Sexual Abstinence Education and the Reassertion of the “Biblical” Patriarchal Family Cell in Contemporary United States

Abstract

This paper seeks to demonstrate how the issue of sexual abstinence before marriage is part of a fundamentalist and conservative Christian agenda which aims to reinforce the primacy of the heterosexual patri- archal family unit in the contemporary United States. Sexual abstinence in the US has become the focus of much national and international attention in recent years, given the emphasis laid on it by the G.W. Bush administrations. Though this attitude towards sex education usually originates in religious belief, the extent to which its advocates emphasize this dimension tends to correlate with their position on the political spectrum. Nevertheless, the way the US government, along with many conservative Christian groups1 and authors, uses abstinence to reassert the traditional patriarchal family unit as the basis of a ‘healthy’ and ‘successful’ society is deeply tainted by its conservative reading of the Bible. Hence, through sexual abstinence programs, religion impacts on the social, family and health policies of the nation and prescribes a distinction between appropriate and inappropriate gender roles, sexual behaviors and family units.