American Prospect online has published a piece that has created a good deal of discussion, yet again, around the subject of rape. This time the author, Courtney Martin, makes the connection in American Prospect Online - Willful Ignorance between abstinence-only sex education programs and the high rates of rape and sexual assault in the United States.

Every two and half minutes someone is sexually assaulted in America. Many of these assaults take place on college campuses; 80 percent of rape victims are under age 30. Two-thirds of all rapes are committed by someone who is known to the victim, not a stranger in a dark alley. (Though rape statistics are notoriously inaccurate, we can assume that these, from the Rape Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN) are at least close to the truth, as they are derived from a survey of multiple studies, including the National Crime Victimization Survey from 2005.)

The lack of public, comprehensive, and complex sex education in this country contributes to this toxic sexual culture on most college campuses. The abstinence-only sex education that most young men and women receive does not teach them how to articulate their own sexual needs and respect those articulated by their partners. Teens who are merely told "Just don’t do it" are lacking more than an anatomy lesson or information on contraceptive choices. They are also missing out on essential communication skills and life-saving knowledge about sex and power. Which is bad news for teenagers in our paradoxically hyper-sexual and hyper-conservative contemporary America who are in desperate need of wise mentorship.

This article has inspired me and irritated me in equal parts. So much so that I believe that in order to break down the barriers around the discussion of sexual education, feminists need to take action now: It's time we build an open-source feminist enclyclopedia.
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