They're actually Romeo and Juliet, hailing from feuding clans but mainly in bed with each other. This may be a shock to readers with only a newspaper's-eye view of sexual politics, but when it comes to teens and sex, liberals and conservatives have very similar core values. And neither of their programs does much except create fear of sex. Meanwhile, the best approach to teen sex education has been hiding in plain sight. It's the power of parents.
Parents are by far teens' most effective sex educators.
They're not perfect sex educators, but they're doing a better job than they did a decade or two ago, and a modest program of adult education could improve their effectiveness even more. In the past few months, the nation's civil war over sex has taken two new turns. Both sides have won significant victories. And conservatives notched a major win in sex education. This news was published with great handwringing in the leading liberal journal Family Planning Perspectives, which is published by the Alan Guttmacher Institute, an ally of Planned Parenthood.