Abstinance Only Education And Relation To Teen Pregnancy In Us

[Jesus_lol]

[quote name='ardillacid' timestamp='1322717266' post='2343095']

My problem is that when parents don't want their kids to be getting the sex ed that some politicians want them to get then they get punished. Not to mention that the logical conclusion of your 'parents are idiots' post is that the state ultimately decides what's best for kids, and you are going to play by their rules whether you like it or not. Is that really a good idea?
[/quote]


as i said before, i am pretty sure you have the option to opt out of the school's sex ed for your children. so, if that is the case, then what is the problem?

[Archaeology cat]

The sex-Ed scene in Mean Girls was only partly a parody of sex Ed in the US. I grew up in a very Baptist area, where the impression given was that sex is evil and dirty at all times, just a necessary evil within marriage. Of course we didn't buy that, so is it any wonder that it didn't work?

[MithLuin]

[quote name='Jesus_lol' timestamp='1322719410' post='2343099']
as i said before, i am pretty sure you have the option to opt out of the school's sex ed for your children. so, if that is the case, then what is the problem?
[/quote]

This depends a lot upon which school you are talking about.

And, realistically, you can't actually opt out. Sure, you can have your kid sent to the library during that class, but then what they get is the hearsay from all their classmates, which is (obviously) an even more questionable presentation of the material.

I think that parents have a responsibility to teach their kids the meaning of sex and what it's for. Parents who are too embarrassed or too busy to have these conversations will, of course, be leaving it up to their kids to figure it out on their own. Forget the sex ed class at school; now you're reduced to TV and what their peers are saying.

I think that knowledge is important. I can discuss the different types of birth control, how they work, some of the foibles associated with them, etc....and I'm a good Catholic with no intention of ever using any of them. And if you get a bunch of moms of young children together, you *will* be discussing this, so no point in being ignorant about it. Something like 99% of women in the US use artificial birth control of one kind or another, so...not doing so is very much countercultural.

But what is needed is a cultural revolution where people are taught the value of LOVING one another...and what that actually means. I think love is one of the most abused words in the English language, so that with Inigo Montoya, I'd say, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

And yes...supervision can prevent a lot of heartache. You watch your toddlers so they don't accidentally set the house on fire or fall out the 2nd story window. Nixing the opportunity for two teens to wind up behind a locked bedroom door is part of what it means to be a parent. Lead us not into temptation and all of that.

[Vincent Vega]

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' timestamp='1322701665' post='2342945']
What if someone objects morally and philosophically to a government mandated drinking age?
[/quote]
Then he should object to that unjust law and protest by doing the very thing from which he is unjustly forbidden.

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='USAirwaysIHS' timestamp='1322758698' post='2343203']
Then he should object to that unjust law and protest by doing the very thing from which he is unjustly forbidden.
[/quote]
[img]http://chzbronies.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/my-little-pony-friendship-is-magic-brony-im-ok-with-this.jpg[/img]

[Amppax]

[quote name='BG45' timestamp='1322708138' post='2343024']
I have a friend, we'll call her A., who has like 5 brothers and a dad. When she brought her fiancee home as a surprise, she was so excited to be engaged that she forgot it was gun cleaning night. I love her fiancee C to death, but he apparently turned white as a sheet at the sight of six future in laws with weapons.
[/quote]

It's a good thing that C's future in law's didn't love him to death that night.

Edited December 1, 2011 by Amppax

[Socrates]

[quote name='Ice_nine' timestamp='1322684376' post='2342824']
short answer: we need a whole cultural shift for abstinence only education to be effective. The hypersexualization of the West along with the banalization of sexuality has become so deeply embedded that telling kids at school not to have sex is not gonna cut it.

Sometimes people will ask "well I know you don't want kids having sex, but if they DO don't you want them to be as safe as possible?" And my answer to that is I don't want people being objectified whether they consent to being used or not. It's unhealthy for the individual and society. I also don't think throwing a condom on = safe sex. In fact now they're calling it "safer sex" because they concede a condom can't even protect you from everything physically, much less psychologically/emotionally.

To me the question is like asking "well we know you don't want people driving drunk, but if they DO wouldn't you rather them wear a seatbelt?" I get where you're coming from stevil but I think you have such an opposing viewpoint that I don't know how much fruitful discussion can happen here.

Typically Catholics advocate self-control, which is laughed at in an instant-gratification society.
[/quote]
Good response.

Where media, peers, and society-at-large are constantly bombarding kids 24-7 with a message of hedonism and and that sex-sex-sex! is the be-all and end-all of everything, and that if you aren't busy fornicating, it means you're either a loser or gay, one school class saying "don't do it," isn't likely to have that much of an impact.

Strong, healthy families and community where there is strong Faith and sense of morality can and does have an impact.

Personally, I think all classroom "sex ed" tends to be at best a waste of time and taxpayer dollars.

(And it should also be remembered that as Catholics, we don't regard the primary reason for chastity/abstinence before marriage to be avoidance of pregnancy.)

[quote name='Jesus_lol' timestamp='1322698919' post='2342932']
Well as soon as it starts working, let us know.
[/quote]
[quote name='Jesus_lol' timestamp='1322699128' post='2342934']

Abstinence never fails. But teaching it sure seems to fail pretty hard.


which is probably why, in machine shops they put guards over things instead of just saying, dont put your hand near there.
[/quote]
Where I work, quite a bit of time and effort is spent teaching safe practices.


Before the Pill and the sexual revolution of the '60s, there was not mandatory sex ed in most schools, nor any massive campaign to make rubbers and contraceptives available to kids everywhere, yet rates of teen pregnancy were much lower than they are today.
The difference was that society was not quite so hyper-sexualized, and more people, and society in general tended to believe in and reinforce "traditional" Christian morality.

And, no, I'm not claiming that that period in history was a perfect utopia without sin, simply that belief in Christian sexual morality and mores is far more effective than bombarding kids with condoms and instruction in their use. The easy availability of contraceptives in our society was followed by a massive increase in fornication, STDs, and abortions.


To use an example closer to home, neither myself, nor the community of conservative Catholic families I grew up with had any kind of formal classroom sex-ed, yet among this group, teen were (and are) extremely rare, and STDs unheard of. This is in contrast to the local public schools, where teen pregnancy is rampant.

There was likewise very little extra-marital pregnancy in the orthodox Catholic college I attended, where sexual morality was generally taken seriously by both students and administration.

I'm sure posting this will draw mockery from some, but the fact remains that when virtue and morality are taught and taken seriously, it does have an effect on behavior, and is more effective at reducing teen pregnancy and STDs than promoting condoms and contraceptives (whose use hardly requires a classroom course anyway).

[Socrates]

[quote name='ardillacid' timestamp='1322702115' post='2342946']
I don't understand why it is the government's job to teach kids about sex, and not the parents'.
[/quote]
Didn't you know that one of the main jobs of government is to ensure responsibility-free sexual hedonism for the citizenry?

Kids need to be given condoms and instructed in their use so they will be able to fornicate with promiscuous abandon without getting pregnant. Then, in the event that the rubber breaks, fails, or is forgotten, the state needs to ensure easy access to subsidized abortions, so they won't be punished with a baby. And if heterosexual intercourse ain't your thing, the state must give legal benefits to "gay marriage" so you won't feel left out.

[stevil]

[quote name='arfink' timestamp='1322701172' post='2342943']
So perhaps we might consider a compromise for the public square: sex is OK, but you can't actually buy any condoms until you're 18/21/45/whatever, and you'll get busted/fined if you provide them to minors. That way all parties involved will be disgruntled and unhappy. Huzzah for compromise!
[/quote]
Hmmm, this seems like a faulty analogy.

Condoms are not like alcohol. Alcohol is what get a person drunk, sperm is what gets a girl pregnant (not condoms). You could try to outlaw sperm but that would be difficult given that most males naturally have the ability to produce the stuff. If you believe there is a god and that god designed the human body and if you believe that humans shouldn't have children until marriage then this ability to produce sperm outside of marriage seems like a serious design flaw. Maybe the designer wasn't think ahead during creation?

Anyway, the problem is not condoms, it is sperm and getting that into a woman, whereby she can get pregnant. But if this were the problem, then why is the Catholic church against masturbation or gay sex, or oral sex. It just doesn't make any sense.

Sex education is a means to inform people. Inform them of options and to inform them about the success and risk inherent on those options.
If you teach a person that condoms can fail, that a certain percentage of the time pregnancies can happen, don't you think this would be good information for adolescent children going through the confusing time in their life where they are becoming sexually attracted to the opposite sex.

[CatherineM]

We had really good sex education in Catholic school starting in 5th grade. The nuns wanted to make sure we all knew exactly what it was that we were supposed to be doing.

[stevil]

[quote name='Socrates' timestamp='1322764788' post='2343227']
Didn't you know that one of the main jobs of government is to ensure responsibility-free sexual hedonism for the citizenry?
[/quote]
Sex education does not need to be in schools, possibly they could allow parents to opt their children out of those classes.
But the problem is that the Catholic church also wants parents to teach abstinence only.

[stevil]

[quote name='Socrates' timestamp='1322764788' post='2343227']
And if heterosexual intercourse ain't your thing, the state must give legal benefits to "gay marriage" so you won't feel left out.
[/quote]
It is not necessarily about allowing gay people to not feel like being left out. The problem here is that government is infringing on peoples rights unnecessarily.
Putting restrictive laws on gay people is just wrong and needs to be reversed.

[beatitude]

My boarding school brought in two nurses from a local health clinic to deliver the sex education curriculum to my year group. I was fourteen at the time. (They might have taught classes at an earlier stage too - as I only joined this school at thirteen, I don't know.) I have a Protestant dad (Church of England) and a Catholic mum, but at this stage in my life neither of them was really practising. I knew very little of Catholic theology and even less of Catholic ethics - most of what I knew I had picked up from the Religious Studies textbook, [i]Contemporary Moral Issues[/i]. This was written from a neutral perspective, presenting different views side by side, and while it was quite informative it didn't really bring the Catholic ethical worldview to life for me. If you asked me what I thought of contraception and premarital sex at this point, I wouldn't have had a problem with either.

But in the sex ed. class I began to feel very uncomfortable with what we were being taught. On a practical level it was very thorough. We learned about the human body, different types of birth control (advantages and disadvantages of each type - the risks were mentioned), access to abortion, how to say no to sex if someone is pressuring you, where to get more advice, and so on. Not all of it was bad, but I came out of the class feeling as though something had been very wrong somewhere. I just couldn't put my finger on what. Now, as a faithful Catholic, I can identify what was missing.

There was no real talk of relationships.

It was all about the practicalities of sex. If you want to sleep with someone (and you really want it, you're not being pressured) then here is what you do: go to the nurse's office and choose from an array of contraceptives. They didn't speak about love, or trust, or friendship, or vulnerability, or infatuation, or any of the other things I would want to mention to teenagers whom I was teaching about sex. I'm not a prude. I think it's a good thing for teenagers to be able to discuss desire with trusted adults - this is the age when those feelings really start to hit. Attraction and desire are a part of being human, and they're to be approached in a positive way. But my class didn't get the opportunity for that. It was all about condoms and whether or not to go on the Pill.

I've never formally taught sex ed myself (although I've given guidance to teenagers who have come to me for advice) and while I have always counselled abstinence until marriage, I've tried to ground that teaching in an appreciation for human relationships at their best and the dignity of the body. Abstinence education is worthless unless it includes this. It often doesn't. Then again, neither does much education on birth control.

[Socrates]

[quote name='stevil' timestamp='1322767484' post='2343257']
Sex education does not need to be in schools, possibly they could allow parents to opt their children out of those classes.
But the problem is that the Catholic church also wants parents to teach abstinence only.
[/quote]
Of course, I don't see that as a problem. Nor do I see why the Church must change Her teaching to fit what atheists want.


"Abstinence only" education by parents "worked" quite well for most of the devout Catholic families I've known (including my own) - much better in fact than for the sex ed-teaching public school kids with their high teen pregnancy rates.



[quote name='stevil' timestamp='1322767613' post='2343259']
It is not necessarily about allowing gay people to not feel like being left out. The problem here is that government is infringing on peoples rights unnecessarily.
Putting restrictive laws on gay people is just wrong and needs to be reversed.
[/quote]
Special legal benefits not given to single adults are [b]not[/b] rights. The state doesn't owe people anything special on account of them sodomizing one another. But this is already beating a dead horse.

[BG45]

[quote name='Amppax' timestamp='1322763976' post='2343223']

It's a good thing that C's future in law's didn't love him to death that night.
[/quote]
Very good, would've ruined the whole wedding in January.

They do love him though. It was just a very interesting first time meeting them (both of my friends lived away from A's home state at the time, so never met the family before!).