A Strange Sexual Alliance

Nothing like traveling overseas to view America through a cleansed lens. I began in Sarajevo, then Montenegro, which along with Serbia is the last of Yugoslavia and the next expected to erupt into civil war, and am now in Dubrovnik, Croatia, having finished a "Sexuality in Transitions" conference exploring sociosexual issues in post-Communist countries. One Croatian friend, who works with refugees and has survived such war and conflict horrors this past decade that I will only ever read about, calls my country "a freak show." Typically, through his travels and news consumption, he knows more about politics, history and cultural trends in the United States than do most Americans.

Conference presenters ranged in age from early 20s to late 70s and, as Bush was making his first presidential visit to a skeptical Europe, they taught me that the United States indeed has more in common sexually with their emerging democracies than with our Western allies. As in the States, many Eastern European countries are experiencing increased adolescent promiscuity and sexual violence, exploding rates of AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancy, and a takeover by Church and conservatives of sexual discourse and policy.

Many here are surprised to learn the U.S. has dramatically higher rates of STDs, teenage pregnancy, HIV and AIDS, abortion and sexual violence than any industrialized country and many "developing" countries. They are even more wowed to learn of our growing Chastity movement and government-funded abstinence-only-until-marriage programs. That to receive the funds, teachers must proclaim abstinence is the only sure way to prevent disease and pregnancy, and can mention contraception and condoms only to present (or inflate) their failure rate. That the sex education we do have addresses the risks of unwanted preganany, STDS and AIDS, or what one Croatian sociology professor calls the "discourse of catastrophe."

Beholden to the U.S.'s official line of marital sex as the only valid sex, schools, churches and most parents shun discussing pleasure, lovemaking, partner negotiation, masturbation or sexual standards. We dismiss as promiscuous Europe's integrated approach to sex as natural and human. We espouse a fear-based "just say no" ultimatum over Europe's parental, education and media push to teach responsible sexuality in elementary schools, on television, radio, billboards and clubs and to make accessible free or low-cost contraception. We hold up repression of information and services as superior morality, yet experience first intercourse a year or two earlier than do our European counterparts. A recent comparative study of sexuality in France and the U.S. found young French lovers have fewer partners than do young Americans.

Whereas Bush was greeted by protests on his European tour, he would likely receive wild applause further east if he were to present the same abstinence-only-until-marriage dogma he trumpets in the States. A recent Croatian public awareness campaign on AIDS featured hearts, but not condoms. Sex education in Eastern Europe, where youth face ever more risk, is mostly non-existent except as a political scapegoat to discredit liberals and feminists as immoral and ungodly. According to Igor S. Kon, from the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology at the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Russian media often asserts sex education programs are designed by pedophiles and gay men.

Recent research found that Russian youth are at the heart of a looming AIDS crisis, and the study's lead author concluded the "urgent need for sexual education" based on rampant misconceptions about AIDS and STDs. Kon too agrees that sex education is the "only reasonable answer to this challenge ... but since 1997 all efforts in this direction have been blocked by a powerful anti-sexual crusade, organized by the Russian Communist Party and the Russian Orthodox Church and supported by 'Pro-Life.'"