Canada's sex ed sucks? Try America's

The Toronto Star reports the results of a teen sex survey and finds that many kids still don't realize they can transfer germs through oral sex.

Teenagers ignorant about oral sex risk

Canadian teens know little about sexually transmitted infections and are participating in risky behaviour that could be hazardous to their health, an online survey of 14- to 17-year-olds has found.

About one in four sexually active teens didn't use protection against sexually transmitted infections and one in four also say oral sex is just like abstinence, according to the Canadian Association for Adolescent Health, a national non-profit organization that conducted the survey with the help of Ipsos-Reid.

Nearly one in five teens did not know that oral sex can lead to sexually transmitted infections, it also found.

The good news is that three out of four teens use condoms (or say they did), and that many are willing to turn to their parents for information. (If you're not, or you're a parent who has no idea where to start, try Scarleteen.)

I chuckled (but not in a ha-ha-funny) way when I read one expert's criticism of Canadian sex ed. But I appreciated this comment:

Parents can't act as a substitute for formal sex health education, he said, adding they themselves often don't have the information and knowledge around things like STIs.

I rarely see any American press acknowledge that teen sex is a medical concern, a health issue. We get so wrapped up in the moral judgments about when and whether and what teens should or shouldn't be doing that we don't stop to think that parents don't know everything.

Yes, parents can teach morals and provide guidance about decisions, behaviors, faith, and so on. But health professionals belong in the conversation too.

It's not going to hurt abstinent kids to learn about sexually-transmitted infections or methods of birth control, any more than it hurts me to have taken chemistry. I've never bothered with it since, but, should the right time come, I do know better than to turn the bunsen burner up too high or to mix chemical compounds without first researching what might happen.