Did you hear the one about the high school with the abstinence sex ed program? As a result of telling the kids to just say no to a real sex ed curriculum, one west Texan school just went viral (if you will) after experiencing a Terry Gilliam-style outbreak of chlamydia and fear.

Except there may not have been an “epidemic” at all, according to a report late Thursday. The number of kids with chlamydia at Crane High School (which has a population of 300) was originally disseminated as one in 15 students, for a total of 20, but may only be three cases, local medical officials say.

But the failure on the part of the abstinence program?

Well, that part hasn’t been distorted — at all.

The school teaches a three-day curriculum advocating kids don’t have sex. That is their complete and total solution to hormonal urges. School superintendent Jim Rumage himself reasoned, “If kids are not having any sexual activity, they can’t get this disease…That’s not a bad program.”

According to the CDC, about half of the 20 million sexually transmitted diseases that are spread every year affect people aged between 15 and 24.

One missing statistic? How many STDs are directly related to abstinence-preaching sex ed programs denying basic tenets of reality? Let’s get on that one, CDC.

“We do have an abstinence curriculum,” Rumage told KFOR-TV, “and that evidently ain’t working.”

It ain’t. And it won’t.

Here’s why: Abstinence is a non-starter in 2015. Outside of some religious extremes, the reality is an overwhelming number of teens are doing it — here, there and everywhere — and they have no plans to stop.

According to the Department of Health and Human Services, almost half of all high school students report that they have had sexual intercourse, and one in eight adolescent girls will become pregnant before turning 20.

The most recent CDC national Youth Risk Behavior Survey from 2013 indicates amongst U.S. high school students:

• 47% ever had sex

• 6% had sexual intercourse before turning 13

• 15% had sex with four or more persons total

• 41% did not use a condom during their last encounter

• 15% were never taught about AIDS or HIV infection

And high school is too late to start sex education, regardless of the approach. A 2014 CDC report shows 83% of teen girls don’t receive their first formal sex ed instruction until after they’ve already had sex. A 2011 CDC survey showed approximately 24% of new HIV diagnoses were young people age 13 to 24. Thirteen.

If you’re being taught abstinence only, and not until high school, 100% are being failed by the adults in their school systems.

How do I know? Because I went to one of those abstinence-encouraging schools as a teen, and I know what a disaster it can be.

Here is a list of things no one told me as a kid that I wish someone would have:

• None of the little stuff you spend so much of your time agonizing over will matter in the long run—so you might as well enjoy the journey.

• You will never say, “Man, am I glad I used drugs, drank alcohol or smoked cigarettes.”

• And perhaps most importantly, sex is an activity to enjoy when your body grows up — but also something you can never take back — so be sure to respect its power to positively or negatively impact the rest of your life.

See how easy that was?

Instead, like a chlamydia-infected Texas teen (disclaimer: I have never lived in Texas nor had chlamydia, but I was educated at a Catholic San Diego high school), I was taught that abstinence was the only answer. And you better not ask any questions, either, because, you know, Jesus. In courses like “Reverence for Life” (which could have been more accurately named “Don’t Go Slutting Around, Kiddos”) we were taught: “You better not have sex, or else.”

To a teenager, that translates as, “You know how everything that’s really fun adults tell you you can’t do — like staying up late or eating mounds of candy or skipping school? Clearly, ‘don’t have sex’ means ‘sex is a freakin’ blast.’”

TL;DR: I was having sex by age 15.

Instead of being able to look at how much we’ve progressed in the decades since I was in high school, this chlamydia-infected Texas poster child of a school symbolizes how glacier-slow academic change can be — particularly when it comes to sex ed. If you need proof, see Northwestern professor Alice Dreger who live-tweeted her son’s shame-based ninth grade sex ed class, which was cartoonish in its made-up stats on condom breakage and sexual scare tactics. She was banned as a result. Keep up that conversation, educators!

But perhaps the saddest part of this Texas incident is that new research is being largely ignored. Instead of preaching abstinence, sex ed programs that discuss gender balance in relationships have been shown to be far more effective at preventing STDs and pregnancy, according to a new study in International Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health.

“Fully 80% of them were associated with a significantly lower rate of STIs or unintended pregnancy,” study author Nicole Haberland writes of the 22 programs she studied from 1990 to 2012. “In contrast, among the programs that did not address gender or power, only 17% had such an association.”

Haberland told The Atlantic: “Why is it that Jane isn’t able to use a condom? It’s not because she doesn’t want to; it’s because she can’t say it. He has the car, the money, and he doesn’t want to, and she’s afraid he’s going to leave her. Helping kids identify the inequality in those power dynamics and how it affects all of us in our relationships.”

Compare this enlightened approach with the current sexual education witch hunt happening in Canada over Ontario’s proposed updated sex ed curriculum. Fear-mongering pamphlets are spreading lies that children will be taught to masturbate in class, along with advanced anal play. The reality, of course, is that children will be taught empowerment to prevent unwanted touch and knowledge about important sexual situations — rather than keep it all a big, seductive Pandora’s box of mystery held together with the sticky tape of “abstinence education.”

Scary too is the fact that abstinence educators such as Pam Stenzel tour the country and preach their dangerously misguided lessons. One of her best quotes? “If you have sex outside of monogamy…you will pay. No one has EVER had more than one partner and not paid.” She makes Coach Carr from Mean Girls (“Don’t have sex, because you will get pregnant and die!”) look like Masters and Johnson.

Only 13 states even have laws on the books that sex ed must be medically accurate, while 19 simply “require that instruction on the importance of engaging in sexual activity only within marriage be provided.”

As someone whose abstinence-based education failed her, let me speak for kids for a second: Kids are smart. They can distill code. And in the age of transparency in which we live, the quaint test tube idealism of abstinence-based sex ed comes about as close in sex prevention efficacy as giving a kid a big fat gift certificate to Frederick’s of Hollywood.

No teenager responds to “don’t.”

For the record, though, I actually think kids should wait as long as possible to have sex. But the same way that no one trumpets “temperance” as the gold standard anymore, we need to acknowledge that abstinence is an antiquated unrealistic ideal that sets kids up to fail. It could happily be retired along with dowries, chastity belts and scarlet letters.

If I could go back in time, I would deliver a speech to teenage me as a heartfelt alternative to the sex education I received. It would be an open-ended conversation that would attempt to respect my awareness, my intelligence, my curiosity and my desire for maturity and excitement. Here’s what I would say:

“Let’s be honest. You want to have sex, don’t you? You think it’ll make you grown-up probably?

“I get it. Everyone’s making it out to be this big thing you’re not supposed to do. But here’s the thing: Your forbidden desire to do what you’re ‘not supposed to do’ actually doesn’t make you special or interesting or daring or a rebel. It honestly makes you pretty predictable and boring and like everyone else. It makes you basic.

“Here’s another way to look at it: Successful people know about this concept called ‘delayed gratification.’ Like waiting to have sex until you really know yourself and your body and how to respect your power and beauty. Delayed gratification means you get to see long-lasting, long-term benefits versus a short-term reward that often negatively impacts the future.

“Let me guess. You’re probably driving yourself crazy with that exciting mantra of temptation: ‘I can’t do this bad thing; they’re telling me I can’t; they’re telling me I shouldn’t. So, wow, do I ever want to do it more than anything else.’ But guess what? You totally can. In fact, you can do whatever you want, whenever you want. Always. You make the choices. You have that power. You always have that free will, no matter what any adult tells you — absolutely.

“Of course you can do what people are telling you not to do. Any old dumb-dumb can. But think about how much power and self-respect you will have by not being a mindless slave to obsessive curiosity.

“Oh, and kiddo, if you’re going to have sex, if you decide that’s the right thing for you to do, let’s talk about condoms, birth control and everything else you need to know to stay safe, protected, smart and disease-free.”

The only message I would make sure not to include in my speech?

Abstinence.

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