Sex education protects our kids. We can't deprive them of that | Opinion

I’ll never forget the moment when I told my mother, at the age of 17, that I wanted to go on birth control. I remember looking down as I shuffled my feet on the mauve-colored carpet in our hallway of our house in Queens, New York, and quietly (but bravely) told her that I was sexually active with my high school boyfriend. She thanked me for telling her, and called my doctor the next day to get me on the pill. The only reason why I was able to muster the courage to talk to her was because I was educated from the time I was 12 years old about what sex and birth control was.

Earlier this month, Rob Astorino, running for governor as a Republican, stood outside of the high school in my kids’ school district, to tell the Westchester community that giving teenagers the space to talk about sex with an expert is wrong. 

Sharing a blurry screenshot of a posterboard with a list of sexual terminology, he referred to it as “twisted porn instruction.” He posted the video of the conference on his Facebook page, adding, “the teaching of inappropriate and vulgar sexual topics has no place in the classroom.”

What’s ironic about Astorino’s statement is that the curriculum he’s referring to was specifically and thoughtfully designed to protect Croton Harmon students.

After an alleged off-campus sexual assault involving high school students years ago, the Croton-Harmon School District worked with our Culture of Respect Task Force and health education professionals to create a new curriculum about consent. In this specific exercise, students are asked to anonymously generate words or phrases they have heard or used related to sexual activity. Rather than being defined — or “instructed,” as Astorino said — the class’ collection of the terms prompts a discussion about the potential harmful connotation of them, and the importance of using respectful language.

Astorino should be ashamed — not just for targeting our small town with blatant misinformation for a flashy press opportunity, but also shaming the students in that room for being vulnerable about sensitive topics. Moreover, this political display forced the District to resurface an ugly history of our town's past, no doubt triggering the families and individuals who bore the pain of that incident — especially the survivor.

The fact that he sought no context or background from the District on this curriculum makes his intentions quite clear. And he is calling us 'inappropriate’?

He added on his Facebook page, “As governor, our schools will go back to focusing on the core academic subjects and the racial theories, gender ideologies and explicit sexual instruction will be banned from the classroom.”

Rather than “go back,” Astorino should also look at the data. Studies have shown that sex education is doing just fine. In fact, comprehensive sex education delays the onset of sexual activity, and for those who do decide to have sex, it decreases risky sexual activity and increases the likelyhood of condom and contraception use. Moreover, more than 8 in 10 parents in the U.S. support sex education.

The Croton community is in support of our curriculum too. A petition created by a Croton Harmon graduate in support of the teacher has already garnered over 1,300 signatures.

It’s our responsibility to equip our kids with the tools to be smart and thoughtful about sex. Whether they are having it or not, they don’t live in a bubble. The world is around them. The internet exists. And unfortunately sexual assault happens among teens. National rates of sexual violence against youth aged 12-18 are very high, and perpetrators are more likely to be a peer.

If we deprive our kids of having the space to talk about what they’re hearing – and to learn together about what it means to develop healthy sexual relationships – we’re taking ten steps back from the progress we’ve made.

Not every parent feels comfortable talking to their kids about sex like my mom did, which is why I’m so grateful that my kids, when they’re of age, will have the opportunity to learn from a district that has been so thoughtful about the design of their sex education curriculum. We are the model to follow. Astorino is not.

Vanessa Valenti is a media consultant and writer. She lives with her two children in Croton-on-Hudson.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Rob Astorino is wrong. Sex education protects our kids.