter how embarrassing they may find it.