Sex Ed Essay

752 Words4 Pages
"When you sleep with someone you take off more than your clothes"(272) Anna Quindlen ends her ingenious essay Sex Ed keeping our minds set but wondering. Throughout the essay we become coherent of the facts laid before us. But Quindlen has a very strange outlook on her topic, she sees both sides; one, the we need sexual education just like "civics" or "ethics" and two, the basis of keeping teens from pregnancy is what your home life should support. Her two sides collide but in the best way possible while presenting a logical appeal using facts and testimonies. Sex Ed the name and the class is what Quindlen is fighting for. Visiting a poor New York City family planning clinic she discovered how many of the 16 year old girls there were educated in the female reproductive system as if they were gynecologists themselves, but each one walked out knowing that she was pregnant. Sex Ed is a teacher of these things but what about the importance of avoiding pregnancy and what you do if you get pregnant? Our mothers and fathers teach us to eat, drink, talk but never what you need to avoid pregnancy. Quindlen herself reminds us several times about how she is going to make sure her sons know about what will happen if they get a girl pregnant and how to avoid it at all costs. These "moral component[s]" create a brief backing for any further knowledge she will back her essay with. Logically Quindlen places each point from most common to those less heard. From "how long sperm lived inside the body" to how being called a virgin is "shorthand for geek, nerd [and] weirdo" (271-72). She also uses a time period change from the late sixties where "there was a straightforward line on sex... boys could have it; girls couldn't" and those having it never admitted it and would pretend she still was. Today as more and more teenagers get pregnant there is an excuse because "if you

More about Sex Ed Essay

Open Document