Sex Abstinence Video Prepared for Schools Gets a Thumbs Down

If you know just the right education official to call in Vallejo, you might be able to get a copy of the state’s new, $138,000 video urging California high school students to abstain from sex.

That’s because its own distributors, though approving of its message, are giving the film a thumbs-down review.

The 15-minute video was produced under the auspices of the state Department of Education, but the department has removed its name from the final product and is planning only limited distribution.

Also, several members of the State Board of Education have said the film is unflattering to minorities, is not graphic enough in showing the dire consequences of casual sex and is too simple-minded for today’s teen-agers.

Because of these objections, “they (board members) felt more comfortable if we didn’t have our name on it,” said Francie Alexander, director of curriculum instruction and assessment for the Department of Education.

A master copy of the video will be sent to an obscure health resources center in Vallejo, and high schools around the state can order copies for $10 apiece, if they know it exists.

The Rev. Louis P. Sheldon’s Traditional Values Coalition, which pushed for legislation requiring the Department of Education to make the film, thinks the department is suppressing it.

“It seems to me the Department of Education just doesn’t want the abstinence message to get out,” Beverly Sheldon, Rev. Sheldon’s wife and director of research for the coalition, said angrily. “They’re stifling the message.”

“That’s absolutely untrue,” Alexander replied. “The department is promoting abstinence as the only absolutely foolproof way of avoid ing” pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases.

But she added, “We do teach other things, too,” such as birth control methods, since “we are aware that not everyone is going to be abstinent.”

Robert Ryan, director of the department’s Critical Health Initiatives unit, pointed out that the legislation ordering the department to make the film provided no money to distribute the finished product.

“The next time a special-interest group wants to do something like this, it would be wise if they would provide money for follow-through, too,” Ryan said. “I’m up against the wall with AIDS, drugs and everything else.”

The video in question features Kim Coles, an attractive young actress telling a group of high school students things like “it’s OK to wait,” “everybody’s not doing it,” and “wait until you’re married to have sex,” against a background of rock music.

Like a football coach, Coles diagrams “plays” on a blackboard that young women can use to resist overly zealous suitors.

Although there is a lot of talk about the “consequences” of sexual liaisons, the only consequences shown are a few scenes depicting the difficulties of a young couple trying to care for a baby.

Beverly Sheldon liked the film, which was made by Intermedia Inc., of Seattle.

“There are some things we would do differently but, all in all, it’s OK,” she said.

Rick Loya, executive secretary of the California Assn. of Health Educators, also approves of the video.

“It isn’t perfect but it’s better than a lot of things out there,” Loya said. “As part of an overall health education program, it certainly has its place.”

In 1987, Loya’s health educators organization and the Traditional Values Coalition persuaded Assemblywoman Teresa P. Hughes (D-Los Angeles) to introduce a bill calling on the Department of Education to make the sexual abstinence video.

Their motives were different.

“We thought abstinence should be the primary thing taught” in junior and senior high school health education and family life classes, Sheldon said. “But there was all this stuff about birth control methods and abstinence was being ignored. It wasn’t getting a fair shake.”

Loya agreed that “abstinence wasn’t being addressed” and this made life more difficult for health education teachers.

“We were getting pressure from the right--from the Traditional Values Coalition and others,” to do more to encourage students to abstain from sex, he said.

While Sheldon and Loya like the film, others were less generous in their comments.

Paras Mehta, a 16-year-old senior at Cerritos High School in Los Angeles County and the student member of the State Board of Education, said, “I have some concern whether it’s appropriate for high school, whether high school students would take the message seriously.”

Board member David T. Romero said: “The approach is not very strong. They sort of skip around AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases. If the message is going to be effective, it has to hit you right between the eyes.”

Romero also objected to a Latino couple shown in the film.

“They got people who had just recently arrived from Mexico or Latin America,” he said. “They weren’t typical of California Hispanic high school students.”

Thomas M. Bogetich, executive director to the state board, said several board members “didn’t think it was realistic or was something kids would relate to.”

Others argued that no organization--the Traditional Values Coalition, the health educators or anybody else--should be able to mandate specific parts of the curriculum.

“Any time the (political) pendulum swings, you’ll end up putting things in or taking things out,” said Daniel Chernow, chairman of the state Curriculum Commission.

For all these reasons, Department of Education officials decided to remove the department’s name from the video, an action that was roundly criticized by Beverly Sheldon.

“They should be held accountable,” she said. “If the department didn’t like the film, they shouldn’t have accepted it.”

Since the department is making only a half-hearted effort to distribute the video, Sheldon said, the Traditional Values Coalition will send copies to the more than 800 high schools around the state if they can raise about $5,000.

But Department of Education officials said that might not be legal, since the department owns the film’s copyright.

The result of all this, said a legislative aide who has followed the issue closely, is “a video has been made and now it’s about to disappear into a black hole in Vallejo. For $138,000, we expected a little more.”