If I’m being honest, nothing in the conversation about generative AI and education irritates me more than people comparing generative AI refusal and resistance to the failings of abstinence-only sex education. The logic is that abstinence-only sex education doesn’t prevent young people from having sex or reduce the harms associated with sex for young people. Young people are having sex, so we might as well teach them to have sex responsibly.Students are using generative AI, so we might as well teach them to use it responsibly. The comparison seems logical at first, but as Jennifer Sano-Franchini pointed out in a conversation about a draft of this blog, abstinence-only rhetoric is another form of inevitability rhetoric, as it “compares something recent, completely unnecessary, harmful on so many levels and pushed by corporations to something that has long existed, is a way that people connect with one another, and is necessary for the continuation of humanity.” What’s missing, too, in abstinence-only rhetoric is an accurate representation of generative AI refusal as an informed choice and a grounded conversation about sex education in the U.S. (View Highlight)
In order to explain fully why this argument bothers me so much, I need to talk a little bit about abstinence-only sex education. Abstinence-only sex education, also known as sexual risk avoidance education, suggests that sex should only take place within marriages in order to avoid teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections. Despite these stated aims, there is ample evidence that students who received comprehensive sexuality education (CSE)—a rights-based framework for understanding sexuality—were significantly less likely to report teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections than their peers who received abstinence-only sex education (Kohler, Manhart, and Lafferty, 2007). This sex education program has also been criticized for circulating inaccurate medical information, failing to prepare young people in particular to make healthy sexual and relationship decisions, and neglecting LGBTQ+ and questioning people, parenting and pregnant people, and survivors of sexual assault (Santelli et al., 2017). (View Highlight)
My beef with this analogy is also a little bit personal, rooted in my upbringing in southeast Arkansas and my experience of abstinence-only sex education in the early 2000s. As an eighth grader, I attended a grade-wide sex education assembly facilitated by the healthcare-worker parents of two classmates. I remember the sounds of my classmates’ laughter and disgust as we sat in the high school auditorium and looked at projected images of sexually transmitted infections. The message was loud and clear: avoid sex or this will happen to you. Sexually transmitted infections were stigmatized, associated with moral impurity and wrongdoing. There was nothing said about consent in relationships, only dark warnings about what could happen to girls if they drank too much around boys. If the facilitators provided any information about contraception, I don’t remember it. For all that was said about pregnancy as both an expected transformative adult experience and sexual consequence, the facilitators said nothing about abortion, except for brief asides about how life begins at conception. This one assembly was my only experience of formalized sex education as a young person. (View Highlight)
It probably comes as no surprise that sex education in southeast Arkansas in the early 2000s focused on abstinence and risk avoidance and framed sex in terms of cisheterosexuality and Christian gender values and norms. In the U.S., decisions about sex education are made at the state-level. That said, despite the inefficacy of abstinence-only sex education for preventing teen pregnancy or sexually transmitted infections, abstinence-only sex education receives $100 million dollars per year of federal funding and comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) is only required in the U.S. in 36 states and the District of Columbia. According to UNESCO, CSE “is a curriculum-based process of teaching and learning about the cognitive, emotional, physical and social aspects of sexuality” and “aims to equip children and young people with knowledge, skills, attitudes and values that empowers them to realize their health, well-being and dignity; develop respectful social and sexual relationships; consider how their choices affect their own well-being and that of others; and understand and ensure the protection of their rights throughout their lives.” As a sexuality education program that is inclusive of the experiences of LGBTQ+ and questioning people, parenting and pregnant people, and survivors of sexual assault, CSE empowers people with the information they need to make informed choices (including sexual abstinence and refusal) about their bodies and their boundaries and to respect the bodies and boundaries of others. (In other words, CSE is not just about teaching young people to have sex responsibly.) (View Highlight)
Back to the matter at hand: I take issue with comparisons of generative AI refusal and abstinence-only sex education because, at its core, abstinence-only sex education is about control and fear. As a young person, I experienced abstinence-only sex education as part of a larger context of puritanical culture that stigmatized sexuality, particularly the sexuality of young women and LGBTQ+ folks. I have seen firsthand how dangerous abstinence-only sex education is for young people who are denied the right to information about their bodies and sexualities, as well as access to resources that can protect them from harm. This approach to sexuality doesn’t position abstinence, or refusal, as an individual choice but as a moral mandate and a necessary safety precaution. In terms of policy, abstinence-only sex education “has become the basis for suppression of free speech in schools,” with especially harmful outcomes for LGBTQ+ and questioning students (Santelli, 2017). This political context matters when we talk about generative AI, especially as generative AI has been used by the U.S. federal government to advance the censorship of DEI. Does it seem fair to compare generative AI refusal to such a dangerous public health initiative? (View Highlight)
Moreover, abstinence-only sex education is not rooted in accurate medical and health information. While people often misconstrue generative AI refusal as an ignorant, avoidant, fear-driven position, generative AI refusal builds on accurate research about the various ethical harms associated with generative AI, as well as disciplinary principles in writing studies. Generative AI refusal is also often positioned as controlling and authoritarian. As we wrote in our Quickstart Guide, “refusal does not necessarily imply the implementation of prohibitive class policies that ban the use of generative AI among students.” Last year, I wrote that I’m not teaching students to use generative AI even though they’re already using it. I wrote, too, that (View Highlight)
We can’t control students, and much to my personal dismay, we can’t control the private companies selling harmful products to our students and institutions. What we can control is how we talk about this overhyped tech with our students, colleagues, and administrators. We can help students develop critical digital cultural literacies so that they better understand the world in which they work and live. We can push back on the encroachment of these technologies where and when we’re able. We can assert the importance of agency and choice, even when the odds are stacked against us. (View Highlight)
I’m not policing generative AI use in my classes because I don’t seek to control my students. I design my classes so that students learn a great deal about this technology (including its environmental and labor harms) and are prepared to make informed choices about technology (not just generative AI) in and beyond my classroom. AI abstinence is not my goal, although I am concerned about the compulsory adoption of this technology in classrooms, especially without sustained consideration about how this technology exploits student data and intersects with questions of human sexuality, like sexual harassment and deepfake cyberbullying, to name only a couple of emergent horrors. This is especially concerning at a time when CSE is not available to all students across the U.S. and when many students often turn to digital resources (likely including chatbots) for information about sex and relationships. (View Highlight)
How we talk about generative AI refusal matters. I think it’s wrong to compare generative AI refusal to an authoritarian, anti-science, anti-LGBTQ+, sexist framework for teaching young people about sex. To avoid the inevitability rhetoric problem, I wouldn’t compare generative AI refusal to comprehensive sexuality education or sex education broadly either, though there are some similarities in how CSE and generative AI refusal both value choice and consent. Likewise, I believe it is similarly inappropriate and offensive to compare generative AI refusal to drug abuse prevention education programs like Drug Abuse Resistance Education (also known as D.A.R.E). Refusal is just one choice a person might make in relation to generative AI, and it strikes me as deeply sexist and anti-feminist to misrepresent and stigmatize a position that emphasizes the importance of informed agency, choice, and consent. Beyond situated individual choices, however, we also need to understand the emergence of refusal as a response to the ongoing culture of compulsory adoption in higher education in which students and faculty have to push for the right to refuse. By paying attention to the various ethical harms and limitations of generative AI, generative AI refusal promotes informed choice and critical engagement with the technology. Hell, in spite of tons of marketing to the contrary, generative AI refusal suggests there is a choice at all. (View Highlight)
