Hooked: New Science on How Casual Sex is Affecting Our Children

You may recall that several years ago President George W. Bush appointed Joe Mcllhaney, a well-known advocate of abstinence- only programs, advisor to the CDC. In April 2002, Mcllhaney testified to Congress that there was no evidence that comprehensive sexuality education programs are "successful at all" — a year after Doug Kirby's report for the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy documented this success. Now Mcllhaney has written a book. Hooked: New Science on How Casual Sex is Affecting Our

This article was reviewed by Marty Klein. PhD. an AASECTcertified sex therapist living in California. He can he reached at mk@sexed.org.

You may recall that several years ago President George W. Bush appointed Joe Mcllhaney, a well-known advocate of abstinence- only programs, advisor to the CDC. In April 2002, Mcllhaney testified to Congress that there was no evidence that comprehensive sexuality education programs are "successful at all" — a year after Doug Kirby's report for the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy documented this success. Now Mcllhaney has written a book. Hooked: New Science on How Casual Sex is Affecting Our Children, claiming that science supports why sex is had for unmarried people, especially adolescents.

Freda McKissic Bush is his willing accomplice, a hoard member of Mcllhaney's Medical Institute for Sexual Health, and a memher of lUish's Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS, which favored ideology over established knowledge in biology, psychology, sociology, and economics. Hooked is a skillfully produced, emotionally manipulative, political tract. All sexuality educators will benefit from familiarity with it, because it's a virtual primer of the tactics used by abstinence- only and sex-negative policy-makers, including:

• The sex-as-a-problem paradigm. The resulting policy goal is to minimize this problem, rather than finding ways to help young people celebrate their sexuality or use it for personal growth.

• Zero discussion of decision-making skills other than urging a simple refusal to engage in erotic activity.

• The recurring use of the word "children" to refer to biological adults who happen to be minors (i.e., age 17), or unmarried. Policy discussions about sexuality that treat 12-year-olds and 20-year-olds as a single category are based in ideology, not social sciences.

• A scientific-sounding discussion of "chemicals released in the brain during sex" which "can become addictive." This rather old news is presented as a scientific "breakthrough," without any mention of similar neuro-chemical activity that accompanies sports, eating, singing, and other pleasurable behavior.

• There is no discussion about how young Americans' bodies now mature in ways for which society is unprepared (150 years ago, onset of puberty and age of first marriage were almost concurrent; that has changed dramatically). Similarly, tbere is no acknowledgement that society is responsible for most young people's sexual difficulties by stimulating them sexually (as consimiers) and giving them enormous autonomy (privacy, cell phones, etc.), while deliberately withholding the information they need to handle the inevitable feelings and situations.

Sex for some young people will be negative and even damaging. There are good reasons to guide kids away from too-early sexual activity, along with other activities for which they are not yet prepared developmentally. The "reefer madness" approach of this book equips neither parents nor young people with the positive attitudes and communication skills they need to understand and shape sexual decision-making.

This book is a desperate cry from frightened, angry people who are more interested in the purity of their own ideology and religious visions than they are in actual young people. They are, in fact "hooked" on something far worse than the "addictive" brain chemicals that help make life worth living.