The controversy arose when, sometime in April, Heritage Keepers Abstinence Education was quietly added to an Office of Adolescent Health list of approved groups eligible for government funds — “the holy grail of the Administration’s commitment to a science-based approach to teen pregnancy prevention and a directive for grantees of the President’s Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative,” wrote four prominent sexual health experts in RH Reality Check. They accused HHS of “succumb[ing] to the political pressure of social conservatives and allowed the ideology of the right to prevail over the health and well-being of the nation’s youth.”

On April 30, over a dozen major organizations, including the ACLU and Human Rights Campaign, asked Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius to explain Heritage Keepers’ inclusion. They said the program “ostracizes lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth; promotes heterosexual marriage as the only acceptable family structure; withholds life-saving information from sexually active youth; and uses fear-based messages to shame youth who have been sexually active and youth living in ‘nontraditional’ households.”

Like most abstinence-only programs, contraception and condoms aren’t on the agenda, nor is detailed information about sexually transmitted diseases or safe sexual behavior. Sample language from the student manual: “girls have a responsibility to wear modest clothing that doesn’t invite lustful thoughts.” Both aspects are awkward at a moment in which the president’s reelection campaign is struggling to have it both ways on gay marriage, as well as to paint itself as a champion of reproductive health.

The RH Reality Check piece also says that there is “limited evidence of effectiveness” of the Heritage Keepers program. But Christopher Trenholm, associate director of research at Mathematica Policy Research, which conducted the independent research evaluation for HHS, and whose previous work is cited as proof that the Heritage Keepers program doesn’t work, told Salon there are actually two different programs in question. The one in the 2007 Mathematica study that was found to have little impact on sexual abstinence, a complementary after-school program called Life Skills Education Component, differs from the health class curriculum that ended up on the HHS list.

This time around, Trenholm’s task was to grade the outside research that purported to back up the organization’s claims. HHS decided that every organization that got a moderate or high rating on doing what it said it did would end up on the approved list. Mathematica took a look at a 2011 study of Heritage Keepers Abstinence Education as taught to 2,215 7th- through 9th-grade students, which found that a year after participating in the program, “sexual experience” increased from 29 to 33 percent of students, compared to 43 percent of students in the control group. The study quality was deemed “moderate,” allowing Heritage Keepers to tout its HHS seal of approval on its website.

In other words, Heritage Keepers simply followed the rules of the “evidence based” system – and prevailed. The problem for supporters of inclusive and comprehensive sex education is that the HHS criteria say that studies “must measure program impact on at least one measure of sexual risk behavior or its health consequences.” That measure can be contraceptive use or fewer sexually transmitted infections, or it can be simply delaying sexual activity, as Heritage Keepers was found to do – but it doesn’t have to do both or all. And as written, it certainly does not mean that the program can’t marginalize LGBT students or shame students about their sexual behavior.

I asked Weber, the HHS spokesman, what would have to change for such groups to be left out of the program. Would the criteria simply have to be revised? “What we’re committed to is an open and transparent scientific process,” he repeated. That process appears to have been followed here – but it shows the limits of a narrowly technocratic approach.

Update. Critics respond to the HHS rationale: “HHS is being frighteningly shortsighted,” said Dr. Elizabeth Schroeder, executive director for Answer, a national sexuality education organization based at Rutgers University. “Heritage Keepers relies on fear, shame, distorted information and biases. Why are we supporting any program that discriminates against groups of students and endangers their health? How can the HHS justify putting its seal of approval on a sexist, homophobic curriculum?”

This week saw the passage of a Tennessee bill that has the usual aim of abstinence initiatives — to “exclusively and emphatically” promote abstinence until marriage. But the bill ultimately goes above and beyond the usual. It allows parents to seek damages in court if a teacher “promotes gateway sexual activity” to their child. It’s unclear what exactly “gateway sexual activity” is because the measure defines it vaguely as “sexual contact encouraging an individual to engage in a non-abstinent behavior.” Critics of the bill have suggested that this could include everything from hand holding to french kissing. The bill also proscribes “implicitly” promoting or “condoning” gateway sexual activity (the latter could mean simply turning a blind eye to it, hence the example above).

The potential legal implications here are what’s most important, but understanding the philosophy behind this view of “gateway” sexual activity is crucial, too. The thinking here is transparent: Premarital or extramarital sex, even physical affection, is like a drug — all-consuming, addictive and life-destroying. Sen. Margaret Dayton, a co-sponsor of the bill, actually said, as the Salt Lake Tribune paraphrased, “Teaching children about contraception is comparable to telling kids not to do drugs, then showing them how to ‘mainline’ heroin.” Here we have that fundamental fear of sex, of the power it holds over us, and of the possibility of losing ourselves (or our kids) to it.

Shortly before the “gateway” bill, Tennessee lawmakers advanced Senate Bill 49, dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay Bill,” which stipulated that “no public elementary or middle school shall provide any instruction or material that discusses sexual orientation other than heterosexuality.” The measure managed to get Senate approval but, after intense public and legislative outcry, it was yanked by one of its sponsors before it faced a final vote in the House. An abstinence bill in Utah, which breezed through the state legislature but was ultimately vetoed last month by the governor, similarly banned any discussion of the gays. Wisconsin’s abstinence bill doesn’t prohibit the mention of homosexuality, but it does overwrite a current law requiring that teachers “use instructional methods and materials that do not promote bias against pupils of any race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, or ethnic or cultural background.”

Here we have that classic conservative view of homosexuality as a corruptive idea rather than an inherent identity; as a social virus — one that can be inoculated against through silence (or, as some of us might prefer to call it, censorship) — rather than an inborn reality. (What always strikes me about this attitude is that it seems implicitly to hold that gay sex is so awesome that just hearing about it will make folks want to try it; otherwise, it wouldn’t pose such a threat, now, would it?) It also gets at that right-wing sore spot: The possibility of sex for love or pleasure, rather than procreation.

Of course, homosexuality is far from the only thing that treads in this forbidden territory. The Utah bill forbids any “human sexuality instruction” from covering contraception, premarital sex or “the intricacies of intercourse, sexual stimulation, or erotic behavior.” (The ultimate effect of the extreme restrictions is a ban on human sexuality classes. Either teach anti-gay, anti-contraception, abstinence-only “human sexuality,” or teach nothing at all.) Contraception helps reduce the negative consequences for engaging in pleasure- or love-based premarital sex — and abstinence-only advocates desperately want to keep the sexual stakes high. (For the same reason we see attempts to restrict access to contraception and HPV vaccines.)

Speaking of negative consequences, the Utah and Wisconsin bills share a focus on STIs and unwanted pregnancy as the inevitable result of premarital sex. The Utah measure requires that human sexuality classes underscore “the importance of abstinence from all sexual activity before marriage and fidelity after marriage as the only sure methods for preventing certain communicable diseases.” The Wisconsin initiative mandates that human sexuality classes “promote abstinence and marriage over contraception” and “emphasize that abstinence is the only reliable way to prevent pregnancy and avoid sexually transmitted infections” (which is patently false).

Even the acknowledgement of hormonal changes and natural urges is dangerous. Earlier this month, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signed into law a bill that removed not only contraceptives but also puberty — puberty! — from the list of required topics in sex-ed classes. The concept of puberty itself makes natural what abstinence-only advocates desperately want to seem unnatural.

More relatable is the concern guiding the push for greater parental power in some of these bills. The Utah measure requires that guardians make up the majority of review committees for human sexuality curricula and that they be allowed to participate in the development of abstinence-only classes. This year, Arizona introduced a bill that requires schools to obtain written permission from parents in order to teach any form of sex ed and secures parents’ rights to opt out on behalf of their kids. Adults are desperate enough to control sex in their own lives — from the content of their, or their spouse’s, fantasies to the threat of infidelity. And, of course, there’s that universal desire to protect our kids from the dangers of the world (and you don’t have to be a right-winger to believe that sex can be dangerous).

Together, these recent bills make clear several fundamental fears — of the power of sex, of losing control of our kids and of the allure of non-procreative sex without consequences. Aside from their magnitude, those worries aren’t a uniquely right-wing phenomena. What is uniquely right-wing is taking such extreme attempts to legislate against those fears.

The program, Heritage Keepers Abstinence Education, “contains little or no information about puberty, anatomy, sexually transmitted diseases, or sexual behavior,” they write, nor does it “include information about the health benefits of contraception or condoms.” Worse still, it relies on inaccurate, fear-based classroom exercises, promotes heterosexual marriage as the only happy and healthy life path, harps on the potential harm of premarital relationships, promotes hoary gender roles and stereotypes and entirely ignores the existence of LGBT people.

Oh, also? The evidence of the program’s effectiveness is highly questionable. A report ordered by Congress concluded that Heritage Keepers “had little or no impact on sexual abstinence or activity.”

Several years ago, the Sexuality Information & Education Council of the U.S. (SIECUS), where two of the RH Reality authors are employed, conducted an in-depth review of the Heritage Keepers’ curriculum and found it “relies on messages of fear and shame” and that even topics “frequently discussed in detail in other abstinence-only-until-marriage programs, such as condoms and STDs, receive very little mention.” The review offers up many disturbing examples of the fear-based messaging, most memorable of which is the following exercise:

Each student rolls a six-side die; the number that comes up corresponds to a particular consequence. Students who roll a one have contracted HIV, a two contracted herpes, a three HPV, a four untimely pregnancy, a five infertility, and a six emotional pain.

I believe that’s what you call a loaded die. All of the potential outcomes are crap; there is no chance in this “educational” exercise for emotional intimacy or pleasure. The game is designed to end with a simplistic takeaway: “Having sex outside of marriage is gambling with your future.”

It isn’t the only instance where the program presents marriage as an infallible guard against all potential negative consequences of sex. Consider this excerpt from the program’s student manual: “Sex is like fire. Inside the appropriate boundary of marriage, sex is a great thing! Outside of marriage, sex can be dangerous.” Right, because it’s never dangerous within marriage. A signed piece of paper from the justice of the peace magically eliminates risk of STIs, sexual violence, infidelity — you name it!

Seriously, though, I’m not being hyperbolic — the program actually presents marriage as a rape prevention tool. The program claims, “According to the data, 9 percent of married women are forced by their spouse to perform sexual acts, however 46 percent of women report that someone they were … ‘in love with’ forced them to have sex against their will, and 22 percent of women report being forced to do so by someone they ‘knew well.’”

First, as SIECUS beautifully points out, those figures come from a survey of women who had been forced to perform a sexual act — not of women in general. In other words, the correct factoid is that, at least within a small sample of women who had experienced sexual assault, 9 percent were assaulted by their marriage partner. Second, “even if married women as a whole face fewer incidences of sexual assault, for women in abusive relationships, marriage provides no protection,” says the SIECUS report. (Also, correlation ain’t causation.)

According to the Heritage Foundation, in addition to putting you at risk for being raped, premarital relationships may destroy your ability to bond. (I’m having Eric Keroack flashbacks! What is this, 2006?) “[It] may be that when people bond closely through sexual activity, then break up and bond with someone else, and then someone else, it may become increasingly difficult to maintain a lasting bond.” It may be that it may be? That’s considered evidence-based education?

It’s no surprise that the program calls on students to abstain from sex until marriage – not to think about whether that’s a choice that they want to make, just to do it, teacher’s orders: “Now is the time for you to make the commitment for the very best for yourself, to wait for the commitment of marriage to have sex.” The teacher is instructed to then hand out “commitment cards.”

None of that is to mention the sexual double standard in the curriculum. It invokes the ol’ saw about males being visual creatures and explains, “This is why girls need to be careful with what they wear, because males are looking! The girl might be thinking fashion, while the boy is thinking sex. For this reason, girls have a responsibility to wear modest clothing that doesn’t invite lustful thoughts.” The familiar message is that girls are the sexual gatekeepers (there’s also an undercurrent of “don’t ask for it”).

It follows, of course, that the curriculum would ignore same-sex partnerships: It “operates under the assumption that all students in the class, or all people in the world for that matter, are heterosexual,” says the SIECUS review. “All references to sexual activity, arousal, and relationships are specific to male-female couples.” As the RH Reality piece argues, “The stigmatization of LGBT youth throughout the program reinforces the cultural invisibility and bias these students already face in many schools and communities. The curriculum’s focus on marriage as the only appropriate context for sexual behavior further ostracizes LGBT youth and the children of LGBT parents who still cannot legally marry in most states.”

No wonder HHS didn’t issue a press release. It’s hard to put a positive spin on the Obama administration giving its stamp of approval to a sexist, anti-gay, fear-based education program.

But that hasn’t stopped conservatives from claiming that the drop is a result of, you guessed it, abstinence education and, paradoxically, an increase in abortions.

Janice Crouse of Concerned Women for America expressed her outrage over the CDC analysis: “They don’t even mention the fact there’s been a tremendous increase in effectiveness and pervasiveness of abstinence education. They don’t mention the fact that teen sexual activity, by their own admission, is down.” As Think Progress noted this week, teen birth rates are actually highest in states with abstinence-only policies. Not only has it been widely documented that such programs are largely ineffective, it’s also been shown that such programs may prevent contraception use.

Now, it’s true that teens — specifically 15- and 16-year-olds — are delaying sexual activity, but the change in contraceptive use over the years has been much more profound, and there has been no significant change in sexual activity among 18- and 19-year-olds. What’s more, there was no change in sexual activity among teens, period, from 2008 on, says Laura Lindberg, senior research associate at Guttmacher, so the recent decline in teens births certainly can’t be attributed to abstinence. Also, it should be noted that abstinence can be the result of any number of social influences, not necessarily abstinence-only education. (Consider research showing that teens who receive sex education are much more likely to delay sex.)

Bill Albert, chief program officer at the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, told me that arguments like Crouse’s have a problem of “simple chronology.” The teen birth rate peaked in 1991, “some years before the federal investment in abstinence education,” he said. “So it’s clearly not responsible for declines that began in 1991.” In fact, he says, “The teen birth rate increased during the height of the federal investment in abstinence education. Those who would credit abstinence [for the decline] should also take the blame for the increases.” Albert added, “Researchers who have looked at it closely over the past several years tend to believe it is contraception that is making the difference. If the abstinence education programs are helping teens to use contraception more consistently, then we should thank them, but I don’t think that’s what they’re doing.”

Crouse isn’t the only conservative twisting the latest CDC news to fit an anti-choice agenda: In a piece titled “Credit Abstinence With Helping Reduce Teen Birth Rates,” on the anti-choice site LifeNews.com, Kristan Hawkins writes, “While the birth rate has fallen, it must be made clear that the CDC is looking at the birth rate and not the pregnancy rate in teens,” and then claims that the teen abortion rate has increased, without citing any evidence. She must have missed this headline from February: “Teen Pregnancy, Abortion Rates at Record Low” — that’s according to research from Guttmacher. In 2008, the most recent year for which data is available, the teen abortion rate was down 59 percent from its peak in 1988.

Hawkins’ next target? Why, contraception, of course. “It cannot be stated enough that 50% of women who are using some form of contraception find themselves unexpectedly pregnant.” Again, she offers no citation, but being a contraception user (i.e., you have used a condom recently) is different from using it correctly every time. According to Guttmacher, 54 percent of women who have had abortions became pregnant during a month when they used contraception — but a minority of those women used the method correctly. She adds that “contraception is not an effective means of preventing pregnancy 100% of the time” — right, just 99.9 percent of the time, in the case of oral contraceptives, when used correctly. (Abstinence, when it’s followed 100 percent of the time, really has that compelling 0.1 percent advantage.)

If anything, such data should recommend a need for better sex education and access to long-term methods of birth control.

My favorite part of her rant, though, is where she equates Plan B with abortion. This anti-science party trick just does not get old! “Most importantly, we cannot the [sic] measure the usage of abortion-causing emergency contraception (Plan B) and the role it is now playing in decreasing teen birth rates.” For the millionth time: Plan B is an emergency contraception. It prevents ovulation and fertilization, just as with all hormonal contraceptives. It does not cause abortion if the egg has already implanted, which is the medical definition of pregnancy, according to both the National Institutes of Health and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. In short: The increase she cites in Plan B use is actually yet more evidence for the argument that greater contraception use caused the decline in teen births.

This isn’t the first time this has happened, either: It happens every time the CDC releases a new report finding a continuing drop in teen pregnancy. What these reactions make clear is that no evidence — whether it’s on the benefits of making contraception widely accessible or the positive impact of comprehensive sex ed — will stop the war on sex. Where there is a scientific study providing such proof, there will be a right-winger willing to gesture vaguely in the direction of mythical evidence to the contrary. “In a way, I’m so tired of this debate,” says Albert. “Why don’t both sides declare victory and go home? If we say, ‘OK, you win,’ can we stop?”

If that seems like an unfamiliar attitude toward sex and parenting, it might have something to do with the fact that Natalie’s parents aren’t American — they’re Dutch. They are one of dozens of Dutch families interviewed by Amy T. Schalet, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Massachusetts, in her new book, “Not Under My Roof.” Schalet’s book compares the sexual attitudes of American and Dutch parents and her findings are nothing short of staggering: Whereas most American parents panic about the idea of allowing their kids to have sex with other kids under their roof, for many Dutch parents, it’s not only fine — it’s responsible parenting.

As Schalet’s extensively researched, fascinating work shows, the Netherlands’ radically different approach to sex and child-rearing has managed to radically decrease levels of teen pregnancy, abortion and sexual infections. It has fostered closer relationships between teenagers and their parents, and helped make teenagers’ first times far more pleasurable. “Not Under My Roof” is a startling wake-up call about America’s largely misguided attitudes toward sex and growing up.

Salon spoke to Schalet over the phone about the sexual revolution, America’s “slut” problem and how the new generation is changing our attitudes toward sex.

As you point out in the book, the statistical differences between American and Dutch teens when it comes to sex is pretty staggering.

Yes. The pregnancy rate is about four times higher in the U.S. than in the Netherlands and abortion rates are about twice as high. HIV rates are about three times higher. Growing up in the Netherlands, I didn’t actually know of any teenagers who became pregnant as teens. Whenever I say that to Americans they’re always very surprised.

But as you point out in the book, it’s not because American adolescents are having way more sex — it’s because the culture around sex is so different, and it’s especially ironic because people think America was so utterly transformed by the sexual revolution. Why didn’t those cultural changes filter down to the way we think about teens and sex?

That’s the million-dollar question. When the sexual revolution did happen [in the Netherlands], contraception was made very widely and easily available, including to teenagers so the teenage pregnancy rate really dropped. In the Netherlands, there’s the belief that young people are capable of recognizing when they’re ready and self-regulating as opposed to the notion that they have raging hormones that are out of control. There’s the belief that young people can fall in love and that their sexuality is anchored in relationships so it becomes easier to accept and normalize relationships from about 16 to 17 onwards. And finally there’s been an attempt on the part of Dutch parents and the authorities to say, “This is happening, and we need to keep it from being secretive. We need to be able to keep control and be able to recommend that young people use contraception and see who they’re becoming involved with.”

That seems counterintuitive to many Americans because they associate “sexual freedom” with things going totally awry. In the U.S., there was a strong counterreaction to the changes of the 1960s and ’70s. The religious right organized, and sexuality, especially teen sexuality, became a political issue. But regular people also feel the same way and think that teen sexuality is out of control. In the U.S. there’s a belief that, when it comes to sex, girls and boys are engaged in a battle instead of a relationship and there’s resistance to the idea that boys and girls can both feel both love and lust. It’s partly the result of the American emphasis on individualism that suggests that to become an adult, you have to first separate from your family and become completely self-reliant before you’ve earned the right to engage in sex. That makes it harder for parents to then integrate it into the family in the way Dutch parents have.

As you mention in the book, in America we tend to separate sex and love — and don’t believe that teenagers are able to associate the two. Why do you think that is?

To me that’s always very fascinating. When I did interviews in the U.S., I was really struck when parents would say, “Well, teenagers think they’re in love” and they would hold up their hands with quotation marks. The U.S. is very strongly tied to the model of marriage. We don’t want 15- or 16- or 17-year-olds to marry but we don’t think a relationship is love unless it’s the one and only, the person you’re going to marry forever. It’s also tied to individualism, because if you believe that intimate relationships are threatening to young people’s developments, and that you have to do things on your own first and then settle down, then everything you do before settling down is not going to be about love. And yet, young people do form relationships that are very important to them. They look different from adult relationships but they’re real relationships a lot of the time.

As you point out in the book, there’s an emphasis in the Netherlands on making sure that a teenager’s first time isn’t just safe — but actually fun and pleasurable. That seems too alien to the way we learn about losing your virginity.

I think that’s right. It is so difficult in the American context to say that a first sexual experience should be positive and pleasurable and one that one feels ready for personally, physically and emotionally. In the chapter about the Dutch parents, a father tells his daughter that she should never do it unless she has the desire for it. He acknowledges that his daughter might actually want it, and that is a very difficult thing in the U.S. context for a lot of parents to do, especially for girls.

It’s fascinating that the “slut” label, as you point out in the book, doesn’t exist in the same way in the Netherlands as it does here. Here a lot of girls get called a slut simply for having a desire for sex.

It exists, but even in the way it exists it’s much milder, and it’s really not about sex per se, it’s about the number of partners and especially the frequency or speed with which one would go from one to another. So if a young woman is in a relationship and she wants it and she enjoys it, that’s fine. I find this to be one of the most fascinating aspects of American culture that that remains so unspeakable.

In pop culture, being a slut is considered either despicable or something to aggressively celebrate (i.e., the recent SlutWalks). But there isn’t much in between, especially for adolescent women, that just treats female sexuality as normal and healthy.

I didn’t see the first episode of [the new TV show] “Suburgatory,” but the premise is that the father finds condoms in the drawer of his daughter and so they move to the suburbs to avoid sex. The girl is 16 or 17, and so there’s this  idea that a father fulfills his parental duty by removing sex altogether. Of course he doesn’t succeed, and she ends up making out in the locker room or wherever. But I agree there are very few pop cultural models of young women having positive sexual experiences that are not in some way a cause of drama.

Many of the American parents in the book have a kind of hilarious double standard. They are fine with their kids having sex outside of their home, but as soon as it happens inside their house they freak out.

I don’t want to spoof it too much even though it does look silly. There’s really no narrative for American parents to draw on to understand a positive sexual development on the part of their children and how they’re supposed to relate to it. So the not-under-my-roof idea is the dominant understanding of what you do when you’re a responsible adult. So you do get situations where the mother knows her 17-year-old daughter’s boyfriend and that she’s on the pill but even though the mom knows she has sex with her boyfriend, the daughter is not allowed to be home with the door closed when the boyfriend is in her room.

What do you think can be done to American sexual education to change this?

I support comprehensive sex education. [laughs] I’m laughing because that’s the line everybody says, but I think that it’s important both in and of itself that young people learn about sexuality, contraception, relationships. I think there’s an absence of language about relationships  [in sex ed] and that it should be integrated more into schools.  Sex education, when done well, can help parents open up the conversation at home. In the U.S. this narrative gets created of “sex ed vs. the parents” as opposed to those two working in complementary fashion. Only half of  American girls have had a conversation about contraception with their parents. In the Dutch case, one of the girls learns about the pill at school during what is called “relationship lessons” — yes, that’s really what it’s called — and she comes home and her mother explains that she also uses the pill.

In a lot of public health campaigns and even with clinicians there’s such an emphasis on the risk, risk, risk, risk, without an emphasis on this is what you can do, this is how you can exert agency. Where exactly do you go to get contraception, and condoms? But I do see a lot of parents who want to be doing things differently. I speak mainly to professionals but they also respond as parents, and they’re really looking for a better way of recognizing that young people have real emotions, and to stay connected to teenagers during their adolescent developmental phase.

It’s really hard not to think that things are so much better in the Netherlands after reading the book. It almost seems utopian.

It’s not utopian. There is such an emphasis on relationships that sometimes the differences in power between girls and boys do not get as much attention as they perhaps deserve. Part of what goes on in the Dutch families is a system of control. It can be cozy, but it also can be a little claustrophobic. I think some of the American models of being able to deal with cultural difference within a society are a  good thing, and I like to think that cultures can learn from each other.

American culture does seem to be changing, though, in its attitudes toward marriage. Gay marriage is becoming more common and accepted, and straight people are staying single longer.

I definitely think that the acceptance of gay marriage is a very positive development. I also see a shift among youth, away from the kind of narrow definitions of what is intimacy or acceptable intimacy. I think there’s a whole new generation of people that’s not saddled with the old antagonisms that came out of the 1960s. When I teach classes at the University of Massachussetts, students say, “We are the generation that will change things in the U.S. just like they changed in the Netherlands.” There’s a real interest among young parents in handling sexuality better than it was in their family. We need to figure out how to stop falling back on the marriage-only model and we need a model for a good relationship that isn’t necessarily for life but that still involves mutual respect, and honesty, and mutual obligation as well as enjoyment and pleasure.