While health care continues to crowd the political scene with what has become a grand royal rumble among legislators and media, one bit of legislation managed to sneak past the radar of Democrats several weeks ago and may soon be showing up in middle schools and high schools all over the U.S.

As a result, abstinence-only education may be returning to schools with $50 million worth of funding in pocket, despite the promises for pregnancy-reduction programs made by the Obama administration. So for President Obama and his administration, this may mean one giant leap for health-care affordability and yet another step nowhere for the preventative health measures that arise from progressive sex-education programs.

And the effects of abstinence-only education about sex do not stop at high school. Rather, this harebrained, conservative approach to sex also sets the stage for the type of conversation and the degree of openness about sex down the road, causing this dynamic to carry over into higher education institutes.

As a result, that same open discussion of sex is limited and even absent at most colleges. Even on an individual level, many students feel more awkward than comfortable with the idea of public dialogue about sex, tending to limit their provocative chats to the privacy of their own homes and friends.

Unfortunately, Emory serves as a fine example of this dilemma. Student publications and student groups at Emory rarely engage in the topic of sex beyond its more general boundaries; most of the dialogue occurring concerns topics like gender or sexual orientation.

But this more politically-correct and academic approach to sex may be cheating Emory students of the practical advice and interesting appeal that more explicit conversations would deliver.

According to Terry Parker, who teaches human sexuality at Emory, students and adults are often unaware of information related to sex and many are afraid to ask questions that concern their own sexuality, mostly because of the taboo attached and the awkward tone that it sets for the subject.

“Even many adults know their sexuality by myths and wives’ tales, and that is something totally wrong,” Parker said.

However, some U.S. colleges are now working to make sex a more table-topic worthy and accessible conversation piece. Student-run sex magazines have already been introduced at Rice University in Houston and Columbia University in New York.

Open Magazine, Rice’s new sex publication, also hosts a “sex-trivia pub night,” which rewards students who have more knowledge about sex. Students at Open Magazine hope that this sex-geared trivia and magazine will make students feel more comfortable talking about their sexuality.

Though efforts like these do represent important strides in building sexual tolerance, the real cure to America’s sex problem is a bottom-up approach in which pregnancy-reduction education begins in middle schools and continues onward.

“The United States is backwards, especially when compared to progressive European countries,” Parker said. “There is a misdirected fear here that talking to kids about sex puts ideas in their heads, but that is just not true.”

But if student conversation about sex does not turn us all into lustful degenerates with a knack for provocative and dangerous sexual episodes, then what good does it do?

According to Parker and many other experts, better education and open dialogue can help reduce sexual risk behaviors and the number of STD/HIV infections and pregnancies that result.

Nonetheless, arguments that extend from this research are catching little legislative traction in congress, causing ideology to continue to dictate sex education in many schools. Abstinence-only education is especially well-concentrated in the southern region of the U.S., where abstinence-based approaches are flourishing.

“Texas’ adolescents lead the nation in many if not most of the negative outcomes related to sexual behaviors,” Parker explained. “And Texas is the very place where the abstinence-until-marriage approach to sexual education originated.”

However, the social stigma that persists in attaching itself to sex will make these social problems difficult to overcome, as recognition of the red-hot elephant in the room continues to be individually uncomfortable and institutionally difficult.

And though current legislation seems to confirm this pessimistic outlook for changes in attitudes and policies in states like Texas, new mediums for sex in colleges like Rice and Columbia may actually be a positive sign of things to come.

Tammie Smith is a College senior from Atlanta.