Battling a ‘sex-saturated society’: The abstinence movement and the politics of sex education

Abstract

The abstinence movement in the USA, as a sector of the Christian Right, advocates abstinence before marriage and links abstinence to Evangelical Christian morality, sexual purity, and heterosexual marriage. A number of single-issue abstinence groups have formed over the past 10 to 15 years in the USA; their political success in advocating a ‘values-based’ response to sexuality and the current scope of abstinence education is unprecedented in US politics. With the election of President Obama, however, the movement faced the loss of the majority of its funding and powerful elite allies. Using in-depth interviews with directors of four groups that comprise the core of the movement, this article analyzes the movement’s agenda and strategies at this critical juncture in its history.