Beyond pedagogy: American abstinence-only until marriage sexual education as fundamentalist practice in secular disguise

Abstract The United States has no official federally mandated sexual education curriculum, leaving the existence and content of sexual education to be determined in each individual school system in the country. Unofficially, however, since the passage of the 1981 ‘Chastity Law,’ the preponderance of federal funding has been earmarked for Abstinence-Only Until Marriage sexual education in a manner that treated it as governmental doctrine. Such curricula, at best, emphasize abstinence as the safest option; at worst, they present it as the only option by failing to acknowledge other opinions at all. The predominance of such curricula is of note—and problematically so—because, though rarely acknowledged, they are explicitly fundamentalist. This paper will substantiate the assertion that Abstinence-Only Until Marriage sexual education is a fundamentalist practice, thereby correctly placing it on the secular/sacred continuum and allowing for an honest examination of its appropriateness for use within public education institutions.