Debate grows over teaching of abstinence

[question everything]

Debate grows over teaching of abstinence

By Dana Wilkie
COPLEY NEWS SERVICE

June 16, 2005

WASHINGTON – In public schools and after-school programs across the country, some children are being taught that saving sex until marriage can prevent emotional and health problems as well as poverty, substance abuse and suicide.

In addition to learning that romantic relationships can be sensitive and complicated, girls are told that they can lose a boy by offering too much advice, and that they can hang on to him by regarding him with amazement and "wonder."

Supporters say abstinence-only education – for which federal funding could see a dramatic increase under President Bush – is the most wholesome and effective way to teach kids about sex. To critics, such programs sometimes go too far by exaggerating the consequences of sex before marriage and by advocating gender stereotypes that suggest girls be subservient to boys.

leven of 13 federally funded abstinence programs commonly used by schools and community groups were found to have several errors, according to a survey by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles. "We were surprised by the different types of misinformation and errors, said Karen Lightfoot, spokeswoman for Waxman.

More..

Find this article at:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050616/news_1n16abstain.html

[Coexist]

1. unbelievable... how dare they.

how dare they do that to girls. How dare they undermine their self-worth and belittle their opinions, reducing them to "hanging on" to boys for happiness.

[JoMama49]

9. I read that article too -- i think ur reading it wrong......

I am a huge proponent of abstinence-only education, and I've taught my kids abstinence until marriage since they were old enough to understand. And, have you ever read any of John Gray's Mars and Venus books? He says the same thing about giving advice to men. I don't ever give my husband advice unless he specifically asks for it, but smart women know that -- just as smart guys know to listen to women without trying to fix their problems.

I think u guys are totally over-reacting to this article. I agree with them that saving sex as something special, avoids lots of problems, both physically and emotionally. Afterall, for us ghurls, no condom can protect your heart! Boys and Girls ARE different. Boys may be able to have casual sex without another thought -- but us gurls are hard-wired to start setting up housekeeping. So, again, I say, female modesty is what ensures male honor. We women have the power, and why we're not using it is beyond me.

I know I'm going to get flamed big time for my "radical" ideas, but I have been a mom for over 32 years, I have 6 kids and 2 grandkids, 5 of my kids are girls, so I have been there, and for my girls and boy, abstinence until marriage is what has kept my kids healthy and sane!!!
JoMama.

P.S. Oh, yes, and if one of my kids happened to be gay, I would say the exact same thing. I believe supportin gay marriage is an outpouring of family values. Children only benefit when they are raised by a committed, married couple, gay or straight.

[endarkenment]

10. 50% of marriages end in divorce

So 'saving it for marriage' is emotional nonsense. Is every divorced person wrecked? Are all the children of divorced parents unhealthy and insane?

Teaching kids to defer sexual activity until they are physically and emotionally ready for it is fine. Teaching kids that condoms won't protect them so they needn't bother is what 'abstinence education' is all about. It is taught almost invariably by religious nutcases with major axe grinding going on. Abstinence education uses misinformation and fear to scare young adults away from responsible sexual behavior. The predictable consequences are that many such kids do eventually engage in sexual activity, do not do so responsibly, and are more likely to have unwanted pregnancies and to catch STDs than their peers who have been taught about honest responsible sexual practices.

[Kraklen]

12. Condoms can save your girls' hearts.

And their vaginas, and their cervices, and their livers, and their psyches, and their lives.

Studies have shown over and over again that abstinence-only education is unmitigated bullshit. That the rates of premarital sex between students taught "abstinence only" and students taught decent sex education are identical, the difference being that "abstinence only" education students aren't taught how to protect themselves.

"Abstinence only" nuts like to go on about the failure rates of condoms, but they never mention the failure rates of abstinence-only education.

And I, for one, am sick of the sexist bullshit double standard that says men can enjoy casual sex but women can't.

Same goes for the bullshit idea that single parents can't raise kids properly.

[4_Legs_Good]

13. I don't think that you teaching your kids "abstenance until marriage" is

what the issue is here. The morals which a family holds are their own business, and of course you have every right in the world to encourage your kids to wait until their married to have sex.

The issue here is whether or not kids should have access to other forms of sex education/information - whether or not they should be taught about diseases, truth about pregnancy, sex, and contraception. I think the education is perfectly fine in the schools and no amount of explaining how to protect yourself / your partner *if* you do feel you are ready for sex will truly affect your moral decision to wait or not.

It's been 20 years since my "Life Prep." class, and I remember tons of the things that I learned in that class and practice some of them now in my married life. Learning the "facts of life" back in High School did not change in any way my moral issues about sex, it just made me more informed along the way.

It wasn't until I was married for a few years that I started to change my moral opinions of sex.

heh heh heh

david

[Iowa]

15. No flame from me, JoMama49...

I took a similar path personally. I waited until marriage and taught my kids to do the same. How I came to that conclusion isn't easy to reduce to a paragraph or two, and it isn't relevant to anyone else anyway - besides, who gives a rip what I think about it? But I will say this: It had absolutely nothing to do with all the moronic fundie bullshit driving much of this abstinence education nonsense. I truly despise those people and consider them a cancer on the country.

As for abstinence education in the schools, I'd prefer the schools stay the hell away from any such issues with my kids. Why? Because chances are very good they'll screw it up! The best way to undermine the education I provide on such issues is to have some knuckle-dragging, dickwad, fundie force himself/herself into the mix. And the public schools in my area are filling up with them.

As to raising girls: My oldest daughter was in a class when she was getting her masters (she's almost done with her PhD in psychology now). They were talking about this very subject and sharing personal experiences - many having to do with stereotypical girl roles and how that held them back from reaching their full potential. When it was my daughter's turn she told the class that her Dad raised her just like a son - that she was expected to be tough, confident, independent, self-reliant, critical thinker, take no bullshit, etc. A classmate in her 50s approached her after class and told her that her upbringing was unusual and a great gift. Bottom line: I was sickened by the news article above - where girls are taught to be manipulators by faking wonder and awe to keep a boy on the hook. That is f**ked up on so many levels I don't know where to begin. We've got to keep these fundies away from our kids!

[JoMama49]

16. i agree that a lot of abstinence only education programs are

taught by fundies who are sickos in my opinion too. But they are not the only ones teaching abstinence. Take a look at this website and you'll see what I mean: http://www.freeteens.org

This is a program run by a friend and colleague of mine (we write grants together), and believe me, he is not a fundie.
JoMama.

[Shallah Kali]

30. Free Teens is associated with Sun Myung Moon

Bad Moon on the rise
Overcoming his church's bizarre reputation and his own criminal record, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon has cemented ties with the Bush administration -- and gained government funding for his closest disciples.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/09/24/moon/print.html

[bicentennial_baby]

17. OMG...lol, are you for real?

"I don't ever give my husband advice unless he specifically asks for it, but smart women know that -- just as smart guys know to listen to women without trying to fix their problems."

What decade is this? :crazy:

"Boys may be able to have casual sex without another thought -- but us gurls are hard-wired to start setting up housekeeping."

Speak for yourself, sister... :eyes:

"Children only benefit when they are raised by a committed, married couple, gay or straight."

Yeah, slap all those awful single parents in the face, why dontcha?

[kath]

19. "Boys may be able to have casual sex without another thought -- but us

gurls are hard-wired to start setting up housekeeping."

Oh, PUH-LEEZE!! Plenty of women think casual sex is mucho fun! (or at least back in the days before HIV it was). Your statement sounds like something right out the 1950's. yeesh.

(I do agree that it's best for kids to wait til they're out of high school to have sex. But since time immemorial, teens have had sex, and they need to have *accurate* information in order to protect themselves from pregnancy and disease. The European countries provide teens with good, accurate info and easy access to contraception, and as a result their teen pregnancy rates are MUCH, much lower than ours.)

[Book Lover]

20. Simply incorrect

"Hard-wired for housekeeping"? Please, take whatever it is you're smoking and keep it. Since I don't act the way you say I have no choice but to do (since it's hard-wired and all), do I have to turn in my uterus or something?

[progressivebydesign]

23. I can't imagine telling a kid to wait for sex until they're married..

..considering most people marry in their late 20s. All of my girlfriends and I can't imagine marrying someone before you give him a test-drive, so to speak. Till death do us part would really be a drag if he was lame in bed. I think it's pretty unrealistic to expect people to wait 10 to 15 years after they are biologically geared up for sex...

Our advice to my stepdaughters has always been.. 1) no sex in high school. When you are out on your own don't ask yourself before you have sex with someone if you'd be willing to have their child, instead ask yourself if you'd like to share custody with that person for 18 years instead. That usually works.

[Shallah Kali]

26. "female modesty is what ensures male honor." ???????????????

Why is it up to women to protect poor delicate men from dishonoring themselves? Why are men unable to accept advice from a woman without shrinking his manliness? If women are hardwired to set up housekeeping why is my house a mess? Will there be gene therapy to correct this any time soon so that mopping will become a joyous thing? Why is honor located in one's genitals? Why should women use their powerful genitals to control men?

Sorry, I just happen to think men are bigger than that. Stereotypes like that have been very destructive not just to women. I grew up with parents who quietly and without fuss broke most of the rules the advice books give like letting the man handle the finances so he would not feel diminished as a man. It still comes as a shock to me to see people recite such nonsense.

[BrendaStarr]

29. John Gray is a fraud

Check this out about his past and his "education"

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/women_rebuttal_from_uranus/school.htm

I could tell from his bigoted books that he was a fraud.

[Avalux]

2. We are going backwards as a society -

"girls are told that they can lose a boy by offering too much advice, and that they can hang on to him by regarding him with amazement and wonder."

That sentence is particularly disturbing. In other words, keep your mouth shut honey, no one likes it when a girl speaks her mind. Don't you know boys are strong and you are weak? :puke:

[Trillo]

5. Why it goes even further...

"regarding him with amazement and wonder"

So, they're teaching girls to lie.

[Avalux]

8. Teaching them to be like Pickles -

take your medication and keep that permanent smile on your face. Never, ever criticize the idiot man you're with, pretend he's perfect. :crazy:

[NuttyFluffers]

32. yeah, that pissed me off too. sycophancy=love?

i usually read that as grotesque manipulation. what's wrong with honesty? a lot of failed relationships will come from this stupid recommendation.

disgraceful. filling kids with destructive nonsense. shameful.

[Solly Mack]

3. Anyone teaching their child this...

"...girls are told that they can lose a boy by offering too much advice, and that they can hang on to him by regarding him with amazement and "wonder." "


hates women.

[BOSSHOG]

4. The resourceful spawn of the religious right

are getting around their parents preachings to satisfy their natural lustful desires. They are having oral and anal sex thus declaring themselves virgins and practicing abstinence. Damn the sexually transmitted diseases. This is the outcome of believing stuff and knowing nothing.

[blm]

6. Those programs are also using the same programs established by RevMoon.

Marriage and children being part of serving the ORDERLINESS of society.

[Brooklyn Michael]

7. This message brought to you by...

...the next generation of "Promise Keepers".

Setting the clock back to the 1700's since 1990.

[4_Legs_Good]

11. You gotta love "wholesome" sex education!

[TroglodyteScholar]

14. Related story in General Discussion:Politics

Prof. to Present Research at HIV Conference

A professor from Southern Baptist affiliated Mercer University's School of Medicine shows that teaching more than just abstinance doesn't confuse or send "mixed signals" to our youth at all....

Something tells me this will anger a lot of fundies.

[Gelliebeans]

18. this is disgusting

telling our girls that she needs to dumb down so she can keep her boyfriend.
I just don't know where to begin. These neanderthal rules need to be chucked.
:puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke:

[Kool Kitty]

21. I wholeheartedly concur.

It's the brand new GOP-"Grand Old Patriarchy". :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: indeed!!!!!!

[deadparrot]

24. Absolutely.

These people should be ashamed.

[BlueIris]

27. "These neanderthal rules need to be chucked." Ew. And how.

Good. God. I don't know where to start either. So, I won't. Trying to explain to the insane people why this kind of sex non-education is ridiculous, ignorant, dangerous, sexist and WRONG is almost like dignifying the abstinence approach as a valid standard to apply to all. I'm all about people choosing to do what they want WRT sex, including not choosing to engage in sex if that's what they want, but my GOD. It's certainly not what all or a majority of people are choosing to do. Teaching that perspective in public schools--mixed in with a ton of sexist crap--is just fucked up. So to speak. And irresponsible. Ack. Enough.

[Gelliebeans]

28. you said it

where do you begin on this level? It is just jawdropping. :wow:

[Shallah Kali]

22. Abstinence education - Because Just Say No! ended all drug use in America!

:sarcasm:

Since the abstinence only crowd has gotten into power and show no sign of leaving those who support factual sex ed. need to demand that *both* are offered at schools. Parents can then choose what class to send their kids too. This will save some of the kids from the junk abstinence only education.

[progressivebydesign]

25. They had some wingnut abstinence guy come to my daughters school..

It was awful. What a joke!! Reasons for saying no to sex? "so you won't be compared to anyone else's partner" (say what?). How about "you won't be stealing from someone else's marriage" (totally lost on the kids). He told scary stories of girls (always girls) that had sex, got pregnant, lost her boyfriend, lost her friends, and her parents threw her out. Far be it from the school to teach the kids birth control so that wouldn't happen. Daughter tells me that the girls that made the pledge are all pretty much doing it now.

I don't think kids should be sexually active until they're at least out of high school. With the super sexualized messages aimed at kids as young as 12, it's all we can hope for. I don't agree with waiting till marriage... lots of things can be revealed ahead of time if you don't wait.

Sadly.. kids will keep having sex. The only hope is to educate them so if they insist on it, they'll be safe. And.. hope that they are getting some guidance at home.

[Mythsaje]

31. Understanding cause and effect

can keep kids from screwing up too badly. I don't suggest they wait until they're married, or even until they finish high school (I sure as hell didn't...I wouldn't suggest something that I wouldn't/didn't do myself), but they damn well should be taught what they're getting into.

Emotional health IS caught up in having sex, but one's emotional health can be harmed whether or not you are having sex, if one makes an emotional attachment inappropriately. "Puppy love" is almost always devestating to one or the other because kids haven't learned a sense of proportion, that early relationships aren't meant to last forever. Sometimes they do, but it's unreasonable to expect it.

I'm one of those males for whom sex is (usually) associated with emotional involvement. I've never just had sex for fun (though my first time was a no-strings-attached type affair that I believe did me no harm whatsoever).

The one thing they need to teach in schools and ISN'T being taught in many, is empathy--the ability to put oneself in another person's shoes. And, yes, I think this is related to the question at hand. Without empathy, one only gets involved in physical relationships for one's own pleasure...a sure recipe for disaster. By promoting empathy we move closer to a meaningful dialog between the sex, and between adults and teens about the risks and benefits of choosing to have sex.

In my opinion