This is a guest post from Wendy Blackheart, at Heart Full of Black, for the Scarleteen blogathon. Want to take part? Toss us an email and we'll get you in touch with Laura, our blogathon organizer!

Ah, Scarleteen. I can actually remember a time before Scarleteen – they started up in 1998, when I was in 8th grade. See, I went to a school where 99.9% of our sexual health information was from an abstinence only program.

The school sex ed actually started out okay – in grades 3 and 5 we had health classes where we learned about the human body and how it works. In 5th grade, we separated out into groups of just boys and just girls, and got some of the details of puberty and what would happen to our bodies. We learned where babies came from and all that before the abstinence-only programs were started.

By high school, however, we were not getting much in the way of good information. We didn’t learn about birth control at all – it wasn’t even mentioned, not even in a negative way. We saw lots of photos of what STD’s can do to your body. But nothing I would consider really useful. Very little mention of alternative sexualites. Very little information on how to deal with interpersonal relationships. I can remember the anger from teachers, some of whom I had as teachers in my past sex-ed and health classes, at not being allowed to teach properly. I’m pretty sure that one of the teachers, who continued to push the envelope, was fired or quit, as she disappeared shortly after.

Hell, my younger sister went through the same program right behind me, and she didn’t even know that blue balls wasn’t a real thing that she needed to be concerned about. She gave many an unwanted and unnecessary blow job before one of her boyfriends set her straight.

People argue that schools shouldn’t be involved in sex education, and that it should rest on the parents of children to teach them instead, but this has problems too. When I, at a young age, found a copy of an age-appropriate book on where babies came from and started to read it. I read *everything* at that age. (I think I was about 6. I started to read quite early.) My mother found me reading it, took it away, and slapped me. My later maternal sex education included gems like “You don’t need to go to the gynecologist, you don’t need to go until you are married” (At the time, I was 2 weeks into my first period, which would last for another 2 weeks. I probably should have seen a doctor). At 22, she told me that I shouldn’t do something until I was married (she made weird hand gestures explaining this). Generally, all sexual health questions were answered vaguely, incorrectly, and with anger.

However, I, even as a youngin’, tended to be extremely pro-active about things I wanted to know about. I rode my bike to the library, and got whatever the current new edition of the Teenage Body Book, and other sexual health text books. I had been given an adult access library card since I had already read my way though most of the age appropriate fiction and had moved on to adult fiction by then. Thankfully, my mom was tired of having to go to the library to check stuff out for me on her card and got me my own.

So, I have always been a big fan of outside research for sex education. If it wasn’t for that, I wouldn’t know half the shit I know today, nor have the skills to find them out.

Scarleteen was the only site I found on the internet at the time that I trusted. They gave honest, accurate information in a relatable, understandable non-judgmental way. By the time I was checking the site regularly, most of the information was already known to me, but it became, for me, the gold standard of websites.

When people came to me for information, I sent them to Scarleteen. When they had a question I didn’t know the answer to, I sent them to Scarleteen. When I needed to give someone information about something, I sent them a link from Scarleteen. All of my youngest sister’s friends used Scarleteen, because part of my drive-by sexual advice (I used to wander by and drop a tidbit off ‘Never use oil based lube with latex condoms!’ ‘Some antibiotics make birth control pills less effective!’) was a link to their website. Because no matter how cool of an older sister I was, there were still things they didn’t want to ask me yet.

To me, the idea that we had to go looking for this information was so sad. I sincerely wish that schools were all required to have honest, comprehensive sexual health information. This is information we all NEED, to be healthy, effective adults. That fact that we don’t have this is a sad thing – but thankfully, there are resources like Scarleteen available to kids and teens today to get them the information they need.

I’ve noticed, at least in my own little bubble, differences between the kids who have access to this information and those who didn’t – my sister and her friends are much more pro-active now about maintaining their sexual health, and dealing with issues with their partners. So far, none of them have had an unwanted pregnancy, which is not something I can say about my graduating class. They are willing to talk, and ask, and question in ways my generation wasn’t quite ready to to yet – and this is only an age difference of seven years.

What also is important to me is the fact that many of these children are LGBT, Queer, or questioning, and they have a fabulous resource available to them while they figure themselves out, again, something my generation was only just starting to have.

Scarleteen was an important stepping stone in my sexual education. Because of them, I was able to go into my early sexual experiences with knowledge and agency. I was able to make good decisions, and I was happy with the decisions I made. Actually, I waited quite a while before I finally had sex, and again, was able to go into this experience physically and emotionally prepared. These are Good Things. All kids should have that opportunity. (The Sex Readiness Checklist was a great resource for that, BTW. I think it should be given to anyone who ever may have sex, ever.)

We’ve made leaps and bounds in a remarkably short amount of time in non-standard, alternative sexual education and information, and the accessibility for those who need it to find that information, and that is a beautiful thing.

However, unsurprisingly, this takes money. Scarleteen does not have any federal, state, or local funding. The majority of their funding comes from private donors, and to continue to provide such outstanding service, they need donations! Scarleteen has always managed to provide outstanding information and outstanding services on a tight budget, and I can only imagine what they could do with more. They’ve done such good work for so many, and I for one want to see them continue to do this work!

So, if you can, I encourage you to donate to Scarleteen! They do so much good for so many kids and teens who need it. That’s all I can say – donate if you can. Hell, in a few more generations, we might even be able to get good sexual health information back into the schools, if we can educate enough of the kids today who will turn into the administrators of tomorrow!

The more young people are told - usually by adults who know from their own experience it's not true -- that sex outside of marriage, outside long-term, monogamous relationships, or with any more than one partner in a lifetime, will always do them terrible, irreparable harm and make them damaged goods forevermore, the more we get questions about oxytocin, one common staple in that messaging. So, around a year ago, I started excavating. It's taken me a while to get this out here: I confess, it's mostly because I was dreadfully bored by it all. I'm not a neurochemistry geek, but a sex geek. Because so much of it wasn't all that relevant to sex, and because this just isn't my area of geekdom, every time I've picked this up what I found most amazing about oxytocin was its ability to miraculously cure my bouts of insomnia by just reading or writing about it.

Anyone who regularly reads Scarleteen knows we don't feel there's one model of relationship, or any right or wrong number of sexual partners, that will or won't lead to satisfaction, happiness or a lack of hurt or harm for everyone, and that we don't feel it's sound for us or anyone else to suggest that there is. At this point in human history and social science we've all the evidence we need to know we've pretty much tried every possible kind of relationship and social set of "rules" and strategies there are, and none have generated any identical, satisfactory or unsatisfactory results for everyone who has tried them. We also don't feel that consensual sex of any kind or in any one context is right or wrong for everyone and don't think suppositions to the contrary are sound. We stand firmly behind the understanding of people as incredibly diverse, and know that our relationships, sexuality and what we each want from those things and find is right for us is also incredibly diverse. So, while we really shouldn't have to say it, for the record, nothing I'm about to say here should be interpreted as any kind of suggestion or evidence that any one way or model of having sex or relationships, or anything a given person wants, needs, finds ideal or non-ideal when it comes to either of those things is right or wrong according to me or according to science.

There are a lot of links packed in here. If you want to dig into this topic a bit more, click away. If you'd rather have the basics, I spared you as best I could. But all the links alone should make clear that anyone who is making pat claims about oxytocin is probably either a) lazily parroting what they heard someone else say without doing any qualitative reading themselves, and/or b) dismissing the complexity actual study and the diversity of human experience has shown us about oxytocin and all of human behavior in order to further a social or personal agenda, or in order to further their hope -- as sometimes we're all wont to do -- that some of the most complex and confusing parts of our lives could be magically made simple.

The oxytocin-and-sex bus seems to have really gotten its gas with Dr. Erik Keroack, a popular lecturer for the National Right to Life Committee and the National Abstinence Clearinghouse. Ex-President Bush appointed him to head Title X, our national family planning program, for the Department of Health and Human Services. There are about a hundred reasons why that appointment made a lot of people feel stabby, but the biggest one is that Keroack was strongly against family planning. It was a lot like putting an anti-gun activist in charge of the NRA. Keroack was also particularly fond of talking about oxytocin and making claims about it (claims unsupported by science) to support his own agenda, such as that, "People who have misused their sexual faculty and become bonded to multiple persons will diminish the power of oxytocin to maintain a permanent bond with an individual."

Many claims about oxytocin regarding love, sex and bonding cite some science, but often very selectively and dubiously, so much so that some scientists whose studies have been used to make agenda-driven claims have strongly objected to the use of their studies to do so. As well, when people are talking about studies done on oxytocin and sex or pair-bonding, the vast majority of those studies have been done with and about prairie voles, not people.

A prototypical conservative claim about oxytocin, sounds a lot like this:

Oxytocin is a hormone that is released in a woman during childbirth, nursing a child, and during sexual activity. Commonly referred to as “glue,” oxytocin creates a strong bond between the woman and the other involved.  In the case of childbirth and nursing this bond is important because it creates a nurturing environment for the child. In a marriage relationship where sex is safe and beneficial, oxytocin helps keep the bond between a husband and wife strong. Outside of marriage however, the oxytocin bond can increase the emotional pain when the relationship has ended. Oxytocin is impartial. Whether during sexual activity between husband and wife or in a teenage hook-up, the hormone is still released and the bond is still created.  Oxytocin promises an involuntary chemical commitment.

Every parent, educator, and school administrator can undertake the mission of teaching abstinence with heightened significance as the intensity of the oxytocin bond explains why teens suffer emotionally after breakups, and often even during a relationship. Sex was created to unite two people, bringing a bond unlike any other relationship. This powerful bond is what sustains husband and wife until “death do us part” contributing to trust and security. Outside of marriage the release of oxytocin can lead to distrust, hostility, and insecurity. Sexual relationships without commitment still have a lasting bond. Oxytocin even has the power to sustain attachment within abusive relationships.

That's from The Oxytocin Factor (Kerstin Uvnas-Moberg, 2003, Aspire, Scott Phelps, 2008, The Medical Institute of Sexual Health, 2006). The Medical Institute of Sexual Health is an abstinence-only organization. Its advisory board reads like a Who's Who of purity pushers, including W. David Hager, another former Bush appointee, to the FDA's advisory board on reproductive health, who suggested prayer as a cure for PMS and whose ex-wife stated in The Nation that he had repeatedly raped her. The AMA it's not. I have not found any study done on oxytocin that shows oxytocin alone creates emotional bonds (rather than potentially playing a part in them or creating a feeling in someone they they may be bonded, even if they are not), no studies done exclusively within marriage to show it is different for married or unmarried people, and none done to determine what role, if any, oxytocin may play in the pain of a breakup. I also have not found any oxytocin studies done within or about intimate partner violence to support conclusions that the reason people stay attached to abusive partners is chemical. If only it were that simple.

These kinds of sentiments about oxytocin are often the impetus for such popular abstinence-only routines as "Miss Tape." (Which I just demonstrated for my friend's four-year-old, who now promises to never tart it up.) Here's another example of some socially conservative claims about oxy:

Oxytocin also helps females bond with men. When a woman and man touch each other in a loving way, oxytocin is released in her brain. It makes her want more of that loving touch, and she begins to feel a bond with her partner. Sexual intercourse leads to the release of even more oxytocin, a desire to repeat the contact, and even stronger bonding. But, like dopamine, oxytocin is values-neutral. It's a chemical reaction, or, as the authors write: "[I]t is an involuntary process that cannot distinguish between a one-night stand and a lifelong soul mate. Oxytocin can cause a woman to bond to a man even during what was expected to be a short-term sexual relationship." So when that short-term relationship ends, the emotional fallout can be devastating, thanks to oxytocin.

"The authors" in that quote are Joe McIlhaney and Freda McKissic Bush, who are affiliated with the abstinence-only group the Medical Institute for Sexual Health.

Not only do we know from study on oxytocin that it is not at all exclusive to women, and that oxytocin cannot, by itself, create emotional bonds, I cannot find any studies about oxytocin done on sexual activity exclusive to intercourse. That same piece also states not only that oxytocin is a girl-thing, but that vasopressin is a guy-thing, when in fact, both chemicals can and do exist in the bodies of all genders.

Let's take a look at what oxytocin is. Let me preempt what you're about to read by saying that we not only still know very little about oxytocin, we still know very little about all neurochemicals and how they affect our feelings and actions. If someone says they know something absolute and definitive about oxytocin and what it does in our bodies, that's a big pseudoscience red flag. Also, some of the claims and quotes about oxytocin report it as being about only women and men or only women or only men. Most, if not all of the time, they're talking about people who are or are thought to be XX or XY, and when interplay between men and women is discussed, they're talking about heterosexual people. If and when I use the language they used or is found in studies I'm citing, that's why, not because I'm a fan or think it's necessarily accurate (particularly when people are talking about studies done with voles and not people at all).

Oxytocin is one of many neuropeptides found and produced in mammals. It seems we've known about it for around 100 years but have only recently started studying it in any depth. Scientists currently understand it as potentially playing a part in everything from labor contractions, deep discussions, breastfeeding, autism, sexual arousal, activity and orgasm, altruism, and all kinds of general social interactions (good, bad and otherwise) for those of all sexes and genders who can or do experience all or any of those things. Apparently, oxytocin levels may elevate in people even just by being around the color blue. How much or how little oxytocin is out and about during these or other events varies widely among mammals, even mammals of any one assigned sex or who are all having the same kind of experience in which oxytocin is or may be present. It's understood to have a plasma half-life (the time it takes for half of any given substance to become inactive) of only around 3-5 minutes in the human bloodstream.

According to the APA, "Oxytocin is produced mainly in the hypothalamus, where it is either released into the blood via the pituitary gland, or to other parts of the brain and spinal cord, where it binds to oxytocin receptors to influence behavior and physiology. The excitement over the hormone began in the 1990s when researchers discovered that breastfeeding women are calmer in the face of exercise and psychosocial stress than bottle-feeding mothers. But more recent research has shown other roles for the hormone, too. Oxytocin levels are high under stressful conditions, such as social isolation and unhappy relationships."

It's been highly linked to influencing trust and social attachment between mammals (not just sex partners: parents and children, friends, even a dude and his dog). As the APA makes clear, the idea that oxytocin levels surge only in pleasant or sexual situations isn't at all accurate. Those of you using hormonal methods of birth control should prepare yourselves to hear that you apparently can't emotionally bond as well as women not using those methods, since progesterone can inhibit oxytocin release. If that and claims about oxytocin being THE thing that bonds are true, then when women are in the phase of the fertility cycle where progesterone is highest -- about half of every cycle, during the time practitioners of natural family planning who are trying to prevent pregnancy would be having sex most -- they wouldn't be able to bond as well then, either.

That same APA piece also takes a chunk out of the idea that surges of oxytocin early in life, or with more than one other critter, make us less likely to bond. In fact, they suggest that without those early-life surges, we may have problems bonding later.

Let's revisit that "many" part about neuropeptides. Rather, let's let Sue Carter, a zoologist who pioneered some oxytocin research, be clear: "The nervous system is not just oxytocin. There are many other hormones that might be just as important as oxytocin that haven't been identified yet," Carter says. "A piece of social support is oxytocin. That doesn't mean that oxytocin alone equals social support." Oxytocin so isn't just about, or just produced or possibly elevated during sex, though. Not even close.

One common place oxytocin apparently plays a big part is in breastfeeding and child-parent bonding. Suggesting a person who has multiple -- or even just more than one -- sex partners will be less able to bond to people because of potentially having oxytocin surges with more than one person would suggest that breastfeeding mothers who have more than one child would become less and less able to bond to their children. Not only am I quite certain neither is true -- particularly based on just one neurochemical -- I can hardly imagine the social conservatives who are pushing oxytocin so hard as a way to scare people about sex jumping on THAT bandwagon.

One of my favorite oxytocin fables is that it is why when men and women have casual sex, women are apparently thereafter waiting, lovelorn, by the phone, feeling they just lost the great love of their life after one hookup, while men apparently go skipping off casually, having experienced no feelings at all and having developed no attachment whatsoever to the woman they just slept with. That might well be so if that's always what happened, if oxytocin was the only thing that drove or influenced any of those feelings or experiences, and if oxytocin was something that only occurred in women. But those things are not true. It's also often suggested that it's female orgasm that's the big oxytocin power surge. However, more women than men are inorgasmic, and with casual sex specifically, it's more common for women than men not to experience orgasm, especially with brand-new partners. That given, it becomes an even stranger supposition, because the roles should then be reversed, right?

While commonly called "the love hormone," that's also not always the most accurate nickname for this particular neuropeptide, because it doesn't always create those feelings. Sometimes, it's quite the opposite.

One study in Israel found that oxytocin may also increase feelings of envy and make it more likely for a person to gloat: not so lovey-dovey, that. Those researchers and others will tend to bristle at the suggestion of oxytocin as the "love hormone" or "hug hormone," instead suggesting that what it may do is simply intensify the whole range of human emotions, not only the pleasant ones and not only feelings of love or sexual attraction. In all the actual scientific information we have so far on oxytocin, it's clear it has just as much to do with fear and stress as it does with love.

Here's my running list of when and where oxytocin has been found or suggested to surge in study done in humans and/or other mammals:

• For people with a uterus, during labor (a synthetic version of Oxytocin, Pitocin, is often used to induce labor), birth (vaginal delivery) and/or breastfeeding
• when men snuggle babies
• when we pet or look at our dogs
• during massage (from anyone, but found to elevate more in the massage therapist than the massage-ee)
• when we sing together in groups
• when we compete, play games or gamble
• kissing (though this apparently raises men's levels more than women's
• hugging
• acupuncture
• talking intimately with your friends, apparently especially between female friends
• yoga, meditation or prayer
• some foods: like chili peppers, which contain a compound called capsaicin, which has been shown to prompt a surge of oxytocin

Neuropsychologist Dr. Rick Hanson suggests that, "Probably, oxytocin can also be released just by imagining – the more vividly, the better – the activities just mentioned."

Though the central oxytocin studies often used for some of these claims were with voles, not humans, if we're going to talk about them and talk about oxytocin, we also have to talk about vasopressin, another very similar neuropeptide. And if we're going to talk about orgasm or sex and hormones, we can't really pull one ingredient out from the whole soup: our bodies can't and don't, after all. That'd be like suggesting that a three-layer-cake and flour, just one ingredient of that cake, are the same thing. On a chemical level alone, there are a host of chemicals that can be or are involved with sex and sexual response: androgens, estrogens, prolactin, cortisol, neurochemical almost always inextricably linked to oxytocin -- serotonin, phenylethylamine and others, for people of all genders: not just women, not just men, and not just in interactions between women and men.

Where does a lot of this stuff come from that suggests that oxytocin, in the context of love or sex, is SO different for men and for women? As far as I can tell, a lot of it comes from sex and gender essentialism, much of which flies in the face of science. Oxytocin has also been studied far more in females than males, most likely because the most important role it has seemed to have so far is with labor, delivery, lactation and maternal behaviour.

Testosterone is known to suppress oxytocin. People might be able to get away with some generalizations about men and women because of that...but only if testosterone was exclusive to men. 'Cept it's not. Not only do we all have it, it plays some part in all sexual response. Certainly, most XY people have more testosterone, or higher levels, than most XX people, most of the time. That can be as little as two times as much to twenty times as much. When people are sexually aroused, all of our testosterone levels are elevated, whatever our sex or gender. Additionally -- estrogen may increase -- not create, increase -- the effects of oxytocin. But men have estrogen, too, even though most women have more. And as we've already talked about, sex and sexuality is not merely chemical.

Looking at that list up there of situations in which oxytocin can purportedly rear it's oxytociny head, let's apply the same kind of logic some do with statements about sex and oxytocin to some of these other situations. Let's also use the same broad brush and total certainty in making them.

If we did, we might say things like:

• Mothers who deliver by C-section or who do not breastfeed will not be able to bond to their children.
• Post-menopausal women have a decreasing ability to bond with other people. (Grannies are gonna love that one.)
• Massage therapists can't pair-bond because they touch too many people.
• Mothers who deliver or breastfeed more than one child will be less and less able to bond to subsequent children.
• Because birth apparently creates the biggest oxytocin surges we know of, women may bond with anyone involved in their birth. Good news for obstetricians!
• People who have and care for pets will be less able to bond with other pets or people.
• People who sing in choirs or bands may as well be having orgies for all the oxytocin they're hurling around.
• People with autism may not be able to bond to anyone, ever.

I'm not saying ANY of these statements are true or are things I believe to be valid. I don't, not even remotely. They sound utterly offensive and silly to me, just like the claims about oxytocin at the top of the page do. But if we're supposed to accept that things like claims about number of sexual partners and bonding ability are true, we'd have to accept some or all of these other statements are or may be equally true.

In most, if not all, of our social interactions, oxytocin may be or has the potential to be present. How much or how little probably depends on which activities we're doing, what a given one is like for us at a time, on each of our very unique cocktails of biochemistry and on the big picture of our lives, histories and feelings about and conceptions of those lives and histories. For someone of the mindset that we need to watch who we have have oxytocin surges with and in what kind of interactions that occurs, so far science seems to indicate that to do that, we'd all need to stay away from most social interactions -- pleasant and unpleasant alike -- we have with everyone, like with parents, platonic friends, romantic and/or sexual partners, co-workers, religious leaders, fellow singers in our choirs, pets, massage therapists, religious communities and yoga teachers.

Where's the bad part of oxytocin? Going back to that APA piece up top, "When it is operating during times of low stress, oxytocin physiologically rewards those who maintain good social bonds with feelings of well-being. But when it comes on board during times of high social stress or pain, it may "lead people to seek out more and better social contacts," says Taylor." But it's also worth nothing that, as Rene Hurlemann, a psychiatrist who has done oxytocin studies states, "An Israeli study has shown that when people are engaged in a contest, if one player's emotions are manipulated by the offer of a bigger prize to the other player, the first player's feelings of jealousy and ill will are actually exacerbated by a dose of oxytocin.

"Oxytocin does not make you a better person," he says. "In some cases it may simply intensify whatever you're feeling."

Love and bonding -- whether we're talking about either in a sexual or nonsexual context -- is much more complex than a single chemical. I'm not just saying that because I think so: social science has backed that up since we've had social science, and medical science tends to be in cahoots with that notion, too. We can't compartmentalize love or sexual behavior or biochemistry in the way so often done around oxytocin.

Everything I've read on oxytocin from scientists has this funny thing where they tend to use the word "may" with claims, or where they talk about how their study makes suggestions which should lead to further study. The scientists doing the studies that are then cited by so many others are not making the kinds of definitive statements about oxytocin those folks are, and some are increasingly critical of the ways studies are both being conducted and used around neurochemistry and human behavior, particularly when evolutionary psychology is involved. If those scientists aren't making conclusive statements about their own work, no one else can really justify doing so. Scientists tend to understand the difference between hypothesis, theory and fact: those referencing science, or looking to support their own theses with it, could stand to be reminded of that.

A lot of the popular claims about oxytocin, like so many made about sex or love, are exclusively or primarily about heterosexuality and binary sex or gender, both of which we know -- thanks, science! -- aren't binary at all. Some studies may actually show us differences in oxytocin with XX and XY people (if they have even been determined to be so in those studies, which they probably have not) -- or rodents -- but what about with XXY, XYY or XO people? What about male-female relationships in which both parties are trans gender?

After spending far too much time buried in oxytocin research, I'm not going to argue that the notion or suggestion oxytocin potentially plays some part in how we do or don't bond or otherwise behave with or feel about with others is invalid. It's pretty clear to me that it is valid to state it often does or may plays a part.

However, if we're going to get on board with that, we can't be essentialist or selective about it. If we're going to give credence to one of the ways oxytocin has been shown it does or may work, we have to give equal weight to all the other ways it has been shown to or may work, and we have to do so even if and when evidence about one scenario with oxytocin may make claims anyone makes about another patently false or ludicrous.

We just don't know enough about oxytocin for many of the kinds of statements that have been made, especially so firmly, to be made. And some statements made have absolutely no basis at all: the idea that any given oxytocin surge more people means a difficulty or inability to bond with fewer people ever after, for example, is something I couldn't find even one scientific reference for or study on. Oxytocin is clearly an over-convenient rationale or scapegoat for plenty of people, and not just the abstinence-only crowd.

At the beginning of this piece, we linked to scientist Dr. Rebecca Turner voicing an objection to her studies being used inaccurately. In that piece, Turner said something else that was really important:

There are always some human values involved in statements of policy, and it is fairer to the public to acknowledge what those values are," she continued. "This is something we instill in our students: in a free society, we have to be open to debate the evidence, the meaning of the evidence and its quality. At least Dr. Keroack's co-author did acknowledge that they were developing conclusions that no scientists would ever put forth.

What generalizations and conclusions can we soundly draw based on data scientists have provided, and what conclusions they have themselves drawn? That oxytocin is one of many chemicals in the bodies of mammals, one of an incredibly large pool of influences and factors, chemical and non-chemical, which very likely have an impact on some of our behavior, including but not limited to our sexual and other social interactions and responses. That how much or how little oxytocin impacts those things, how it impacts them, for whom and in what situations, clearly varies widely, even though we can say we know some situations in which it is very likely to be present and have some sort of effect. And that if we want ways to make more definitive statements than these about oxytocin, until we have a lot more study done with humans, we're going to need to stick to talking about rodents instead of people.

That's the verbatim response to the question "What if I want to have sex before I get married?" in "No Second Chance," a film that is part of Sex Respect, an abstinence-only program. Sex Respect has a host of other special and oh-so-factual messages for you in their student workbook, including such sparkly gems as:

"A young man's natural desire for sex is already strong due to testosterone...females are becoming culturally conditioned to fantasize about sex as well." (p. 11) Did you know that without cultural conditioning, women don't have any desire for sex? Of course you did. Did you know that women don't have any testosterone in our bodies, too? Note: neither of these things are true. But you knew that already.

"A guy who wants to respect girls is distracted by sexy clothes and remembers her for one thing. Is it fair that guys are turned on by their senses and women by their hearts?" (p. 94) So, when it comes to sex, men don't have emotions and women don't have any of our five senses. Fascinating. And no: that's totally not fair, but then gender stereotypes rarely are.

"These are simply natural consequences. For example, if you eat spoiled food, you will get sick. If you jump from a tall building, you will be hurt or killed. If you spend more money than you make, your enslavement to debt affects you and those whom you love. If you have sex outside of marriage, there are consequences for you, your partner and society." (p. 11) Including the not-to-be-missed consequence of having to pay over a billion in U.S. tax dollars to fund stellar education just like this.

But this particular message in the video, that sex (and only sex outside of heterosexual marriage) equals death is a common thread in many, if not most, abstinence-only curricula and programs. I figured it was high time we just unpack it, take a good look at the real deal, and be done with it.

I'm pretty familiar with common causes of death, but I thought I'd channel my inner goth and do some homework on death anyway. I even -- though most of me knew better -- prepared myself to discover that sex INDEED posed far larger risks of death than I thought, and prepared myself to share that information if I discovered it. After all, if I had any agenda or educational model that required my not being truthful about any part of sexuality or sexual health, then as far as I'm concerned, the impetus would be on me not to lie or misrepresent that information but to adjust that agenda or the way I educated. Clearly, this is a way of thinking lost on some folks.

I'm keeping this to the U.S. for a few reasons. One biggie is that if I were to pull international statistics, I'd be including nations where ultimately, very serious lack of access to healthcare or basic, healthy living conditions was often the real cause of death: where what someone died from often would have been preventable with care and a better environment. That's hardly a non-issue here in the States, but it's not the kind of issue it is here as it is in much of Africa or some areas in Asia. I'm also being kind to the ab-onlies in sticking to the U.S. If I included, for instance, HIV-related deaths from the least developed nations, I'd be showing up even more clear evidence than we have in the States that marriage doesn't prevent sexually transmitted infections. "In Rwanda and Zambia, for example, an estimated 55-93% of new infections occur within marriage or in cohabiting relationships." Same goes for deaths for pregnant women. We have to include those if we're addressing death related to sex, but while maternal death rates for the U.S. are high for a developed nation, they're peanuts in comparison to those of third world nations. Conversely, the rate of abortion-related deaths is also far, far higher in areas where abortion is illegal.

Let's go ahead and look at some current death statistics. According to the CDC, in 2006 there were 2,426,264 deaths in the United States. The top 15 leading causes of death, and how many deaths for each of those causes there were, is as follows:

• Heart disease: 631,636
• Cancer: 559,888
• Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 137,119
• Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 124,583
• Accidents (unintentional injuries): 121,599 (38,648 of those are from car accidents)
• Diabetes: 72,449
• Alzheimer's disease: 72,432
• Influenza and Pneumonia: 56,326
• Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 45,344
• Septicemia: 34,234
• Intentional self-harm (suicide) 33,300
• Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis 27,555
• Essential hypertension and hypertensive renal disease 23,855
• Parkinson’s disease 19,566
• Assault (homicide) 18,573

It's perhaps worth noting that in 2006, there were "30,896 gun deaths in the U.S: 12,791 homicides (41% of total deaths), 16,883 suicides (55% of total deaths), 642 unintentional shootings (2% of total deaths), 360 from legal intervention (1.2% of total deaths) and 220 from undetermined intent (.8% of total deaths)." In that same vein, here is a list of U.S. military deaths in Iraq for 2006: there were 920 U.S. Military deaths (during active duty) for 2006, total. If it seems silly to mention such a relatively small number, keep reading.

You'll notice that STIs and pregnancy (including labor/delivery or abortion) aren't on that list at all: they don't even make the top 15, which might be pretty surprising when someone is making it sound like if you have sex (oh, sorry: premarital sex) you're not only going to drop dead, you're going to drag everyone else you know to the grave with you.

Of course, some of the deaths in some of those groups may have been related to sex. For instance, three leading causes of death for pregnant women are heart disease, homicide (often directly related to being pregnant) and vehicular accidents. Septicemia can also occur due to miscarriage. Similarly, those who died from HIV/AIDS may have actually died of pneumonia or influenza. And sometimes people (though not usually people your age) really do have strokes during sex. I should also mention that some of those homicides would have included hate crimes: assaults to those who were of a gender or sexual orientations others didn't like, though that's not really about how sex itself can kill you, but how people who are deeply screwed up about sex, gender and sexuality issues can.

To pick up some of those gaps, "The rate of maternal mortality in the United States declined dramatically over the last century; however, an increase in the rate has become evident in the past several decades. In 2006, the maternal mortality rate was 13.3 deaths per 100,000 live births, compared to a low of 6.6 in 1987. In 2006, there were a total of 569 maternal deaths (those resulting from complications during pregnancy, childbirth, or direct or indirect obstetric causes up to 42 days after delivery or termination of pregnancy)." That rate includes deaths due to abortions, but is mostly deaths due to sustaining a pregnancy or to labor or delivery. The rate of death for abortion overall is far lower than for that of sustained pregnancy: it's "one death for every one million abortions at or before eight weeks to one per 29,000 at 16–20 weeks—and one per 11,000 at 21 or more weeks." And only 1.4% of abortions in the U.S. occur after 21 weeks, the majority of which are performed due to serious complications of pregnancy which can include serious health risks for those pregnant women.

In 2006, the estimated number of deaths of persons due to HIV/AIDS in the United States and dependent areas was 12,113. In other words, while most deaths due to HIV/AIDS are included in the death statistics for other direct causes, this is exactly how many HIV/AIDS-related deaths we had in 2006. Sparing any deaths from cervical cancer related to HPV, and Hepatitis-related deaths (which often is acquired nonsexually), most other STIs do not result in death at all, let alone make the grade for leading causes of death.

This article (Sexually Transmitted Infections 2005;81:38-40) lists deaths directly related to sex, though for 1998, not 2006. That's important because some of these rates are different than they are now: for instance, our maternal death rate has increased and our HIV-related death rate has decreased by nearly half). Would that we had the same study for 2006, but this is the only thing like this I can find anywhere:

As part of an analysis of the burden of disease and injury in the United States, we identified and quantified the incidence of adverse health events, deaths, and disability adjusted life years (DALY) attributed to sexual behaviour. In 1998... 29,782 such deaths (1.3% of all US deaths) occurred... Viral infections and their sequelae accounted for nearly all sexual behaviour related deaths—mostly HIV/AIDS.

The table of data for that piece shows the vast majority of those deaths were HIV-related (22,455), and again, that's almost twice the rate of HIV-related deaths as we see in the states currently, primarily due to advances in HIV medical care and treatment. The next highest group was cervical cancer likely due to HPV (4,921) -- which would be included in the total rate for all cancers -- and the next rung was from Hepatitis B and C, which may or may not even have been acquired sexually. The same is likely true for some (but not the majority) of those HIV/AIDS deaths; a minority of those cases may have been due to IV-drug use, for instance. This data apparently also only included deaths related to unwanted, not wanted, pregnancy. That leaves only 414 deaths from other STIs or from unwanted pregnancy death outcomes.

Now that we've got all that sorted: by all means, having sex can result in some health issues or conditions (and some of them certainly are or can become serious) and can be related directly to a death. Comprehensive sex educators and organizations like Scarleteen want you to know that, it's something we mention (and always have) when it's relevant, and we want you to know how -- which is why we do that funny thing where we tell you how -- you can protect yourself as best you can from death and other unwanted health outcomes from sex, either by abstaining from partnered sex or by utilizing safer sex practices if and when you choose to engage in partnered sex (whether you're married or not). In other words, someone saying sex could result in death isn't lying. It can.

But. You are much less likely to die from sex than you are from a whole host of other behaviours or circumstances, some of which the same folks would not warn you about with anything close to the same urgency or intensity. I just don't see driver's ed teachers telling you that if you get in a car at all, you need to be "prepared to die," even though more people die in car accidents than those who die as a result of having any kind of sex. (I also don't imagine they say that wearing a seatbelt when you are in a car is playing "Russian roulette.") I don't see them telling that to a class about enlisting in the military. I don't see them saying that to nearly everyone eating things in the lunchroom every day which could put them at risk for the most common cause of death. "Time for lunch, everyone! Prepare to die!"

Anyone who is stating or making it sound like sex or premarital sex is something more likely to kill you than anything else is being baldly dishonest. Whether you have sex with a partner in or out of marriage, with a partner of any given gender, at any given age and even IF (though we don't advise it) you take risks with your health and don't have sex safely, it is not, by any stretch, highly likely to kill you, and you do NOT have to "be prepared to die" if you choose to be sexually active. Not any more than you need to be prepared to die because we're all going to freaking die at some point no matter what we do, anyway.

And unless the same people telling you that if you have sex YOU WILL DIE are also telling you, with the same hysteria, force and fury that YOU WILL DIE if:

• you eat a lot of meat, dairy or greasy, processed foods
• you get in a car
• you own a gun (or keep company around those who do)
• you get the flu
• you smoke
• you drink
• you're a black male (after all, black men have the lowest life expectancy)
• you do recreational drugs OR take perfectly legal, prescribed medications (any kind of drug use can be a common cause for some of the leading causes of death)
• you interact with other people in any way, especially any way that might make them unhappy (because they might kill you)
• you do anything at all that may be linked to cancer (beyond the obvious, that can even be things like like dying your hair, using artificial sweeteners or deodorant, eating foods treated with pesticides, getting stressed out -- maybe from people yelling at you that you're going to die, for example...)
• you don't manage your sugar intake
• you don't see a dentist or brush your teeth often enough (tooth infections are a common cause of septicemia)
• you get pregnant (at any age, married or not)
• you have certain genetics that may incline you to certain disease or conditions
• you don't lead a basically healthy lifestyle, like eating well, getting enough exercise, getting enough rest, avoiding or limiting things like smoking or drinking and yes, very risky ways of having sex
• you leave the house, ever, especially when not wearing a hermetically-sealed bubble
• or you get old

...then those folks are being particularly dishonest, especially if they're telling you that they're trying to scare the crap out of you expressly out of concern for your health, rather than because they want you to conform to their own personal set of values. Because doing any or all of the things in that list are directly related to or causes of the ACTUAL leading causes of death: the real ways you are most likely to die.

Since you're here at Scarleteen, I know I don't have to tell you that if you're going to have sex with other people, we think it's a wise idea to have sex safely and responsibly (in ways which have been soundly and scientifically proven, over time, to protect your life and health, something public health agencies all agree on). I know I don't have to tell you that if you and/or any partner aren't ready to do that, we think it's a good idea to put sex on hold until you are all ready, willing and able to have sex safely and responsibly. Not just until you're married, if marriage is even an option for you or something you want to do at all. One of the reasons we think that is because some kinds of sex (most primarily vaginal or anal intercourse) sometimes can pose a risk of death, and another, the more pressing, is because far more often, some kinds of sex can pose risks to your health and the quality of your life.

But we also think that just like you choose to go ahead and drive in that car even though it's one of the most common causes of death; just like you choose to leave your home at any time even though it may expose you to things like flu viruses or people who might shoot you, that you're capable of -- and absolutely entitled to -- making choices about what possible risks in your life you want to take for the possible benefits those same actions or behaviors might offer. Because that's simply a part of living your life, the life that, by virtue of merely being alive, is going to kill you some day whether you have sex or not.

One of the things that has a great influence in both how I enact sexuality education and how I conceptualized my approach from the get-go is my background with teaching in the Montessori Method.

Overall, the primary way Montessori works is this: as educators, we observe our students, and based on our observations of what their self-directed interests, skills and questions are -- basically, what they're drawn to in terms of what activities they choose for themselves and what activities and areas they express interest in -- we choose what materials to make or find and to present to them. In doing this, we're also trying to help students learn to be observers, as well as working to empower them when it comes to trusting their own interests and instincts and to be self-motivated and self-directed, rather than reliant on -- or vulnerable to -- others to give them directives. Montessori teachers see ourselves more as helpers, as guides, than as directors or founts of knowledge. We see our students as the real directors, not us: it's our job to follow their cues, not teach them to obediently follow ours. The underlying principles of Montessori are all about independence, liberty and freedom, without which one cannot achieve, develop or experience self-discipline or learning. Montessori wrote that, "Discipline must come through liberty. . . . We do not consider an individual disciplined only when he has been rendered as artificially silent as a mute and as immovable as a paralytic. He is an individual annihilated, not disciplined."

Particular areas of what we call absorbency -- times during which a person is most able to learn something and can most easily and enthusiastically absorb information -- is also something we pay close attention to and bear in mind. The big deal that identifies a time of absorbency is when a person is both expressing a strong interest in a subject or area of development and is just starting to use and hone those skills: ages 1-3, for instance, as children are learning to speak and are fascinated with language, is usually the time of the greatest absorbency for language. If we help children be exposed to and learn language then, not only is their mastery best, they usually can also learn more than one language, more easily and ably than they will be able to during other times in life.

It doesn't take someone with Montessori training or keen observational talents to identify the fact that when it comes to human sexuality and sexual attitudes, the minds of adolescents and pre-adolescents are greatly absorbent. Because part of identifying what and when to present certain things has to do with when a person is starting to use what they learn, we can easily spot adolescence as a great time for sex education. In working with young adults, while I'm not really getting in on the ground floor since so many sexual attitudes are learned in childhood, I'm still in early enough so that our readers can get help forming healthy habits and attitudes at a dawn in their sexuality and during a time when they are very absorbent. I'm not just working with them just so that they can use this information and these skills now -- after all, some of them want the information now, but don't intend to, or are not, putting all of it to practical use, while others are becoming or already sexually active -- but so that they can have them early, available to them for the whole of their lives.

Young adult sex education isn't just about young adult sexual activity, just like young adult education in mathematics, social studies, physical education or language isn't just about their use of those skills now. We teach these things with the understanding and expectation that they will be useful and needed now and later or now or later.

Most teens have an expressed interest in sexuality, and feel and express a need to find out about it now, which makes now the best time to teach it. When children and young people ask us or each other questions about sexual anatomy, sex, and sexual relationships, when they are starting to consider how sexuality will be part of their lives and what they want from it, they are communicating clearly to us that they feel a strong need and desire to learn and want our help. Even if you're not a Montessori-enthusiast like myself, this idea is woven throughout nearly any educational approach you can think of.

For the life of me, I cannot figure out why or how people can selectively forget that what we learn about sexuality is information most of us will need for the whole of our lives. When we learn about sexuality, we're not just learning for what we need and will use right at the moment we are learning, and no matter when or in what context we have a solo or shared sexual life, that activity itself cannot teach us all we need and want to know, nor can learning only through sexual activity later tend to result in sound sexual, physical and emotional health.

I confess, I quietly slipped out the back door years ago when it came to doing adult sex education, because I often found it deeply depressing and frustrating. We all know it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks, and it is often just as hard for adults who have firmly established certain sexual attitudes and behaviors to change them after ten, twenty or forty years of thinking and/or doing things differently. I heard so much "But my husband just won't listen when I say this doesn't feel good for me: I've told him a thousand times," or "My wife just won't believe that how I feel is normal and common," or, "But we've never used birth control so he can't understand why I need to now and just won't do it," some days -- so many firmly cemented attitudes and practices making so many people unhappy and unhealthy that I felt helpless to counter -- that I just had to step back from it in order to preserve any sense of sexual optimism about the world at large.

In my job at a women's clinic, where part of my counseling is to try and help my clients who want them to find and use sound birth control methods and safer sex practices, and to have sexual lives which are truly beneficial and safe for them, I hit the wall of this daily, both with them and with their partner's compliance. With some women, we have to have a conversation as to how she is going to convince -- not request, and know that request is all she needs make -- her partner that he is not entitled to sex with her at any time and will, indeed, need to withhold from sex with her for two weeks after her abortion to prevent her from getting an infection or complication. Plenty of those clients will express a strong feeling of hopelessness, or a history of failed attempts at changing established norms of behavior, when it comes to their ability or the ability and willingness of their partners to change those habits and attitudes. I know, plainly, that had many of my clients and their partners learned these behaviors, in terms of their physical health and their social relationships -- and with women, particularly, we often see the most devastating results of not being supported in independence and liberty and how that plays out for many women sexually -- and started out with inclusive, factual and compassionate sex education earlier that these situations would be far more rare.

Those clients are lucky to even have an opportunity to get some sex education later in their lives: there are not many avenues for older adults to become sexually educated (which explains why we see some of them come to Scarleteen for help in their twenties, thirties, even in their sixties). When I hear those who protest young adult sex education in high school and college, I'm often left wondering where, exactly -- if indeed, as many express, young people will all just elect not to have any kind of sex until they are older -- they think older adults are going to get that education. Last I checked, major corporations aren't giving sex education seminars to their employees, and many general doctors, like many people period, remain uneducated on, and uncomfortable discussing, sexuality.

That isn't to say educating older adults is an impossible task, but it seems a needless challenge when we have the opportunity, as educators, as a culture, as communities, to teach sexuality and sexual health way before that time, when absorbency is far greater, and when a person is either in the dawn of their attitudes and practices, or is able to start learning them before they'll apply them at all. What we establish early as norms, and hear pervasively as norms, is incredibly sticky. We know that when someone learns to do something incorrectly or incompletely, that the longer they go doing that thing that way, the tougher it becomes over time for them to learn differently or to add on additional steps and skills. This is true with sex as much as it is with anything else.

The practical application of all of this aside, I'm never going to be able to let go of the idea that without liberty, real learning -- learning, not indoctrinating -- can't happen. If in any of the ways I educate, I seek to hinder or protest that essential liberty, I'm not only hindering learning, but the quality of life of my students, and it is my job to very carefully consider how I educate through that lens. It is not my place to tell my students or clients when to have sex, how to define their own sexuality, to tell them they are good or bad people based on their sexual desires or choices, or to tell them that they do not need to know the very things they are asking me to inform them about. I cannot ever call myself an educator if I purposefully slam the door of knowledge in my student's faces because I, not they, feel that it's for their own good.

Rather, it is my place to observe and be responsive to the cues they give me in terms of what they need and want from me to help them learn about sexuality and sexual health, and to give them as wide an array of factually accurate and inclusive information, resources and discussions as I am able so they can create lives where their sexuality is part of their liberty; where the attitudes and practices they develop are in as best an alignment as possible with their and their partner's unique set of needs and wants. It is my place to share with them as much of what I learn and know as I possibly can when they invite me to. This is part of why I feel so blessed to be able to educate in environments which are completely drop-in and also very one-on-one -- or without my intervention at all, unless it is asked for -- where even the onset of the education I provide isn't determined by me, but by my students or clients themselves, and where every person I interact with is able to expressly ask me or my co-workers for exactly what they feel they need, rather than what I or others determine is right for them.

It is my place to be in a relationship where it is understood I learn from them just as much as they learn from me, and where what I learn from them greatly informs what I teach and how I guide. It is my place to allow and encourage the opportunity for them to draw their own conclusions, and to provide an environment for them where they feel they have the inarguable right to use that information however they please without my value judgments. It is my place to make clear to them that questioning my authority is always acceptable, that while I do my best to be as educated on these issues as possible, I am not infallible, without my own biases which inevitably will occasionally leak through, or somehow representative of one universal truth, and when they have questions or doubts, it is my place to direct them to other sources of information besides my own.

Every now and then, when doing an interview or a press piece, I'm asked why I give the information I do with the approach that I do, and if I'd ever consider doing it differently. And every time, I make clear that I walk into each day ready to do it differently, because if my students and/or clients -- through my observations of them and their direct requests -- asked me to, felt another approach would be more helpful, or showed me that the way I am doing things is not helpful for them, and is not what they needed, I would be obligated to adjust my approach based on my own educational ethics. Were I shown that, say, my students and clients were all made happier and healthier in the whole of their lives by only ever having sex within heterosexual marriage, only having sex for the purposes of procreating, or in going without sexual healthcare and birth control, even if that conflicted with what I have found keeps me happy and healthy, by all means, I'd have to seriously consider that. But again, I'm a trained observer, I observe daily, and that's not something they express or I see. I do not tend to hear that knowing how to use a condom, how the sexual response cycle works, how to negotiate sex with a partner, how varied human sexuality is or how to prevent unwanted pregnancy at any age has done a person emotional or physical harm: I, do, however, hear and see the inverse daily. I do what I do the way that I do it because I do my level best to base it on mindful observation with the aim of being a partner in the learning of others, not a director or a dictator.

Like much of my father's family, Montessori was an Italian Catholic, and designed her educational model during a historical time when sex education wasn't an issue on the table. The only sex theorist she even had to draw from was Freud, whose ideas on infant and child sexuality -- sensibly so -- she rejected. She did however address that sexuality was a particular issue for adolescents, and one which can be so encompassing and distracting for them that adaptations may need to be made in their education -- such as allowing them more physical activity during the day. I can't know, ultimately, what Montessori would have felt about sex education as it is today overall, save that it does seem to me to be part of Practical Life (the area of the classroom and materials in Montessori that focus on care of oneself, others and the environment) for older students. We can glean some ideas based on how she felt about education for ages 12 - 18 (see From Childhood to Adolescence for more on that). She felt it vitally important to recognize those ages as a passage into adulthood -- not an extended childhood -- to help students of those ages to feel capable and able. She emphasized adolescents' need to separate from adults, rather than to be dependent on us or exploited by our determination of what is right for them based on our ideas-in-hindsight of what would have been right for us. She protested the notion that we need to save them from themselves, and worse still, try to do so in a way which is purposefully misleading and a barrier to freedom, motivated by the idea that the ends, however deceptive and controlling, justify the means. Fascism is incompatible with learning and liberty: this is why Montessori left her home country in the 1930's.

She would have been very much opposed to any kind of education -- sexual or otherwise -- which denied what we observed in our students, denied the needs our students express and demonstrate to us; which was based in ideas of controlling their behavior by making them fearful of life and others rather than providing them with the information and tools they need in order to exercise their liberty to make their own choices and to follow their own interests and development.

Uncannily enough, Montessori once wrote something else which seems a sound representation of our current conundrum with approaches to sex education in the States. It was this: “The task of the educator lies in seeing that the child does not confound good with immobility and evil with activity.”

The inverse of that statement defines abstinence-only approaches to the letter. While good and evil is not a dichotomy which particularly speaks to me -- few dichotomies or binaries do -- ideas of good and evil, rather than ideas about liberty and learning, are foundational in abstinence-only education approaches and arguments against honest, factual, inclusive and comprehensive sex education. That simple sentence can tell us much about the flaws in a lack of sex education or abstinence-only sex education and the idea that the only way we can help protect people from activities which can carry risks is to keep them from them, teach them that they have no real means of managing them, or to urge them to be inactive -- in both how they behave sexually and how we educate them sexually.

It shows up the red herring in the proposition that abstinence-only "sex education" is sex education at all, due to the approaches it takes, the purposeful misinformation or incomplete information it provides, and the place of control and withholding -- a place with no allowance or respect for liberty -- it's all really coming from. It demonstrates an awful lot about if denying young people free and factual information and real opportunities for learning is really about health and well-being or really about being "good."