Buying condoms.

“It’s incredibly nerve racking,” one Lawrence teen said. “You wonder if someone you know is going to walk in at the exact same moment you’re purchasing them at the counter, you wonder what your excuse will be if your parents find them, and you wonder if the clerk, who probably has kids your age, is silently judging you while ringing up that 12-pack of lubricated Trojans.”

The Lawrence school district offers human sexuality and AIDS education as a part of its curriculum. While some people believe that the district should make condoms available to students in the schools, others say that is a matter best handled elsewhere in the community.

The availability of condoms is often an issue for adolescents. It’s no secret that a number of retail stores and virtually all grocery stores, pharmacies and gasoline stations sell condoms. But how often are those resources really used by scared and confused teen-agers contemplating the idea of sex?

Educating teens about contraceptives, their use and availability is a controversial subject.

Some say condoms should be available to students in their school. Others think they don’t belong there because there are other places in the community that offer free condoms to the public.

“This is an academic setting,” said Cindy Murray, a nurse at Lawrence High School. “We are here to educate. It isn’t our responsibility to dispense or sell condoms to the students in the school.”

Limits on lessons

According to current policy, institutions in the Lawrence school district cannot sell, hand out, offer or make available condoms. Sex education is offered within the school, but the contraceptive tools being taught are not available from the educators, at least not in the setting of the school.

“They teach us the lesson,” LHS junior Karen Strauss said. “But they don’t give us the tools to ensure that we utilize the lesson being taught; that’s not being very efficient.”

But if condoms are offered, some ask what’s next?

“We don’t provide pap smears, do we? Or birth control or STD checks?” said Betty Currie, who teaches the LHS human sexuality class. “If we offer one tool, then what about the others?”

In the wake of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, sex education increasingly has become an important topic for young people. Schools are now expected to educate students about the risks of engaging in sexual activities and ways to prevent further spread of the disease.

The LHS human sexuality class clears up myths and misconceptions about sex and covers physical aspects of sexual activity, relationships and self-awareness.

“This class teaches you to be aware of what you want in relationships and what you want out of life,” Currie said.

A concern about sex education is that students are not being taught about the emotional effects of sex.

“I think they should discuss the psychological effects of sex,” Free State High School junior Alisha Axman said.

Creating uproars

Teaching youth about condoms is a large part of sex education. If used correctly, condoms are one of the more effective contraceptive tools and provide protection from most sexually transmitted diseases. Educating teens about how to properly use a condom often involves a demonstration. In some instances, condoms are handed out to students after that demonstration, creating an uproar.

“There is always controversy around sex education,” said Dennis Dailey, professor of social welfare at Kansas University. “There is always a group that doesn’t want kids to know about sex usually a religiously conservative group who doesn’t think that anything but abstinence should be taught.”

Dailey, who teaches classes about human sexuality at KU, speaks to the LHS human sexuality class every year and does other community presentations. He believes condoms should be available to students at their school.

“I think it’s the most rational thing one could think of,” Dailey said. “I can think of no better place to have condoms available than in high schools.”

But others say that providing condoms should be left to institutions outside of the school setting.

“I think that if people are using condoms, they should be responsible enough to buy them themselves,” Currie said. “There are condom bowls all over this city, and I don’t think it is the school’s responsibility to sell or dispense them.”

Reaching out, educating

There are many opportunities to learn about sex education outside the school. The Douglas County AIDS Project offers resources to educate people about safe sex. The organization offers free condoms in a number of places throughout Lawrence and gives presentations to various groups. It also sponsors a program called OUTREACH, which provides information about safe sex to people at local clubs and bars.

“People really love it,” OUTREACH specialist Jennifer Blackburn said. “Everyone is usually really appreciative.”

But would high school be a better place to reach a greater number of Lawrence youths?

“I’m all for educating people,” Murray said. “But we’re in a school, not a broom closet. And I’m preaching responsibility. If you need a condom, then use your resources.”

Sex education in schools, as of now, teaches about abstinence and how to properly protect oneself if the choice to engage in sexual activities is made.

“We teach both sides of the issue,” Supt. Randy Weseman said. “And we don’t take a side when educating about them because that is a personal choice. If we offer condoms, then it begins to look like we’re taking sides and that we are dismissing the option of abstinence. We’re not going to be in the business of supplying condoms any more than squirt guns.

“It’s an educational institution. We educate people, we give them the facts, and they make their own choices.”

Weseman believes that these kinds of choices should be made outside of school. He doesn’t think they are a function of the school.

“I’m not a prude about it,” he said. “But I have to take the side that it should be talked about in a different arena than school.”