"When asked a few years ago why her new curriculum's title now prominently featured the word abstinence, a progressive sex educator (who has herself worked to build a dike against the deluge of abstinence ed) said, "Because it is one way teens can choose to deal with sex." Her interlocutor, a saber-tongued sex therapist, replied, "Right. So's suicide." Abstinence education is not practical. It is ideological."