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No Sex Is Very Bad For You
Study says abstinence leads to blindness, screaming, Jenna Bush. Who will save the children?
By Mark Morford
April 25, 2007

In an unusual turn of events, a comprehensive new study from a team of world-class prize-winning nicely disheveled calmly titillated researchers from Johns Hopkins University, working in conjunction with various slightly frumpy but no less adorable teams from Sweden, the United Kingdom, Brazil and roughly 57 other nations, many of which have names that are still barely pronounceable by our own president, has come to a decisive conclusion regarding sex education in America.

Their astonishing research shows that the Bush administration’s abstinence-only sex education programs are not only utterly useless and a complete waste of taxpayer money, but they actually invite all manner of disease and destruction and savage karmic pain upon those who attempt to adhere to them.

It’s true. Such programs, long touted by sexually denuded Republicans and nervous Christian righters and applauded by the Taliban and fundamentalists and Ann Coulter as some sort of psychosexual panacea, some sort of dour, clinical, sex-is-bad-for-you hammerblow to the sensual human soul all meant to act as some sort of humiliating deterrent to our fleshy, dangerous, sex-obsessed culture, these programs lead directly to severe anxiety, hair loss, acne, whininess, temporary blindness, adult bed-wetting, screaming, lousy taste in shoes, death, pararectal abscesses and even, in rare and bizarre cases, an overwhelming urge to date Jenna Bush.

“We are completely stunned at these far-reaching, nearly universal results which have emerged from every country in the world except Saudi Arabia, Oman and much of Utah,” said Dr. Claudio Ortega, totally cute lead researcher of the Johns Hopkins team that studied the behaviors of roughly 420 million normal, “genitally tingly” elementary school and teenage kids across all nations and demographics and hair colors and general inexplicable affection for Avril Lavigne.

“No wait, check that,” Ortega would’ve added, with a sly and knowing grin, if he had actually existed, which he does not. “We’re really not stunned at all. Actually, the results make a whole heaping truckload of very obvious and forehead-slapping sense.”

Ortega, surrounded by his research team who were all dressed almost exclusively in American Apparel silver lamé workout shorts, leather handcuffs and classic Iron Maiden T-shirts from Hot Topic, seemed nonplussed by the need for his own study. “I mean, come on. Say no to sex until you’re married? Abstinence is the only truly moral path? Where are we, 1756? What’s next, trepanning and lobotomies and hurling virgins into the volcano to appease the corn god? Are you people high?”

The overwhelming findings, recently released to the entire planet via multiple media formats including a simple one-page PDF document, universal text message, whispering God-like voice in your dreams and also by way of a two-disk six-hour DVD movie starring Rocco Siffredi, Jenna Jameson, Belladonna, numerous perky cheerleaders and an Italian villa featuring 13 sex swings and 47 bottles of dark rum and an enormous hot tub filled with warm, melted chocolate, is being widely touted as both a radical breakthrough and also as so heart-crushingly, Bush-slappingly obvious it makes you want to spank yourself with a tire iron, and not in a good way.

“Put it this way,” he sighed. “Not only will anti-sexual thoughts make you into some sort of shrill humorless neoconservative evangelical QVC addict with a thing for plastic lawn ornaments, Purity Balls, Coors and all things pleated, but we’ve found devastating evidence linking the widespread activity of not having good, respectful, dirty, open-mouthed sex to everything from acid reflux to infertility to global biochemical warfare to a chronic adoration of Adam Sandler,” Ortega said, soaping himself up in the tub with a bright red and purple sponge shaped like a giant vulva. “It’s really quite astonishing. Except for the part that it’s totally obvious.”

The study comes as a severe blow to the legion of grim, devoted abstinence educators and sour Republican government officials who, nevertheless, still refuse to acknowledge that the U.S. government has now wasted upward of 1 billion taxpayer dollars in the past 10 years on abstinence programs that have had, to put it simply, exactly zero effect on teen sex behavior. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Unfortunately, this has not stopped the inept Bush administration from proposing $191 million for these unscientific, medically inaccurate programs for fiscal 2008, an increase of $28 million over 2007’s failed, useless levels.

“Here is the most astounding fact of all, the thing that makes you want to scream in the faces of these legislators and religious nutballs and pour a gallon of honey over them and then toss them onto a giant mound of gay fire ants,” Ortega would’ve added, between sips of margarita, had he been existent. And also very, very cool.

“Sex is just ridiculously good for you. Sex is good for the heart. It’s good for the blood. It’s good for the mood and it’s good for depression and it’s good for self-esteem and it’s good for making you feel more human and alive and present in your skin. Do it right and sex shoots huge gobs of endorphins and raw divine energy into your id and it’s good for raising your kundalini and inspiring awareness of the cosmos and it’s good for calmly and casually noting the interconnectedness of all things from all time in all places everywhere.”

Ortega then sighed heavily, his skin beginning to turn translucent, his bones fading away, his entire being beginning to soften and evaporate, much like the reality of this story, much like any hope-filled notions you may have that your government gives a damn about the sexual integrity of children and might actually reverse its degrading position and start treating youth with respect and love.

“Did you know sex actually improves your sense of smell? Helps the prostate? True. Also reduces stress. Improves sleep. Improves circulation. Relieves pain, menstrual cramps. Improves fertility. Helps you live longer. Look younger. Goes great with jeans. Goes perfectly with red wine, white wine, pink wine, sake, beer. Dress it up, dress it down. Take it out, or stay at home and rent a movie. It is the universal traveler. It is the Super Glue of the gods. It is the bond that connects all and to deny any of this to kids is abhorrent and insulting and you can rest assured that Jesus himself is just incredibly ashamed that these programs even exist.”

“Look me in the eye,” Ortega finally said, he and this whole tale disappearing into the sad media ether, to be quickly superseded by tales of death and war and blood. “Yes, this is a fantasy. I am a fantasy, OK? The sort of raw, real sex education human children deserve will never happen in your lifetime, not on any large scale, not with the whiny self-righteous Christian-righters screaming into their underwear and trembling at the sight of their own genitalia.”

“But here’s the thing: You need to know these facts. You need to keep this arrow of hot, deep sexual knowledge in your quiver, sharp and polished and ready to launch at a moment’s notice, OK? For when the time comes. For when the Great Transformation occurs. OK? Trust me.”

And just like that, Ortega vanished, leaving behind a small pool of fire and Astroglide and just a hint of eternal, grinning, inextinguishable hope.