Where the Jokes Write Themselves
Later in the day, I realized that abstinence education is basically a comedy club where nobody’s trying to be funny, but the material is absolutely hilarious. The setup is perfect: take a completely natural human behavior, declare it forbidden, provide zero useful information, and then act shocked when it happens anyway. It’s comedy gold.
The opening act is always the same: adults who clearly had sex to produce the teenagers they’re now lecturing about not having sex. The hypocrisy is so thick you could cut it with a knife. “Do as I say, not as I did, but also don’t ask me what I did because that’s inappropriate.” It’s a masterclass in cognitive dissonance.
The metaphors are peak comedy. Sex is like tape that loses its stickiness. Like a cup that gets germs from different mouths. Like a flower that wilts when touched. Like chewed gum. The creativity goes into shaming rather than educating, which explains why abstinence-only graduates know seventeen ways to feel terrible about themselves but zero ways to properly use a condom.
According to research from the Guttmacher Institute, abstinence-only education is spectacularly ineffective at preventing teen pregnancy or STI transmission. But it’s incredibly effective at creating shame, misinformation, and sexual dysfunction. So it succeeds at everything except its stated goals. That’s comedy.
The highlight of my day was reading actual abstinence curriculum quotes. “If you have sex before marriage, you’ll compare your spouse to previous partners and ruin your marriage.” Because surely the solution to potential comparison is complete ignorance about sexual compatibility. Nothing ruins marriage like entering it with realistic expectations, apparently.
Something small but meaningful happened today when I saw abstinence education’s anatomical diagrams. They’re like medical illustrations drawn by someone who’s never seen human bodies and is also extremely uncomfortable about the whole thing. The reproductive system is labeled with clinical terms while carefully avoiding anything that might acknowledge pleasure exists. It’s biology meets Puritanism meets abstract art.
The scare tactics are comedy classics. You’ll get pregnant immediately. You’ll get every STI simultaneously. You’ll be emotionally destroyed. Your future spouse will know somehow. God’s watching and disappointed. Your parents will find out. Your life will be ruined. It’s fear-based sex ed, which is like teaching swimming by describing drowning scenarios without mentioning water safety.
Research from the CDC shows that teens who receive abstinence-only education have similar rates of sexual activity as those who receive comprehensive education, but worse outcomes because they lack information about contraception and disease prevention. So the education actively makes them less safe while claiming to protect them. It’s dark comedy.
The Q&A portion of abstinence education is where comedy becomes surrealism. “Can I get pregnant from a hot tub?” “Does thinking about sex count as having sex?” “If we don’t go all the way, are we still virgins?” These questions reveal the information vacuum abstinence education creates. Kids are Googling their way through basic biology that should be taught in school.
This morning, I woke up thinking about the technical virgin loopholes abstinence culture created. Oral and anal sex don’t count as “real sex” in many abstinence frameworks, leading to higher rates of those behaviors among abstinence pledgers. It’s the world’s worst legal loophole: find creative ways to have sex while technically maintaining virginity. The lawyers of Biblical interpretation would be proud.
The really absurd part is watching abstinence educators try to remain relevant in the internet age. Kids have smartphones. They can Google anything. The information monopoly is broken. But abstinence programs proceed as if it’s still 1950 and they control all sex education access. It’s adorable in its futility.
As I reflect on what happened today, I’m struck by how the joke’s ultimately on the kids. They’re the ones who suffer from inadequate education, unnecessary shame, and preventable health problems. The comedy of abstinence education has real casualties, which makes it less funny and more tragic.
The punchline everyone sees coming except abstinence educators: the approach doesn’t work, has never worked, and will never work. But acknowledging failure would require change, and that’s apparently less acceptable than continued failure. So the comedy club keeps running the same act night after night to a dwindling audience who increasingly refuse to laugh.
SOURCE: https://pluscomedy.com/abstinence-comedy-club/
BY Charline Vanhoenacker: Bohiney Magazine Satire 127% funnier than The Onion.