But the young, who will live either up to or down to the standards set for them, deserve better than this well-meaning but flaccid approach.
Apart from the questionable efficacy (Will kids use them? Do they work?) and the fact that condoms have nothing to do with education, their free (another problem) distribution to high school students transmits two contradictory messages.
The first is amoral: sex in high school is tacitly okay, a recreational sport about which adults are agnostic, so long as it is "safe." The second is irrational: sex for high school kids is, well, not okay, but we adults trust neither you kids to abstain nor ourselves to lead.
Sounded together, the two say: "We are giving up hope in your good behavior in order to be free from the fear of your bad." And the kids see through this, and there is engendered in them cynicism and disdain for confused and cowardly adults and their incoherent ethical norms.
Consider: Would any teen with an IQ higher than that of a small barnyard animal take seriously an adult prohibition against, say, tobacco products, were a school to supply ashtrays, filtered cigarettes, and spittoons, on the rationale that because kids are going to indulge anyway, we should give them the accoutrements to make the illicit activity cleaner and safer?
And what if the "sex-in-high-school-is-wrong-but-it-will-happen-so-why-fight-it" approach were taken toward alcohol use, racism, sexism, homophobia, guns, bullying, or, God forbid, climate change?
The problems with this approach are not merely abstract. Adult exhortations to "safe sex" can translate in young minds to invitations to have sex, as students interpret adult quiescence as a green light to experiment. This opens the way for many young people (girls especially) to be coerced and exploited by those who do not love them.
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