MEDIA FILES, Aug. 6 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A new documentary, “The Truth About Sex,” which uses fear to motivate teens to avoid sexual promiscuity is receiving mixed reviews. Arnold Shapiro, the producer of the film, “won an Emmy for his famous 1978 documentary “Scared Straight,” which showed teens the horrors of prison life in an attempt to scare them out of a life of crime,” reported Conservative News Service last week. Using the kind of confrontational tactics found in “Scared Straight”, “the film’s scenes include … interviews with teens and their parents on sex at the high school prom, and a group of sexually-active teens who visit a microbiology lab to see the effects of various STDs, and later talk to a counselor who turns out to be HIV-positive,” reports CNS.
The film does not lecture the children or attempt to make a decision for them, explained Mr. Shapiro to CNS, it simply teaches the message that actions have consequences. It is this lack of ethical discussion that has some critical of the film; others don’t like the use of fear, arguing that a teenager’s greatest need is love. “The greatest desire a teenager has is to love and be loved, and that desire – and the notion that they can gain that love through sex – is often greater than their fear of death,” abstinence educator, Mary Beth Bonacci of Real Love Productions told CNS.