Sex education is imperative and necessary, but most teenagers leave sex education lessons with a vague understanding of sexuality and without good basic knowledge contraception or safe sex practices. Instead, teenagers only learn that they shouldn't have sex until they get married. Abstinence-only programs in public schools have become popular due to government funding of millions of dollars to schools that teach these programs. These programs have good intentions to convince young people to wait until marriage before becoming intimate, but they do not fully achieve this goal and are inconsistent due to the one-sided point of view they espouse. In 1996, the U.S. government began giving special funding to states that offered abstinence-only programs in public schools. Since then, countless sums of taxpayer money have been donated to states to promote abstinence-only programs (Brody, 2004). To receive funding, schools must agree to follow a certain set of guidelines. These rules indicate that a school's abstinence-only program must have as its exclusive purpose teaching the social, psychological, and health benefits of abstaining from sexual activity. Students are taught that they can suffer harmful effects if they choose to deflower themselves before marriage and that the standard is for students not to engage in sexual activity and for adults to only have sex while married (Impacts, 2007). The schools that receive these government funds only teach students to “say no” to sex until they get married, but this concept is so far-fetched because we live in an imperfect society. Some states such as Ohio, New York and Virginia have rejected federal funds. funds so that their schools can determine their own ways of teaching s...... middle of paper ... will contract sexual diseases because they engage in oral and anal sex in the minds of most teenagers if they do not do so by being physically penetrated , they did nothing wrong or harmful. Parents and guardians should be the key instructors of sex education for their children. Honest and open communication between parents and children during childhood, preadolescence, adolescence, and young adulthood can help young people mature into sexually healthy adults. The primary goal of sex education in schools should be to help and encourage young people to build foundations as they mature into sexually healthy adults. These programs should help young people understand a positive view of sexuality, provide them with information and skills on how to take care of themselves, and push them to make decisions about solving current and future problems.