There doesn't seem to be any consensus whatsoever among adults about the best way to teach teenagers about sex. Does abstinence-only education work? Does showing teens how to use a condom just give them ideas? If we try to hide sex from them entirely will they ever figure it out? Each theory holds some water. In the last week, two studies have come out about the efficacy of abstinence-only education and, basically, they just muck everything up further.

The Archive of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine reports that abstinence-only education works for young teens. On the other hand, the Guttmacher Institute published data from 2006 that shows that teen pregnancy rose for the first time in a decade while President Bush was pouring tens of millions of dollars into abstinence-only education (correlation does not imply causality, mind you). Damned if you do, damned if you don't. The lesson has to be that teaching abstinence has value, maybe as a complement to other curricula, but it's not so great as a stand-alone.

So back to the drawing board we go. Perhaps HJs-only-until-your-eighteen education or more C-section scar photographs in health textbooks. What say you, Scientific Community?