Bad Sex vs. No Sex: The Rhetoric of Heteronormative Temporality in Utah’s Abstinence-Based Education
by Nina Feng | Xchanges 16.1, Spring 2021
Junior High (JH) and High School (HS) Resource Guides: Heteronormativity vs. “Bad Sex”
As discussed previously, repetition and collocation are the lexical tools I use to prove coherence of the two motifs of 1) heteronormative temporality and 2) the negative depiction of sex throughout the junior high and high school resource guides. The first motif that becomes apparent is heteronormative temporality. Each resource guide begins with:
“A resource guide for parents and teachers on teaching human sexuality:
To prepare students for lives as responsible adults and for their potential role as parents.
To enhance the ability of students to be productive, effective, communicating members of their present and future families.
To foster the knowledge, values, attitudes, and skills that build and nurture healthy relationships” (USOE JH 1)
Not only are the parameters established for heteronormativity in the presentation, but the materials immediately define the same scope for the resource guides. The bolded words in the excerpt highlight the beginning of a heteronormative temporal motif with implications of the future, such as “prepare” and “potential.” Paired with these markers of future time are heteronormative lexical items such as “family,” “responsible adults” and “healthy relationships.” Since teachers are restricted from advocating for “homosexuality,” we understand these to be heterosexual families and heterosexual relationships.
The following chart maps out the continued thread of heteronormative temporality:
| Number of repetitions | Examples of collocation and repetition |
|---|---|
| Abstinence, abstain JH: 27 / HS: 23 |
Identify the benefits of premarital sexual abstinence (21) Stress the importance of respect, responsibility, caring, trust, honesty, and abstinence (31) |
| Decision-making, decisions JH: 84 / HS: 102 |
The consequences of their decisions affect the rest of their lives. (25) What decisions protect my future? (viii) |
| Development, develop JH: 90 / HS: 76 |
Developing values concerning sexuality is a lifetime process (21) Develop and apply decision-making and refusal skills. (29) |
| Family, families JH: 69 / HS: 90 |
Emphasize for students the importance of strong family relationships (1) Discuss how fidelity builds trust and strengthens family and other relationships (24) |
| Goals JH: 20 / HS: 53 |
The goal of this guide is to promote abstinence (viii) May cause individuals to be diverted from their hopes, commitments, and goals for the future (49) |
| Long-term JH: 11 / HS: 15 |
Do I sacrifice immediate pleasure for long-term benefits? (ix) long-term benefits of strong families and fidelity. (21) |
| Marry, marriage, married JH: 36 / HS: 67 |
Abstain from sexual intercourse until they are ready to establish a mutually monogamous relationship within the context of marriage. (x) |
| Parents, parent, parenting, parenthood JH: 42 / HS: 154 |
Prepare students for life as responsible adults and for their potential role as parents (1) |
| Relationship JH: 50 / HS: 56 |
Foster in students the knowledge, values, attitudes, and skills that build and nurture healthy relationships. (vii) |
| Responsible JH: 41 / HS: 71 |
The purpose of this guide is to develop within students responsible sexual behavior both in the context of abstinence before marriage and fidelity after marriage. (8) |
The bolded words show themes of family, abstinence, and the future. “What decisions protect my future?” encapsulates the main message of both junior high and high school resource guides. The number of times each word appears in the document is noted in the “Number of Repetitions” column; the repetition and collocation of these words construct heteronormative temporal spaces which are aligned with positive evaluative words. “Mature and marry” operate as a parallel for “healthy relationship,” making mature marriage synonymous with health. Another sentence emphasizes abstinence: “Identify the benefits of premarital sexual abstinence.” “Benefits” is paired with “abstinence”—positively connoted words accompany the themes of abstinence and marriage throughout. Male and female, woman and man, girl and boy, are the only gender categories presented, reinforcing the heteronormative gender binary in the texts. We also begin to see the binary of adolescence versus adulthood: adolescents are framed as lacking the wisdom to navigate decisions that belong in the future. When not related to the concepts of abstinence, family, marriage, or heterosexuality, sexual violence and negative effects are emphasized, which is the second motif that appears.
| Repetition of words | Examples of collocation |
|---|---|
| Abuse JH: 74 / HS: 77 |
Students should understand that any touching, sexual activity, or experience that makes them feel confused, threatened, scared, or uncomfortable should be discussed with or reported to someone they can trust to help. (43) |
| Children JH: 31 / HS: 52 |
Children under the age of 6 months have been objects of rape (32) |
| Consequences JH: 16 / HS: 17 |
Discuss the consequences that may occur when adolescents are sexually intimate before marriage: premature demands, loss of self-esteem, social isolation, interrupted educational opportunities, STDs, pregnancy (HS 3) |
| Disease JH: 15 / HS: 18 |
These advantages [abstinence] include: Preventing sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV infection (AIDS). (21) |
| Homosexual JH: 10 / HS: 12 |
The following may not be taught: the advocacy of homosexuality. (xi) |
| Influence JH: 13 / HS: 10 |
Adolescents from environments with negative family influences sometimes choose sexual activity to meet their needs without considering long-term consequences (12). |
| Pornography JH: 11 / HS: 18 |
May be linked to sex crimes, sexual abuse, and anti-social behavior. (49) |
| Pregnancy JH: 38 / HS: 34 |
Most teens are not psychologically prepared for pregnancy or parenthood. (41) |
| Rape JH: 43 / HS: 59 |
Rape is an act of violence and generally has little to do with sexual desire. (47) |
Though characteristics of rape and sexual abuse are important to discuss with students, collocation in the above table shows us that much of the sex education language surrounding the concept of sex is negative: “Discuss the consequences that may occur when adolescents are sexually intimate before marriage.” “Consequence” carries a much different connotation than “result” or “effect”; it has the weight of irresponsibility attached. Throughout the documents, sex is at times paired with abstinence and in a few sentences, paired with marriage. In the heteronormative motif, sex is associated with positive evaluative words, depicted as an absence in the present. When sex is not paired with marriage or abstinence, it is either defined as an act without agency, such as rape or harassment, or as adolescent premarital sex, and paired with consequences: “Recognize the impact teen pregnancies have on quality of life, incidence of child abuse, and changes of lifestyle” (USOE JH 41). Sex as act and effects is prominently displayed as negative, opposing the sexless domain of heteronormative temporality.
The resource guides also highlight the impossibility of being a teen parent, showing that they do not fit in heteronormative temporality: “Teenage women have a high probability of raising children alone—they often do not marry at all” (USOE JH 42). Teenage mothers may not be able to access marriage; they have been displaced from the traditional heterosexual time frame of marrying after adolescence and having children after marriage. Many middle-class ideals are presented in the documents, such as the assumption that these adolescents do not have STIs, HIV, or children. In the sex education documents, heteronormative temporality is built on “middle-class logic,” as Halberstam discusses, defining its realm in opposition to a realm of adolescent sex and working-class teen parents. A clear binary is established through the lexical cohesion of heteronormative temporality versus sex. Middle-class logic furthers the rhetoric of heteronormativity, which queer linguistics and CDA tools help reveal as the perceived “moral” side of the binary, opposed to the apparently depraved realm of sex outside marriage, erasing everything external to this dichotomy.