The way we're teaching sex education these days, our children will likely be bigger freaks than we are.

I should know. I'm from Federal Way, the Al Gore-denying, Seattle suburb extraordinaire that is now home to the curriculum of SHARE (Sexuality, Health and Relationship Education), a part of the Christian organization Life Choices, which offers pregnant women alternatives to abortion.

According to a recent Seattle Weekly article, which chronicled the rise of abstinence-only education among Western Washington school districts — specifically in Federal Way — the concepts SHARE teaches include information "that the failure rate for condoms is higher than usually believed; that men get aroused by French kissing while women don't get aroused until the petting stage; and that women who engage in French kissing may leave themselves vulnerable to date rape."

Additionally, the instructor highlighted in the article was infamously quoted as telling the story of a Kent classroom of boys who all raised their hands when she asked them, "How many of you want to marry virgins?"

I checked the date on the Seattle Weekly and blinked. The date read Jan. 17, 2007. I was hoping I was off by 50 years.

While the Seattle school district relies on what many (including myself in the mid-1990s) have experienced as F.L.A.S.H. (Family Life and Sexual Health) curriculum for its sex education units, the suburbs of Western Washington are increasingly hearing a different story.

Though Seattle's F.L.A.S.H. curriculum explores the idea of abstinence, it does not preach the ethos as the way, the truth and the life.

Thirty minutes on I-5 South, however, brings high school students into classrooms with plaster posters stating "Sex with one partner can still be group sex" on the wall and proclaim second base as essentially "going all the way."

Call me crazy, but when the government began to institute sex education in public schools in the mid-1960s, they were trying to dispel myths about sex — not create more.

According to a survey cited by the Seattle Weekly and commissioned by the Washington State Superintendent's Office, "20 percent of 200 schools that responded from 125 districts statewide teach an 'abstinence-only' curriculum that offers no information about contraception. Within the 20 percent, the majority of schools instruct students to remain abstinent not just until they're older, but until marriage."

What troubles me about the misinformation being distributed in my hometown and across the state is not necessarily that it comes with a religious spin or an implied value system. Sex and religion have always been closely, if not inextricably, tied in society and it is unlikely that this will end in the near future. Even children who attend sex education classes that offer a diverse curriculum will likely receive a moral spin on sex from their parents or guardians.

What troubles me is the incredible mixed messages we are sending children regarding sex. Negotiating adolescence and early sexual experience is difficult enough. It is more difficult, however, if we all speak a different language. Indeed, how can two young individuals even have a healthy relationship if neither knows exactly what the facts are or what facts are true for which individual — the child educated in the suburbs or the one in the city?

In the 1950s, Alfred Kinsey sought to demystify sexual experience for Americans with his famous "Kinsey Reports" because he thought the "widespread ignorance of sexual structure and physiology" was psychologically harmful.

It seems that more than 50 years later, however, we are experiencing a backslide. And I must agree with Kinsey that, by promoting sexual ignorance and confusion, we are committing more harm than good.

Reach columnist Maureen Trantham at opinion@thedaily.washington.edu.