"The Southern way of treating it is like a disease, like sex is something that once you catch it, you know, you're just going to be carrying it around."

Sex-ed reformers are calling to ditch the archaic purity-culture-fueled, abstinence-only sex ed with comprehensive sex ed in its stead: a curriculum that includes lessons on healthy relationships, abortion, contraceptives, communication, pleasure, queer sex, and everything else you may need to know if you're a sexual being with a body.

The data show that this more realistic approach works where it's been implemented.

In 2013, a study based on the National Survey of Family Growth found that teens who received comprehensive sexuality education were actually 50% less likely to report a pregnancy than those who received abstinence-only education.

They're also more likely to delay their first sexual encounters and to have fewer sexual partners when they do. 

So why isn't comprehensive sex ed the norm? You can blame traditional attitudes about sex that linger in our collective consciousness today, the influence of religion on public education, and Southern expectations of gender.