Sex ed--abstinence only doesn't work as well

[Bob S.]

According to an MSNBC (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23782717/) story, it seems as if the just-say-no-to-sex abstinence-only crowd is wrong on how to teach children about sex-ed.

Bob S.

Comprehensive sex ed may cut teen birth rate

Study: Birth control education helps reduce pregnancies in high school kids


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NEW YORK - Comprehensive sex education that includes discussion of birth control may help reduce teen pregnancies, while abstinence-only programs seem to fall short, the results of a U.S. survey suggest.
Using data from a 2002 national survey, researchers found that among more than 1,700 unmarried, heterosexual teens between 15 and 19 years old, those who'd received comprehensive sex ed in school were 60 percent less likely to have been pregnant or gotten someone pregnant than teens who'd had no formal sex education.
Meanwhile, there was no clear benefit from abstinence-only education in preventing pregnancy or delaying sexual intercourse, the researchers report in the Journal of Adolescent Health.
The study found that teens who'd been through abstinence-only programs were less likely than those who'd received no sex ed to have been pregnant. However, the difference was not significant in statistical terms, which means the finding could have been due to chance.
In addition, there was no evidence that comprehensive sex education increased the likelihood of teen sex or boosted rates of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) — a concern of people who oppose teaching birth control in schools.
While comprehensive sex ed did not clearly reduce the STD risk, there was a modest, but statistically insignificant reduced risk of engaging in sex. The abstinence-only approach had no effect on either factor, the researchers found.
"The bottom line is that there is strong evidence that comprehensive sex education is more effective than abstinence-only education at preventing teen pregnancies," said lead researcher Pamela K. Kohler, of the Center for AIDS and STD at the University of Washington in Seattle.
She told Reuters Health the study "also solidly debunks the myth that teens who learn about birth control are more likely to have sex."
Currently, the federal government champions the abstinence-only approach, giving around $170 million each year to states and community groups to teach kids to say no to sex. This funding precludes mention of birth control and condoms, unless it is to emphasize their failure rates.
Critics have long pointed out that studies have failed to show that abstinence-only education delays sex or lowers rates of teen pregnancy.

[nacktman]

...it seems as if the just-say-no-to-sex abstinence-only crowd is wrong on how to teach children about sex-ed.

Now, Bob you know better than that.shocked;):eek:
The abstinence only crowd is never wrong!:sneaky::laugh::rolleyes:

:rofl:

[jon71]

There has been many reports confirming these truths although this one seems to be the largest and most comprehensive.

[Fitz1980]

This is absolutely no surprise to me. I grew up in Kennesaw, GA; right in the heart of the bible belt. Many of the girls who were the biggest "sluts" did tend to be the ones with the most religious conservative upbringings. They would give oral and have anal with anyone like it was nothing in order to preserve their virginity, because of course God is really a lawyer who would let all of that sinful lust pass because they found a loophole in his divine law.

Of course all of that changed when they had a few beers and got really horny. Having no knowledge about condoms or safe sex they had unprotected sex and often get pregnant. The guys were just as much to blame, as they had plenty to loose, were trying to get laid and didn't bring one along.

On the other hand the children of the
"evil/hippy/liberals" were the ones where the boys' parents gave them a condom to carry around in their wallets, just in case; and the girls could go to Mom and say they wanted to see the gynecologist and get on birth control because they were getting closer and closer to their boyfriend and mom would take them.

I was once in a debate with someone about the merits of abstinence only sex-education when I pulled up some research and nailed the opposing person. I took the grades that Planned Parenthood gives to states on sex-education and cross referenced it with statistics on unwed teenage mothers. Turns out that most of the lowest scores by Planned Parenthood were in the same states with the highest numbers of unwed teenage mothers. The one exception was California, which does have very liberal sex-ed programs but also many illegal immigrants from Mexico who can't attend the schools where the programs are taught and come from a very Catholic backgrounds where it's believed that condoms and birth control pills are a sin.

[JeepNude]

It is easy to take jabs at the abstinence crowd as a whole, but I have to tell you it does work. I waited until my wedding night and was abstinent until then. My family is ultra conservative, I mean ULTRA.

However, I was raised nude. Bodily desires were explained to my satisfaction before I got into trouble. THAT is the 'right' way to handle it in my opinion.

[KirkOntario]

It is easy to take jabs at the abstinence crowd as a whole, but I have to tell you it does work. I waited until my wedding night and was abstinent until then. My family is ultra conservative, I mean ULTRA.

However, I was raised nude. Bodily desires were explained to my satisfaction before I got into trouble. THAT is the 'right' way to handle it in my opinion.

Congratulations for waiting. The problem with 'abstinence only' education is that is was a complete reaction to the 'if it feels good do it' liberal sexual education that proceeded it.

Kids need to be told to abstain and wait and to be provided with some basic information. I don't believe that the problem of unwed mothers/teen pregnancy is due to a lack of information --there is no lack of it out there--but a basic lack of self restraint coupled with this sense that sex and parenting are completely unrelated. Due to advances in contraception sex and its natural consequence, children, have become totally separated in people's minds such that they see it as a form of entertainment with no consequences. Kids need to be taught the connection, basic birth control information, the consequences of being an unwed parent and to wait.

[usmc1]

Congratulations for waiting. The problem with 'abstinence only' education is that is was a complete reaction to the 'if it feels good do it' liberal sexual education that proceeded it.

Kids need to be told to abstain and wait and to be provided with some basic information. I don't believe that the problem of unwed mothers/teen pregnancy is due to a lack of information --there is no lack of it out there--but a basic lack of self restraint coupled with this sense that sex and parenting are completely unrelated. Due to advances in contraception sex and its natural consequence, children, have become totally separated in people's minds such that they see it as a form of entertainment with no consequences. Kids need to be taught the connection, the consequences of being an unwed parent and to wait.

Long, long, long before liberal and conservative debate began, youngsters were making the two-backed monster at the earliest moment the hormones kicked in.

By the way, there is no such thing as a "If it feels good do it - Sex Education program for children or teens.

Just more right-wing noise!

[KirkOntario]

Long, long, long before liberal and conservative debate began, youngsters were making the two-backed monster at the earliest moment the hormones kicked in.

By the way, there is no such thing as a "If it feels good do it - Sex Education program for children or teens.

Just more right-wing noise!

Yes, some were. The problem is the numbers of 'youngsters' involved and earlier onset of sexual activity. This is all been pushed by a permissive society that sends the wrong messages to young people.

[Croydon]

It is easy to take jabs at the abstinence crowd as a whole, but I have to tell you it does work. I waited until my wedding night and was abstinent until then. My family is ultra conservative, I mean ULTRA.

However, I was raised nude. Bodily desires were explained to my satisfaction before I got into trouble. THAT is the 'right' way to handle it in my opinion.
The reality is that abstinence only education does not work. Congrats if you waited until your wedding day but that isn't the reality of most young people.

I believe that kids today should be taught about abstinence IN CONJUNCTION with safe sex education. Where abstinence only fails is that it assumes teens will wait to have sex until marriage. That doesn't happen in many cases. In most cases, young adults lose their virginity in high school or college.

That being said, kids must be taught about safe sex. For those who decide to have sex before marriage, not having the proper knowledge to protect themselves from STDs and pregnancy will be detrimental.

I attended an all boys prep high school and most of my peers lost their virginity before they graduated. We had a sister school, a local all girls high school, and many of the girls there had lost their virginity already. In both schools, the sex education received was abstinence only.

I also attended a religious school junior high school that was co-ed. I kept in touch w/ some of my classmates and 3 of the girls I attended school with were pregnant before their senior year. Like my HS, we were taught abstinence only.

[usmc1]

Yes, some were. The problem is the numbers of 'youngsters' involved and earlier onset of sexual activity. This is all been pushed by a permissive society that sends the wrong messages to young people.

Vague generalities do not prove anything. There is no permissive society, there is lack of education, parental supervision, and peer restraint arising from the first tow things.

In short, premarital sex is not a liberal plot. But, since we're engaging in vague generalities and empiric observation as indicative of society--some of the biggest little horn-dogs that I grew up with were the preachers' kids, and the meanest, most often in trouble were the cops' kids. And those were conservative folks, those cops and ministers, so I guess we can say that conservatism causes kids to be mean-***, trouble-making little horn-dogs. I mean if we're going to rely on empiricism and vague generalities as the source of our opinions.

Nope, it isn't liberalism or a permissive society. Kids have always experimented. The thing that is really different now, is that for some weird reason we've prolonged childhood with this oddball intermediate stage called teen-age. In our grandparents times, marriage came much earlier in life.

[Boreas]

Hey, I am a cop's kid shocked :sneaky:

[MoonShadow]

I believe that kids today should be taught about abstinence IN CONJUNCTION with safe sex education. Where abstinence only fails is that it assumes teens will wait to have sex until marriage. That doesn't happen in many cases. In most cases, young adults lose their virginity in high school or college.

That being said, kids must be taught about safe sex. For those who decide to have sex before marriage, not having the proper knowledge to protect themselves from STDs and pregnancy will be detrimental.



Well said!

[Nude in the North]

The sad part of all this is that it takes a "Study" to come up with these conclusions. And even then there is still debate over the results.

It's pretty simple. Teen pregnancy, and the huge increase in STD's in the teen age group should be enough to wake people up.

1 in 4 teenagers have an STD. And many of them don't even know it. Why? Because they never recieved any education about it.

Just Say NO? That's been tried for about 10,000 years. Hasn't worked yet. Never will!

And we keep electing the same Idiots !

[usmc1]

Hey, I am a cop's kid shocked :sneaky:

And all sweetness, brightness and radiant goodness, I'm sure.

And, as such, proves my point about vague generalities such as, "the cop's kids are the worst and the preacher's kids the horniest", are untrue.

Ma'am that's what I'm saying;) Kirk's crescendos of vague generalities prove nothing other than...well, you know, doncha?

[Sigmund]

"1 in 4 teenagers have an STD. And many of them don't even know it. "

While I don't disagree with the direction of this thread, I do have a pet peeve about the study that generated that particular finding. The most common "STD" among subjects of the study was HPV, not a disease, but a family of viruses for which most adults test positive. While some strains have been implicated in the later development of cervical cancer and others with the development of genital warts, other strains are without symptoms.

I think the media included the HPV numbers for purposes of sensationalism, (Lordy, would our free press do that?) as the 4 percent remaining after HPV is removed is not nearly as alarming as the 25% that can be claimed if it is included.

The real STD rates among older teens and young adults remain alarming, however, as does the tendency young people have to forgo safer sex practices.

[Nude in the North]

"The most common "STD" among subjects of the study was HPV, not a disease, but a family of viruses "

None the less, HPV is still an STD. And the point is that 1 in 4 teens then must have had SEX or they wouldn't have the STD, harmless virus or fatal disease. Wouldn't it be better to educate them in prevention, rather than tell them to Just Say No.

[MoonShadow]

[QUOTE=Nude in the North;190059Wouldn't it be better to educate them in prevention, rather than tell them to Just Say No.[/QUOTE]


Absolutely!

We need to be realistic and to tell teens to "just say no" is unrealistic. They aren't going to adhere to it. Education is the key; communicating, educating, something few parents do, sadly.

[Sigmund]

"And the point is that 1 in 4 teens then must have had SEX or they wouldn't have the STD, harmless virus or fatal disease."

Unfortunately HPV can be contracted even if people use the standard "safer sex" measures and, in some cases at least, without intercourse so avoidance of the virus is probably best achieved by complete abstinence. That, of course, is unrealistic, which is why the HPV immunization is being pushed.

[KirkOntario]

Absolutely!

We need to be realistic and to tell teens to "just say no" is unrealistic. They aren't going to adhere to it. Education is the key; communicating, educating, something few parents do, sadly.

Yes, but the point missed by 'value free' educators is that information alone is not sufficient without moral direction and societal expectations. If we expect nothing from young people we shall surely get nothing from them.

[usmc1]

Yes, but the point missed by 'value free' educators is that information alone is not sufficient without moral direction and societal expectations. If we expect nothing from young people we shall surely get nothing from them.

More vague generalities and conservative flap-doodle. There is no such thing as value-free education nor is there a one-size fits all moral direction and societal expectation.

What's meant by this is that educators attempt not to force the right-wing, conservative, radical, fundamentalist Christer viewpoint on kids. "Oh,", all aghast, "they're not teaching our values, therefore it's value free". What a load!

Same old flap-doodle and yammer-yammer. Nothing new, just same old hand-wringing about teenagers that have lost their moral direction that has been going on since at least the time of Rome's heyday.

[MoonShadow]

Yes, but the point missed by 'value free' educators is that information alone is not sufficient without moral direction and societal expectations. If we expect nothing from young people we shall surely get nothing from them.


What do you mean by "moral direction"?

Over the eons society has had so-called "moral direction" of which many did not adhere to. The key is still education and communicating and have an open relationship with your teens so that they are free to talk to you rather than avoid you.

An example, this bunk about not having sex before marriage has long been a societal "moral direction". I never adhered to it nor would I want anyone else to. Yet, I knew in my youth, if you were going to be sexually active, you had to be prepared and to do it safely.

[MoonShadow]

[QUOTE=usmc1;
What's meant by this is that educators attempt not to force the right-wing, conservative, radical, fundamentalist Christer viewpoint on kids. "Oh,", all aghast, "they're not teaching our values, therefore it's value free". [/QUOTE]


Exactly! Doesn't work either.

[KirkOntario]

More vague generalities and conservative flap-doodle. There is no such thing as value-free education nor is there a one-size fits all moral direction and societal expectation.

.

You are correct. 'Value free' sex education was never truly free of values. The values conveyed were liberal ones that were permissive in nature which is why conservatives fought sex education in the schools without success. Abstinence only was an attempt to rebalance this permissive liberal education with traditional conservative values. It came along precisely because the 1970s and 1980s saw a rise in teen pregnancy and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases which conservatives attributed directly to this liberalized education and liberalized values of society.

[usmc1]

You are correct. 'Value free' sex education was never truly free of values. The values conveyed were liberal ones that were permissive in nature which is why conservatives fought sex education in the schools without success. Abstinence only was an attempt to rebalance this permissive liberal education with traditional conservative values. It came along precisely because the 1970s and 1980s saw a rise in teen pregnancy and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases which conservatives attributed directly to this liberalized education and liberalized values of society.

Nope, vague generality and conservative flap-doodle and yammer-yammer.

In the U.S. there is no single "liberal" or "conservative" sex education program. Some districts have enlightened program, some have none. Some schools within same districts do better than others. There is no monolithic liberal sex-education program in U.S. schools and there never has been.

Thus, for any study to be valid the requirement for blind studies with test groups and control groups from like schools within like districts would be required. You come up with one modeled that way that shows "liberal" sex-education contributes to teen-pregnancy and STDs, you'd have something other than conservative flap-doodle and yammer-yammer.

So, again vague generalities and conservative flap-doodle and yammer-yammer prove nothing and reveal that you really haven't a clue.

[jon71]

I've always considered "conservative" and "values" to be contradictory terms. What schools can do is educate. They can provide information about sex, how the reproductive system works, how different forms of birth control works, etc. etc. These things will be true whether you are a conservative or a liberal or anything else. From there parents, liberal, conservative, and everything else, can teach kids their own values on top of those facts.

[Boreas]

And all sweetness, brightness and radiant goodness, I'm sure.

And, as such, proves my point about vague generalities such as, "the cop's kids are the worst and the preacher's kids the horniest", are untrue.

Ma'am that's what I'm saying;) Kirk's crescendos of vague generalities prove nothing other than...well, you know, doncha?

Oh, of course, I am all sweetness etc.....haven't you already seen that???? ;)

Yes, vague generalities do not always fit.

[Boreas]

Yes, but the point missed by 'value free' educators is that information alone is not sufficient without moral direction and societal expectations. If we expect nothing from young people we shall surely get nothing from them.

According to whose morals and whose "societal expectations"?

[Boreas]

I've always considered "conservative" and "values" to be contradictory terms. What schools can do is educate. They can provide information about sex, how the reproductive system works, how different forms of birth control works, etc. etc. These things will be true whether you are a conservative or a liberal or anything else. From there parents, liberal, conservative, and everything else, can teach kids their own values on top of those facts.

I agree. Also, when kids get suitable information and guidance they can make better decisions, including that of abstinence. I received sex ed in high school and at no time were we ecouraged to go out a try it. Teenagers are teenagers.....they will experiment. We need to give them the right information so that they can stay healthy.

The only difference between the post-60's and pre-60s is honesty. How many babies were born after a five month pregnancy before the sixties? My grandparents produced one of those children in 1932. I can tell you that they were decidedly not "liberal" or loose, they were human. That child grew up to be a very productive and good person. My mother.

The whole "conservative" rhetoric about "values" is just what our friend usmcs1 calls: vague generality and conservative flap-doodle and yammer-yammer.

[KirkOntario]

According to whose morals and whose "societal expectations"?

In the absence of any moral leadership would you prefer your children to get their morals and societal expectations from Paris Hillton and MTV? Without any sort of moral leadership that is where your children are getting their moral cues.

[scubare]

It is easy to take jabs at the abstinence crowd as a whole, but I have to tell you it does work. I waited until my wedding night and was abstinent until then. My family is ultra conservative, I mean ULTRA.

However, I was raised nude. Bodily desires were explained to my satisfaction before I got into trouble. THAT is the 'right' way to handle it in my opinion.

The whole issue of sex education hits home for naturists and our values. It's the body phobics, with their guilt and shame about everything relating to the human body and its natural functions that makes sex education so shameful. They are embarassed to talk to their kids about it, and therefore definitely do not want strangers to talk to them about it. As JeepNude said, even though he was in a conservative household, the naturist values shone through and his parents talked to him about it at length - because they weren't ashamed to do so.

You are correct. 'Value free' sex education was never truly free of values. The values conveyed were liberal ones that were permissive in nature which is why conservatives fought sex education in the schools without success. Abstinence only was an attempt to rebalance this permissive liberal education with traditional conservative values. It came along precisely because the 1970s and 1980s saw a rise in teen pregnancy and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases which conservatives attributed directly to this liberalized education and liberalized values of society.


You mean the values conveyed were "liberal" because they were outside the comfort zone of the parents. To me, this not so much a debate about conservatism and liberalism, as it is about body acceptance and body shame. :)

[Boreas]

In the absence of any moral leadership would you prefer your children to get their morals and societal expectations from Paris Hillton and MTV? Without any sort of moral leadership that is where your children are getting their moral cues.

And I as a parent would have enough sense not to consider Paris Hilton a good role model. What on earth would make you think any parent allows that?????? That is just plain delusional. :rolleyes: For the record, I have worked many years with teens and families. I have never seen that. Most parents are actually quite good at instilling decent values in their children. Most parents take their roles as parents seriously. Any belief to the contrary is misguided.

[KirkOntario]

I've always considered "conservative" and "values" to be contradictory terms. What schools can do is educate. They can provide information about sex, how the reproductive system works, how different forms of birth control works, etc. etc. These things will be true whether you are a conservative or a liberal or anything else. From there parents, liberal, conservative, and everything else, can teach kids their own values on top of those facts.

George Will wrote a wonderful column on this topic and entitled it "Plumbing For Hedonists." The argument in the 60's advanced by liberals was that parents simply didn't address these issues in home. They still don't. You can't have sexual education with information only. Facts don't exist in a vacuum. They are deeply interwined with values. If you are going to teach children the information you should provide moral leadership to them rather than allow them to get their values from MTV.

[KirkOntario]

The whole issue of sex education hits home for naturists and our values. It's the body phobics, with their guilt and shame about everything relating to the human body and its natural functions that makes sex education so shameful. They are embarassed to talk to their kids about it, and therefore definitely do not want strangers to talk to them about it. As JeepNude said, even though he was in a conservative household, the naturist values shone through and his parents talked to him about it at length - because they weren't ashamed to do so.


Yes, Jeepnude is a good example of a conservative education which gave information about sex without shame and which provided moral leadership with the result that Jeepnude waited until marriage.
I'm sure we can all agree that it is not a good thing for teens to be having sexual relations at an early age and that the results are often disasterous.
We can also agree that it is better for young people to wait.

[Boreas]

George Will wrote a wonderful column on this topic and entitled it "Plumbing For Hedonists." The argument in the 60's advanced by liberals was that parents simply didn't address these issues in home. They still don't. You can't have sexual education with information only. Facts don't exist in a vacuum. They are deeply interwined with values. If you are going to teach children the information you should provide moral leadership to them rather than allow them to get their values from MTV.

:rofl::rotflmao:

Do you REALLY believe that????? :cuckoo:

[Bob S.]

I have mentioned this in a few other places. Telling teens to "just say no" as Nancy Reagan did will not help them. There is always temptation and they will eventually give in without the most important part of that philosophy, giving them something to say yes to.

No one wants only negative criticisms. People have to be told what they are doing right in order to truly understand how what they are supposed to do.

The same with abstinence-only sex-ed. You can't just tell teens just don't have sex, period. That is an impossible thing for them to blindly follow. They have their hormones and situations where sex will be fun. What they need to understand is why they should wait on sex, how having too many partners can cause trouble, how to have the safest sex in terms of spreading disease and getting pregnant. They need to learn that forms of sex that they don't think as sex are still sex.

Kirk:"Yes, but the point missed by 'value free' educators is that information alone is not sufficient without moral direction and societal expectations. If we expect nothing from young people we shall surely get nothing from them."

Of course information alone is not enough. But Kirk, public schools are not around to teach values. That is the parents' job. When it comes down to it, Kirk, the teens who are having sex are going to be the ones who also do not have a good line of communication with their children, especially dealing with sexual matters. They are the ones who are expecting the schools to teach them the basics, but will get upset if that education is anything but abstinence.

Values are for the home, not the schools. Parents need to remember that they are the children's first and most important teachers and their role models even if the children do not want to admit it. If the parents do not want to talk about sex, the teens will talk about it with their friends or others who may not share the family's values. And then the parents are upset that their teens are having sex.

Bob S.

[KirkOntario]

Of course information alone is not enough. But Kirk, public schools are not around to teach values. That is the parents' job. When it comes down to it, Kirk, the teens who are having sex are going to be the ones who also do not have a good line of communication with their children, especially dealing with sexual matters. They are the ones who are expecting the schools to teach them the basics, but will get upset if that education is anything but abstinence.

Values are for the home, not the schools. Parents need to remember that they are the children's first and most important teachers and their role models even if the children do not want to admit it. If the parents do not want to talk about sex, the teens will talk about it with their friends or others who may not share the family's values. And then the parents are upset that their teens are having sex.

Bob S.

Actually public schools teach values constantly. My child's school is a public school board and it lists its values on the front door and each month of the year is dedicated to a different value. 'Respect' 'Tolerance' 'Equality" etc. All liberal values. In fact the school is painted up with 'signs' of each 'street' (ie hallway) in the school being for a different educational value.
They call it 'character education.' It is non-religious but it is a values based education.

With all respect Bob it is simply
incorrect to say public schools don't teach values. They always have and they always will.

[usmc1]

Actually public schools teach values constantly. My child's school is a public school board and it lists its values on the front door and each month of the year is dedicated to a different value. 'Respect' 'Tolerance' 'Equality" etc. All liberal values. In fact the school is painted up with 'signs' of each 'street' (ie hallway) in the school being for a different educational value.
They call it 'character education.' It is non-religious but it is a values based education.

With all respect Bob it is simply
incorrect to say public schools don't teach values. They always have and they always will.

Gee KirkO, liberals hold values such as Respect, Tolerance & Equality. Since you constantly attack liberal values, one has to presume you hold such values in disrespect--which makes you a pretty bleak sort of fellow.

Or if not, and you do hold those values in high regard, then everything Nacktman said about you is true and he should be reinstated forthwith...because it would be prima facie evidence that you are no more than a troll and trouble-maker.

Either way, you're either a hypocrite or a troll, or perhaps a hypocrite and a troll and a pretty bleak fellow.

[BinCo]

We were flipping channels last night and saw the Talk Sex therapist Sue on TV. Some of the absolutely false information going around with kids today is frightening. Some examples from callers identifying themselves as college students.

One caller thought she could not get an STD by oral sex!
One caller thought she could get fat by ingesting her boyfriends ejaculate.
On that note Sue mentioned that other callers said things along that same context recently like. Can it make my teeth whiter? Can it clear up my acne?
That's when we laughed and went back to our movie.

I have seen other questions in the past that border on the unbelievable. Things about how STD's are transferred and how girls really get pregnant. These are questions that are only trying to clarify rumors and stupid urban legends. If you have any questions as to why the sex ed in this country is backward you need look no further than the White House. This is the administration that tied all Aids funding with abstinence only education. The problem is that too many conservatives feel that it is ONLY their job to educate their children. NO SIR! It is your job to instill morals in your children, and to give them all the knowledge that is available. Since you are not a sex educator, you do not know the latest diseases going around and the latest cures and symptoms for them. So you should be enthusiastic when an expert is willing to teach your child. This is why an AP article a few weeks ago said that 1:4 teen girls in America have an STD. Because of fearful parents who believe that their little girl or boy will only have sex after marraige. This has been proven to be wrong over and over and over again and yet their are still people out there who are so ashamed of their own sexuality that they can't communicate with their kids about it. Which is fine, but to stand in between someone who can educate your child and give them the knowledge they need to be safe is abusive to your childs long term health. They will not be kids forever. They WILL have sex one day.:yes: Do you want them to be able to go out in the world with the ammo to be safe, or to be easily persuaded by some guy that if he pulls out in time she will not get pregnant.:eek:

A just question: Do you have the right to refuse to teach your children based on your own fears?

KirkOntario:
'Respect' 'Tolerance' 'Equality" etc. All liberal values. Do Conservative NOT prescribe to these values? The ones that I know do. Just not for people that they don't agree with, like Gays and Jews and Blacks and Muslims and Mormons and Secularists and Liberals and Treehuggers and..........hey maybe your right.:sneaky: Honestly. I think you do prescibe to them, just not as openly as some Liberals do.

[Qikdraw]

All I know is that when I abstain from sex, I am not a happy person. So abstinance only will not work for me.

Qikdraw

[nacktman]

All I know is that when I abstain from sex, I am not a happy person. So abstinance only will not work for me.

Qikdraw

So true, so true.
I guess that is why the abstinence only crowd is made up of angry and unhappy people.:laugh:

[usmc1]

So true, so true.
I guess that is why the abstinence only crowd is made up of angry and unhappy people.:laugh:

Yeah, and sometimes you encounter a couple of folks that you wish that their parents had know of abstinence, or at least contraception.:rolleyes:

[KirkOntario]

So true, so true.
I guess that is why the abstinence only crowd is made up of angry and unhappy people.:laugh:

Source? Has anyone done a study?

[usmc1]

Source? Has anyone done a study?

Yeah. Empirical. Here.

[KirkOntario]

It appears religious people tend to report being more happy than non-religious people.

Can you prove me wrong?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7302609.stm

"Religion 'linked to happy life'

Belief may make us more contented
A belief in God could lead to a more contented life, research suggests.
Religious people are better able to cope with shocks such as losing a job or divorce, claims the study presented to a Royal Economic Society conference.

Data from thousands of Europeans revealed higher levels of "life satisfaction" in believers. "

[usmc1]

It appears religious people tend to report being more happy than non-religious people.

Can you prove me wrong?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7302609.stm

"Religion 'linked to happy life'

Belief may make us more contented
A belief in God could lead to a more contented life, research suggests.
Religious people are better able to cope with shocks such as losing a job or divorce, claims the study presented to a Royal Economic Society conference.

Data from thousands of Europeans revealed higher levels of "life satisfaction" in believers. "

And someone cares....why? And this relates to sexual abstinence... how?

[KirkOntario]

Please see post 40.

[usmc1]

Please see post 40.
Ok, resubmitting the question. Who cares? And for crying out loud, why?

I'll answer first, I don't!

[KirkOntario]

Your friend made an assertion that he can't substantiate. Please review post 40.

[Croydon]

Source? Has anyone done a study?

My god, you CLEARLY lack a sense of humor.

[KirkOntario]

Please explain how stereotyping a group of people is funny.

[roaddog]

Hey Kirk,
Stereotyping is like putting people in boxes right?
You sit in any box you like.
I don't fit in any box you know!
Cheers
Mick

[nacktman]

Yeah, and sometimes you encounter a couple of folks that you wish that their parents had know of abstinence, or at least contraception.:rolleyes:

This also is true!

[nacktman]

Hey Kirk,
Stereotyping is like putting people in boxes right?
You sit in any box you like.
I don't fit in any box you know!
Cheers
Mick

:applause:

[nacktman]

The absurdity of abstinence only dogma in glaring light:

A few months ago the subject of abstinence-only sex education programs came up (http://www.scrutinyhooligans.us/?p=4534) in light of published results of a CDC study stating that teen pregnancies were on the rise. Now, from the sunny shores of Orlando, FL, comes this nugget from Local 6 (http://www.local6.com/news/15773787/detail.html), their CBS affiliate: A recent survey that found some Florida teens believe drinking a cap of bleach will prevent HIV and a shot of Mountain Dew will stop pregnancy has prompted lawmakers to push for an overhaul of sex education in the state.


The survey showed that Florida teens also believe that smoking marijuana will prevent a person from getting pregnant.


State lawmakers said the myths are spreading because of Florida’s abstinence-only sex education, Local 6 reported.


They are proposing a bill that would require a more comprehensive approach, the report said.


It would still require teaching abstinence but students would also learn about condoms and other methods of birth control and disease prevention.


The bill just passed its first vote in a committee, Local 6 reported.
Well, on the other hand, I’ll bet that Diet Mountain Dew would work.


Certainly one of the hard-to-pronounce chemical ingredients floating around in that crap can work as an abortifacient. Then again, if Mountain Dew did actually work, we wouldn’t have the ninth-highest teenage pregnancy rate in the US (http://www.prochoicenorthcarolina.org/assets/files/sexed.pdf)…

[Naturist Mark]

A while back I posted about one of the very first schools in Ohio to adopt abstinence only education - it quickly developed the highest student pregnancy rate in the State.

http://www.clothesfreeforum.com/showpost.php?p=100572&postcount=8

[Ken Palmer]

Hello KirkONtario. I agree with you here 100%! This is the REAL way to handle this problem. But when you go to a gymnasium and see a machine that dispenses condoms to athletes and/or students, what is a youngster to think? This is the only contrast to this. We attempt to teach the kids the right way, but then we throw something absolutely in stark contrast in their faces. Here is sort of an examp,e. I was listening to a radio talk show while driving on my delivery routes one day a few years ago. Well, a confused sixteen or seventeen-year-old girl called in and asked the radio show host if it was all OK to live with a male if they were not married. Naturally, we know what the right answer is. But the way things are nowadays with unwed men and women living together, can you understand why there would be so much confusion among our young people? Anyway, I didn't mean to get sidetracked on the main issue here. I am merely trying to point out what are youngsters are faced with in our world today regarding this issue. By the way, I might add that the talk show host felt the same way as I did, sad!

Ken Palmer




Congratulations for waiting. The problem with 'abstinence only' education is that is was a complete reaction to the 'if it feels good do it' liberal sexual education that proceeded it.

Kids need to be told to abstain and wait and to be provided with some basic information. I don't believe that the problem of unwed mothers/teen pregnancy is due to a lack of information --there is no lack of it out there--but a basic lack of self restraint coupled with this sense that sex and parenting are completely unrelated. Due to advances in contraception sex and its natural consequence, children, have become totally separated in people's minds such that they see it as a form of entertainment with no consequences. Kids need to be taught the connection, basic birth control information, the consequences of being an unwed parent and to wait.

[usmc1]

Please explain how stereotyping a group of people is funny.

OK, I can do that.

Look at that teensy little car over by the center ring. There's a bunch of funny people in it with painted face and costumes and weird hair. Oh look, here they come, six of them out of the tiny little car. See how funny they are. They're clowns, and they're funny. Clowns always dress funny and have weird hair, and act funny.

[BinCo]

Congratulations for waiting. The problem with 'abstinence only' education is that is was a complete reaction to the 'if it feels good do it' liberal sexual education that proceeded it.

I call schenanigans on this one. Find me some evidence of any program that endorsed this "if it feels good do it" education you speak of. Was that a national program like your 'abstinance only'? I believe you are wrong and have fallen for the conservative anti-sex-ed line of BS.:listen2:

Kids need to be told to abstain and wait and to be provided with some basic information.

Kids need to be encouraged to abstain. No one can tell someone what to do and expect them to do it, if you have teens you know what I mean.


I don't believe that the problem of unwed mothers/teen pregnancy is due to a lack of information --there is no lack of it out there--but a basic lack of self restraint coupled with this sense that sex and parenting are completely unrelated.

You are wrong, ask a woman who had a chile before the end of high school. I should know, my wife is one. In Utah and the South, the amazingly high rates of teen pregancy is absolutely due to lack of information. This is where overwhelming ignorance is the harmful part. You claim that there is no lack of information on pregancy and std's. While that is true, there is a phenominal amount of BS out there. Such things have been quoted by Nacktman and myself. The problem is that too many parents want their believe that their kids are not sexually active. You say that they need to be taught BASIC birth control. Wrong, they need to be taught comprehensive birth control and what is NOT going to work.

[usmc1]

I call schenanigans on this one. Find me some evidence of any program that endorsed this "if it feels good do it" education you speak of. Was that a national program like your 'abstinance only'? I believe you are wrong and have fallen for the conservative anti-sex-ed line of BS.:listen2:



Kids need to be encouraged to abstain. No one can tell someone what to do and expect them to do it, if you have teens you know what I mean.




You are wrong, ask a woman who had a chile before the end of high school. I should know, my wife is one. In Utah and the South, the amazingly high rates of teen pregancy is absolutely due to lack of information. This is where overwhelming ignorance is the harmful part. You claim that there is no lack of information on pregancy and std's. While that is true, there is a phenominal amount of BS out there. Such things have been quoted by Nacktman and myself. The problem is that too many parents want their believe that their kids are not sexually active. You say that they need to be taught BASIC birth control. Wrong, they need to be taught comprehensive birth control and what is NOT going to work.

You're spitting into the wind. The whole premise is one vague generality, offered as right-wing flap-doodle and yammer-yammer.

It is as soporific and meaningless as Dear Abby's great line about a single aspirin being the world's best birth control.....if the girl would just hold it between her legs with her knees while on date she wouldn't get pregnant. Poor old Abby never read the Kama Sutra, I guess.

Poor old conservatives, don't trek out into the real world much. They think sex is a liberal plot.

[KirkOntario]

You are wrong, ask a woman who had a chile before the end of high school. I should know, my wife is one. In Utah and the South, the amazingly high rates of teen pregancy is absolutely due to lack of information. This is where overwhelming ignorance is the harmful part. You claim that there is no lack of information on pregancy and std's. While that is true, there is a phenominal amount of BS out there.


You contradicted yourself there. Yes, there's information as you admit. Tons of it. Pregancy is about attitudes and behaviour not a lack of information. Liberals refuse to moralize and they encourage the wrong behaviours.
B.S. is another matter. BS is about teens lying to themselves rather than acting responsibly. The information is there but without the shame and message to refrain kids will go ahead. They've been told by liberals that there is no reason why they shouldn't refrain and they 've been told the abortion is okay and that raising a child as a single parent is okay. Hence, there's no reason not to.

[usmc1]

See Binco, splat! right back into the kisser.

[jjimbobs]

We owe it to our children to educate them as much as possible about sex, STD's, and the possibility of pregnancy.

Natural urges in adolescents are certainly going to frequently overcome prior advice regarding abstinence.

Birth control measures and protective measures against STD's as well as abstinence should be taught. If a teen chooses abstinence that is fine but it is extremely naive to assume that an abstinence only policy would be effective enough to reduce STD's and unwanted pregnancies.

[Boreas]

Source? Has anyone done a study?

Good grief! :rolleyes:

[usmc1]

Good grief! :rolleyes:

Sssshhhh, we don't want them to see this.

Preventing Teen Pregnancy: What Works

Erica Barnett (http://www.worldchanging.com/bios/ericabarnett.html)
March 5, 2008 6:14 PM

With state after state (http://www.scrippsnews.com/node/29637)rejecting funding for so-called "abstinence-only" education (sex education that includes no information about avoiding sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy, and focuses instead on telling teenagers not to have sex until marriage), educators in the United States are taking another look at what does and doesn't work to prevent teen pregnancy. Studies (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8470845/) have shown that abstinence-only education does virtually nothing to prevent kids from having sex; the most recent one, released in April 2007 (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/13/AR2007041301003.html), revealed that about half of all kids in both comprehensive and abstinence-only sex education programs had had sex by the end of the study period, and more than a third of both groups had had two or more partners. The only noticeable difference between the groups was that the abstinence-only group used birth control less frequently. Meanwhile, about 900,000 US teenagers get pregnant every year.
So what kind of sex education does work at preventing teen pregnancy? According to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, the criteria for effective sex education include:
• Curriculum-based education that includes discussion of contraceptive use.
• Youth development programs that focus on keeping young people engaged in their communities and schools, including community service projects.
• Programs that send a clear message that certain choices are better for participants' sexual health than others; e.g., it's better to use contraception than have sex without it, or that it's better to be faithful than promiscuous.
• Programs that are age-appropriate and engage both girls and boys, involving them in the creation of their sex ed curriculum.
The need to do something about teen pregnancy in the United States is as obvious as the failure of abstinence-only curricula. Teen pregnancy has been affirmatively linked to increased poverty, dependence on social services, risky behaviors, a lack of education, and poor outcomes for children born to teenage mothers. According to the Campaign, teen pregnancy costs US taxpayers at least $7 billion each year in direct health
care, foster care, criminal justice, and public assistance costs. The US has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates (https://www.teenpregnancy.org/resources/reading/pdf/inatl_comparisons2006.pdf) in the developed world--almost twice as high as those of England, Wales and Canada, and eight times as high as those of the Netherlands and Japan, despite similar levels of sexual activity. It's time for the US to abandon programs that don't work and try something new: Comprehensive, medically accurate, non-condescending sex education.
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[DoctorSurferDude]

I find the wording "this means the results could have been..." to be a little weak. It shows the bias of the writer of that article. If a study is not "statistically significant" it doesn't mean the hypothesis and result are disproved, it just means it was a sloppy study.

Do abstinence programs lead to less teen pregnancies? The study says "yes". The writer questions the result because maybe the sample size was too small to make the study statistically significant.

Is telling kids that drugs are a bad habit useless? I hope not.

Is telling kids that they should wait to have sex useless? No way.

I believe in sex education, I volunteered at local high schools teaching AIDS awareness throughout medical school. But here is the bottom line.....abstinence IS the only way to avoid STD's and avoid pregnancy. I think sex education should include more than a one-sided view of "abstinence or forget it". But I also think we should encourage abstinence among teens, because if we don't encourage a high standard, who else will?

Here are some facts....

- Most common STD is HPV (genital warts)
- at least 25% of sexually active teenagers have HPV, some studies say more
- HPV has no cure, and it is the leading cause of cervical cancer
- 25% of all girls have had an STD, 40% of sexually active girls have (according to CDC)
- HPV cannot be stopped by condom usage, it is skin to skin, no such thing as safe sex when it comes to HPV
- There are worse things....Gonorrhea and chlamydia have fertility consequences, HIV and Herpes have no cure.
- Condoms are 96% effective if used 100% correctly. They are 65% effective when used by teenagers.

About half of the OB patients I care for are under 20, I delivered a girl a few weeks ago who just turned 16 while she was pregnant. Babies are a blessing, but their lives will be more difficult, and I can promise you the dads in most of those cases are nowhere to be found.

So....if there is any chance to speak about abstinence, please teach it, please preach it. Sure, most won't listen, but a few will. For the few who listen, your words could save them from a harder life, or even save their life. It isn't enough to simply educate them.....we MUST expect the best from them and encourage it.

[Boreas]

Sssshhhh, we don't want them to see this.

Well, it will be dismissed as left-winged rhetoric anyway. :sneaky:

[nacktman]

You know if the abstinence only crowd would only practice what they preach in no time at all we wouldn't have to hear from them because they wouldn't be any of them left.:laugh:

[DoctorSurferDude]

Humans will procreate as they always have.....

Personally, I think the goal of "abstinence" is to reduce the amount of sexual partners in a lifetime, reducing one's risk for contracting a crotch disease or making a baby at the age of 15, thus improving the quality of their life.

Are there any in here that are actually arguing that we should not worry or try to do our best to prevent lifestyles that lead to teen pregnancy and/or life altering STDs?

I don't want to promote ignorance; knowledge is power. I am, however, on the side of promoting responsibility and accountability.

Young people are "invincible", they live in the moment. They have sex for the same reasons they binge drink or try illegal drugs, because of peer pressure and because it feels good. The ones who do don't think much about the risks of their behavior. Why? Because they are kids, they are naive. So....I think they deserve to KNOW the risks ahead of time. And I think the only way for teenagers to reduce their risks is to...WAIT. What is wrong with waiting a few years?

[Skinview]

If a study is not "statistically significant" it doesn't mean the hypothesis and result are disproved, it just means it was a sloppy study.

Do abstinence programs lead to less teen pregnancies? The study says "yes". The writer questions the result because maybe the sample size was too small to make the study statistically significant.Any study will have a degree of random error. The bigger the sample size, the smaller the error range, and the greater the ability to discern small effects. If the effect studied does not fall out of the error range, it is not "statistically significant". It means the effect probably doesn't exist, or if it does, the effect is small. The bigger the sample size, the more certain you can be of the results of the study. I don't know anything about that study, but if it found the relationship between abstinence programs and teen pregnancies is smaller than the range of statistical significance, then we can't say it has shown a relationship between the two. It in no way suggests that there is a defect in the study. If the study was published in a good paper, the author would have analized the data and determined the probability that the effect was real, based on the sample size and the magnitude of the results. It sounds as though he didn't.

Is telling kids that they should wait to have sex useless? No way.

abstinence IS the only way to avoid STD's and avoid pregnancy... I also think we should encourage abstinence among teens, because if we don't encourage a high standard, who else will?

we MUST expect the best from them and encourage it.I'm going to take a position that seems to be unfashionable today. There is nothing wrong with adolescents having sex. When I was teenager, every adult in the world could have told me not to have sex, and it wouldn't have discouraged me in the least. Adolescents need to be fully informed of the hazards of sex and the available precautions, but abstinance is unnatural. One can list every risk involved with sexual activity, but the retort I would make, if I was a teenager, would be, "If sex is so dangerous, then are YOU celibate? Would you tell an adult not to have sex for these reasons?" Clearly, adults have decided that giving up sex is not an option. Unsurprisingly, the statistics show that teenagers have made the same decision. Sooner or later, we will all face the same hazards of life. Delaying sexual activity will not make those hazards go away. We should make sure our children are prepared for them.

Carl Sagan wrote in his book Cosmos:

"The neuropsychologist James W. Prescott has performed a startling cross-cultural statistical analysis of 400 preindustrial societies and found that cultures that lavish physical affection on infants tend to be disinclined to violence. Even societies without notable fondling of infants develop nonviolent adults, provided sexual activity in adolescents is not repressed. Prescott believes that cultures wirth a predisposition for violence are composed of individuals who have been deprived - during at least one of two critical stages in life, infancy and adolescence - of the pleasures of the body. Where physical affection is encouraged, theft, organized religion and invidious displays of wealth are inconspicuous...
"Infants hunger for physical affection; adolescents are strongly driven to sexual activity. If youngsters had their way, societies might develop in which adults have little tolerance for agression, territoriality, ritual and social hierarchy (although in the course of growing up the children might well experience these retilian behaviors). If Prescott is right, in an age of nuclear weapons and effective contraceptives, child abuse and severe sexual repression are crimes against humanity."

[DoctorSurferDude]

Just to clarify....."abstinence-only" is withholding knowledge. I'm not in favor of that.

I am in favor of full disclosure. Knowledge is everything. At the same time....the logical conclusion after learning all there is to know about sex, SHOULD BE.....abstinence.

Parents are part of the problem, as are state/school rules. There is no school in all the years that we visited high schools that ever let us bring banannas so that we could teach students how to properly put on a condom. We are censored, so we are not allowed to show images of genital warts, or genital herpes, which helps promote the naivity.

So we are stuck teaching sex education using powerpoint graphics, statistics, and fairytale stories about crotch monsters that kill. I think students deserve to know the truth, and I think if they knew the truth they would be more likely to recognize that sex IS best when it is monogamous, and safer to wait till you love and truely trust a person.

<img src="http://www.cartoonstock.com/newscartoons/cartoonists/jko/lowres/jkon69l.jpg">

[DoctorSurferDude]

SkinView....

The problem with a "large sample size" is that these programs don't attract large sample sizes. If you include multiple locations for analysis then you might gain a larger number, but you lose your statistical edge because your loosing uniformity. Studies like that are not "science" and therefore are not published in any good journals. And when it comes to the press reading scientific studies.....you'd be suprised how naive CNN is.....they run stories about sloppy studies all the time. But they are not concerned about conveying truth.....they are concerned about bolstering their ratings.

I agree with you that it is hard to convince adolescents that they are mortal beings. I'm around enough teenagers to know very well that I'm not going to stop them from doing drugs or having sex. My approach is one of damage control. If I can get a person to sleep with only 3 people in highschool instead of 6, then I reduce their STD risk significantly. If I can teach them the truth about contraceptives, they that might reduce their risk of pregnancy. There might be a girl out there who is able to finish college because she decided to always use protection, or to wait and have sex later. It's not some moral ideal, it's damage control.

I like Carl Sagan, I watches his stuff growing up, good at explaining the theory of relativity, etc. But he is quoting Prescott. James Prescott did his studies on Rhesus Monkeys, then extrapolated his findings into theories about humans. He then sought support for his conclusions in society. Good psychology, poor science. In any case, the 1960s was not the 2000s, and if you do a "cross cultural analysis" of 400 INDUSTRIAL societies ("pre-industrialized" doesn't count, we don't live in huts) you'll find that young people in the United States lose their virginity sooner than almost all other industrialized nations. We give our kids cell phones, cars, computers, money and basically spoil our young more than any other nation I can think of, we are lax on then when it comes to punishments and empower them in many many ways, except with truth and knowledge.

When Prescott made his analysis, the world was different. Today, here is how it goes....

Teenage Deaths:
#1 Motor vehicle accidents 40% (alcohol)
#2 Homicide 14%
#3 Suicide 11%

We are one of the most violent nations, going to war on a whim and young people killing young people before they are even old enough to go to war. I'd argue that we are not sexually supressing out youth since Americans tend to lose their virginity earlier than most of the rest of the world, and have been experiencing a declince since Carl Sagan and Prescott made their observations. ( http://www.publichealthreports.org/userfiles/122_1/12_PHR122-1_73-78.pdf )

But Carl Sagan has been dead for over a decade, Cosmos was published in the 1980's and Prescott was born in 1930....so, none of that thinking is very current.

You'll be happy to know this....

The Netherlands, a liberal nation, has teenage pregnancy rates six times lower than that of the UK and even more when compared to the USA. During their first sexual experience (18 years old), the Dutch used condoms 85% of the time and birth control pills 70% of the time. The Dutch have a comprehensive and manditory sexual education program that many other european countries view as "too liberal". They begin educating their kids at a young age with initiatives such as a lesson in condom use at 10 years old, watching cartoons about masturbation, visits to sex shops for older teenagers. Throughout the education, students are encouraged to address the moral and emotional implications of sex. The result? Knowledge is power, they become more responsible to what they know and more accountable, and they CHOOSE TO WAIT.

What we do in the USA is to withhold the knowledge. Which is retarded. So our young people lose their virginity to peer pressure and usually enter into their experiences with a sexual IQ of zero, having to learn about consequences the hard way. So while there is nothing wrong with the natural tendancy of young people to have sex, I think there IS something wrong when our young people are losing their virginity at increasingly younger ages....I think there IS increasing risks to this behavior, and I think Gardasil is not the answer. The answer is education, KNOWLEDGE.

“The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts.” - Charles Darwin

"A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism." - Carl Sagan :)

[usmc1]

Doctors slam abstinence-only sex ed Teens need access to birth control, pediatrician group says
The Associated Press
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CHICAGO - A leading group of pediatricians says teenagers need access to birth control and emergency contraception, not the abstinence-only approach to sex education favored by religious groups and President Bush.
The recommendations are part of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ updated teen pregnancy policy.

“Even though there is great enthusiasm in some circles for abstinence-only interventions, the evidence does not support abstinence-only interventions as the best way to keep young people from unintended pregnancy,” said Dr. Jonathan Klein, chairman of the academy committee that wrote the new recommendations.

Teaching abstinence but not birth control makes it more likely that once teenagers initiate sexual activity they will have unsafe sex and contract sexually transmitted diseases, said Dr. S. Paige Hertweck, a pediatric obstetrician-gynecologist at the University of Louisville who provided advice for the report.

The report appears in July’s, 2005, Pediatrics, being published Tuesday.
It updates a 1998 policy by omitting the statement that “abstinence counseling is an important role for all pediatricians.” The new policy says that while doctors should encourage adolescents to postpone sexual activity, they also should help ensure that all teens — not just those who are sexually active — have access to birth control, including emergency contraception.

Wade Horn, assistant secretary for children and families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said counseling only abstinence, preferably until marriage, is the best approach because it sends a clear, consistent message. Teenagers who are sexually active should have access to contraception, but making birth control available to teens who aren’t sends a contradictory message, he said.

The academy’s recommendations “to some extent confuse prevention and intervention,” Horn said.

U.S. teen birth rates higher
Citing 2003 government data, the academy’s report says more than 45 percent of high school girls and 48 percent of boys have had sexual intercourse. While teen pregnancy rates have decreased in recent years, about 900,000 U.S. teens get pregnant each year.

Moreover, U.S. teen birth rates are higher than in comparable industrialized countries, which may be partly due to greater access to contraception in some countries, the report said.

The Medical Institute for Sexual Health, a nonprofit group that has worked on pro-abstinence programs with the Bush administration and faith-based groups, opposes the academy’s policy shift.

“I don’t think it’s a smart move at all,” said group founder Dr. Joe McIlhaney Jr., an obstetrician-gynecologist.

However, Karen Pearl, interim president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said the academy “is to be applauded ... for having medicine trump ideology.”

HHS’ Horn also said advising pediatricians to ensure that teens have access to emergency contraception is problematic for doctors and parents who morally object to the pills. He faulted the report for lacking guidance on what to do when pediatricians’ moral views differ from their patients’ parents.

Emergency contraception, sometimes called the morning-after pill, blocks ovulation or fertilization and can prevent pregnancy for up to three days after sex. Opponents consider it a form of abortion because it is thought to also help prevent fertilized eggs from implanting in the womb, and some pharmacists have refused to sell it.

Emergency contraception was not mentioned in the old report because it was new and relatively untested, Klein said.

The academy supports making morning-after pills available without a prescription, Klein said.

[BinCo]

You contradicted yourself there. Yes, there's information as you admit. Tons of it. Pregancy is about attitudes and behaviour not a lack of information. Liberals refuse to moralize and they encourage the wrong behaviours.

Excuse me? I REFUSE to moralize? My wife and I worked to get her son all the information we possibly could. Of course we encouraged him to be responsible with sex and to use a condom because we knew that it would happen someday. For ANY parent today to put their head in the sand and TELL their kids not to have sex until marraige is to deny millions of years of evolution. Just 5 generations ago in the US it was not uncommon to be married and pregnant at 15.


B.S. is another matter. BS is about teens lying to themselves rather than acting responsibly. The information is there but without the shame and message to refrain kids will go ahead. They've been told by liberals that there is no reason why they shouldn't refrain and they 've been told the abortion is okay and that raising a child as a single parent is okay. Hence, there's no reason not to.

You should get out a little more to talk to kids and listen to teen shows and see the absolute amount of bad information that is out there. When you have a parent that has only one line about sex and that line is "not until your married" how could you possibly expect that kid to talk to them about it? They go and talk to their peers and look at myspace and other websites. They listen to junk about how pulling out will keep you from getting pregnant and then wonder about how it happened to them. What is the typical response from conservative mothers when their 15 yr old daughter wants birth control? I bet it's to go thru the roof. That's only if they have a level of conversation that can even begin to discuss sex.

I don't know of too many liberals that think abortion is OK, or that it is not a huge decision and usually a life changing one. But they all think that it should be an option that is legally available. Not something that the government should be involved in at all.

I amazes me still that conservatives want less and less intrusion by the government........unless it involves abortion, alcohol, pornography, physician assisted suicide, sex ed, marraige and anything else that conservatives feel they should be able to dictate to the rest of us.

[Skinview]

SkinView....

The problem with a "large sample size" is that these programs don't attract large sample sizes. If you include multiple locations for analysis then you might gain a larger number, but you lose your statistical edge because your loosing uniformity. Studies like that are not "science" and therefore are not published in any good journals.My ex is a Clinical Psychologist, and she teaches research methods. Social scientists have to deal with this sort of problem all the time, and they have statistical methods for sorting out the contributions of multiple effects. If there are regional differences, they can look at that in their data and still pull out the information they are looking for. In the natural sciences, we always try to eliminate all other variables in an experiment, but you can still do good science even when you can't.

And when it comes to the press reading scientific studies.....you'd be suprised how naive CNN is.....they run stories about sloppy studies all the time. But they are not concerned about conveying truth.....they are concerned about bolstering their ratings.No level of naivete in the press could surprise me. I often find that when they are reporting about something that I know about, they are clueless.


James Prescott did his studies on Rhesus Monkeys, then extrapolated his findings into theories about humans. He then sought support for his conclusions in society. Good psychology, poor science. In any case, the 1960s was not the 2000s, and if you do a "cross cultural analysis" of 400 INDUSTRIAL societies ("pre-industrialized" doesn't count, we don't live in huts)I can't comment on the quality of Prescotts science, but Harry and Margaret Harlow's study on physical affection in monkeys is famous. Anyway, I don't think there are 400 industrial societies, and I would not exclude pre-industrialized societies. Its not the hut that you live in that counts, its what goes on inside. We evolved in pre-industrial societies, and it is our behaviour there that is going to be more natural. Teen pregnancy wasn't considered a problem, it was the norm. Now people try to suppress teen sexuality through a greatly extended educational period. Society has changed, but our bodies and brains have not. I think that a preindustrial community would expect the father to support his children. I think the larger problem is the breakdown of the family in the US.

We are one of the most violent nations, going to war on a whim and young people killing young people before they are even old enough to go to war. I'd argue that we are not sexually supressing out youth since Americans tend to lose their virginity earlier than most of the rest of the world...Parents are trying to surpress sexuality, and failing.

"A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism." - Carl Sagan :)As much as I share this sentiment, we have seen what a disaster the "celibate" clergy has been.

[nacktman]

I still say let the abstinence only crowd practice what they preach and shortly we won't have to put up with their inane and mottled notions because there wouldn't be any of them left after a time.

Well, we can hope can't we?!

[Fitz1980]

Back in Metro Atlanta, GA where I grew up we had all of the holy roller Southern Baptist kids who took the virginity pledge to wait until marriage. Usually it meant that the girls would engage in oral and anal sex with lots of guys so that they would "stay virgins", as though God is some kind of lawyer who would be impressed that they found a loophole and not disappointed that they are engaging in promiscuous behavior. Also they would usually loose their virginity after getting drunk and not having any protection and get pregnant.

[Boreas]

Parents are part of the problem, as are state/school rules. There is no school in all the years that we visited high schools that ever let us bring banannas so that we could teach students how to properly put on a condom. We are censored, so we are not allowed to show images of genital warts, or genital herpes, which helps promote the naivity.

Wow, that is crazy isn't it! I am going to check in this area. I believe that Canadian schools are not quite so censored.

[Boreas]

What we do in the USA is to withhold the knowledge. Which is retarded. So our young people lose their virginity to peer pressure and usually enter into their experiences with a sexual IQ of zero, having to learn about consequences the hard way.

And of course, these people become parents who are supposed to raise their kids up well.

[nacktman]

Back in Metro Atlanta, GA where I grew up we had all of the holy roller Southern Baptist kids who took the virginity pledge to wait until marriage. Usually it meant that the girls would engage in oral and anal sex with lots of guys so that they would "stay virgins", as though God is some kind of lawyer who would be impressed that they found a loophole and not disappointed that they are engaging in promiscuous behavior. Also they would usually loose their virginity after getting drunk and not having any protection and get pregnant.

Ah, those glorious "virginity pledges" of the early 1990s are today's teenagers.:laugh:

[jon71]

For starters abstinence only education does not promote abstinence. The kids in those classes are 100% (not 99, but 100) as sexually active as everyone else. Also they are denied real information about birth control and safe sex. This means they have THE MOST s.t.d.s, THE MOST unplanned pregnancies and of course THE MOST abortions. People like Kirk are anti-choice pro-abortion. They disdain women having the right to choose but advocate policies, like abstinence only education that GUARANTEE more abortions (and s.t.d.s, etc.). I can't imagine a worse way to handle this issue. Young people will get more quality information watching Showtime then in an abstinence only class. Please note Showtime isn't my first choice but it still beats the "take a cold shower" crowd.

[KirkOntario]

People like Kirk are anti-choice pro-abortion. They disdain women having the right to choose but advocate policies, like abstinence only education that GUARANTEE more abortions (and s.t.d.s, etc.). I can't imagine a worse way to handle this issue. Young people will get more quality information watching Showtime then in an abstinence only class. Please note Showtime isn't my first choice but it still beats the "take a cold shower" crowd.

I never advocated abstinence only education. Please quote where I said I supported 'abstinence only.'
Of course I am against abortion. I don't believe in the killing of unborn children, a perfectly acceptable position to take on the matter.

[nacktman]

Hey, jon71, interesting tidbit about the "take a cold shower" crowd is that taking a cold shower actually increases the sexual urge rather than decreases it.
Even in this they can't get it correct.

[Boreas]

I never advocated abstinence only education. Please quote where I said I supported 'abstinence only.'
Of course I am against abortion. I don't believe in the killing of unborn children, a perfectly acceptable position to take on the matter.

I was under the impression you were supporting abstinence only education.

Have you just been argumentative in this thread? :confused:

[jon71]

Well hopefully we have one fewer supporter of abstinence only now. I swear that was the message I was getting over the last 8 pages but oh well. It should be noted that with comprehensive sex education and greater access to contraceptives the abortion rate will go down. Isn't it funny that pro-choice liberals like myself take policy positions that will reduce the number of abortions while most most anti-choice conservatives take positions that will increase the number.

[vintagecarguy]

logic and reason over fear and superstition

[KirkOntario]

I was under the impression you were supporting abstinence only education.

:

If you go back and actually read what I wrote I said that teaching abstinence was part of the education and not 'abstinence only.' And this proves my point. Liberals will refuse to teach abstinence at all because they confuse it with 'abstinence only.' They go one better as Jocelyn Elders wanted to do and actually teach and encourage sexual activity. (remember she took the absurd position that children should taught how to masturbate?)

[Skinview]

They go one better as Jocelyn Elders wanted to do and actually teach and encourage sexual activity. (remember she took the absurd position that children should taught how to masturbate?)That was taught about masterbation, not "how to".

[Boreas]

That was taught about masterbation, not "how to".

Yes, and that is one "liberal" not "liberals".

Kirk, please back up your statement that "liberals" do not teach abstinence as part of sex ed. Please show that it is not taught as being the most effective way to prevent HIV and other STD's, as DoctorSurferDude has outlined. If you can.

[jon71]

Of course info about masturbation should be included. There are some people who still think you'll go blind or grow hair on your palms. Of course that should be debunked and other general info should be provided. It was not about "how to". Is there anyone over 12 who doesn't know how to. For that matter my 8 year old does and believe me, we didn't teach her how to she got that on her own. (I know because we had to teach her that some things require privacy). For the record if we're talking about a laundry list of options of course abstinence should be included but that's about all it warrants.

[Boreas]

If you go back and actually read what I wrote I said that teaching abstinence was part of the education and not 'abstinence only.' And this proves my point. Liberals will refuse to teach abstinence at all because they confuse it with 'abstinence only.' They go one better as Jocelyn Elders wanted to do and actually teach and encourage sexual activity. (remember she took the absurd position that children should taught how to masturbate?)

This thread is titled "Sex ed - abstinence only doesn't work as well". Your arguments seemed to be opposing that title.

[BinCo]

Kids need to be told to abstain and wait and to be provided with some basic information.

Actually Kirk, you seem to be more leaning to the abstinence only crowd. You want to provide basic information and TELL them to wait. While us "Liberals" and "Logicals" lean more toward the idea of giving as much information as possible to the kids and having a realistic understanding that they will be doing the horizontal bob whether we tell them to or not. So we tell them it is a lot smarter to wait until they have a better understanding of the ramifications, not just waiting until you have a ring on your finger or God will strike you down and the townsfolk will put a big red "S" on your dress for the slut that you are. :lightingzapA:

I would have to agree that kids should be taught it's OK to masterbate, which is probably more of what was being taught as opposed to the process and hand positions. This not only lets them let go of some tension, but it also is natural and a heck of a good time.:blush: They should be told that it's alright, they won't go to hell for spilling their seed or get hairy palms or some other BS.

[Boreas]

A really good book on this topic is "Speaking of Sex" by Meg Hickling. She is a sex educator in British Columbia who has won awards. She advocates teaching kids from day one in an age appropriate manner. She bases her information on research and a long history in the nursing profession. She also does this without telling kids to go out and "try it."

[KirkOntario]

Actually Kirk, you seem to be more leaning to the abstinence only crowd. You want to provide basic information and TELL them to wait. .

Which isn't 'abstinence only' more like 'abstinence plus.' Yes, of course I lean towards that position. I'm a conservative. My lifetime has been spent watching liberal innovations produce disasterous results.

[Boreas]

Which isn't 'abstinence only' more like 'abstinence plus.' Yes, of course I lean towards that position. I'm a conservative. My lifetime has been spent watching liberal innovations produce disasterous results.

Oh, that is MUCH different isn't it? :rolleyes:

I have spent a lot of time seeing conservative policies cause many disasterous results. I have expressed that before and will not now.

[nacktman]

I have spent a lot of time seeing conservative policies cause many disasterous results.

Haven't we all, haven't we all.:disappointed:

Just on this topic alone those 'conservative policies' had lead directly to a exponential increase in un-safe sexual practises, younger ages beginning sexual activity, absolutely insane ideas about 'prevention' and 'contraception', massive spikes in STDs and other diseases and more where ever they hold sway in even the slightest way.

[Croydon]

I was very lucky to have a very open minded dad.

I grew up catholic. I am now a recovering catholic.

I attended catholic elementary school and an all boys prep catholic high school.The only education I ever received that was remotely sex education was in 7th and 8th grade where we had one day of "Family Life", which was basically catholic educators talking about puberty.

My dad, a doctor, started talking to me about sex when I was 13. Like many teenagers, I thought I knew it all and often dismissed my dad when he wanted to talk. All my answers were the typical, "I know that, you already told me, I read that, and the I am 13 and I already know." Reality was, I didn't know. I was just so uncomfortable talking to my dad about sex.

My dad persisted with "the talk". He often found opportunities to discuss the topic and I later came around. We talked about EVERYTHING and there no topics were off limit. He talked to me about everything from condoms to masturbation to anal sex. No question was stupid to ask.

I thank my dad for his openness as I had someone to talk to about sex and not feel embarrassed. The only thing my dad asked of me is to come to him when I think I am ready to have sex. I did that and he provided me with all the info I needed and yes, the condoms. I waited to have sex until I was 17. I did it and experienced what it was all about.

I have two other brothers and he used to same approach on them.

I urge parents to be frank, open and honest with their young kids. I know in many parents' eyes that they 16 y/o boy is still that 6 y/o. Well he isn't 6 y/o anymore, he is a growing man with raging hormones. The best thing to do for him as a parent is to talk to him, provide him with all the information he'll need to make the RIGHT decisions about sex.

[Boreas]

You had an awesome dad Croydon! 13 is actually a bit late. Another good reason to give kids good, age appropriate sex education early is that it helps to protect them against predators. When you can have an open discussion about sexual matters, then your children will feel comfortable enough to talk to you if someone does touch them sexually. When sexual topics are taboo, who are they going to talk to if someone touches them? Another thing is that when children know the proper names, a predator will know that they did not get that information off the streets. They probably got it from caring parents.

[nacktman]

I urge parents to be frank, open and honest with their young kids. I know in many parents' eyes that they 16 y/o is still that 6 y/o. Well they aren't 6 y/o anymore, they are a growing human with raging hormones. The best thing to do for them as a parent is to talk to them, provide them with all the information they'll need to make the RIGHT decisions about sex.

Hear, hear :applause:

(citation amended to reflect both genders)

[Big-Thinker]

Though I am rightly suspicious of biased media publications, I have seen anectdotal evidence that abstinence programs don't work very well. I think it really doesn't matter what you set up as "the rules" or what you get teens to promise... what matters is the underlying psychology which is causing them to do this or that. Insecure, trouble teens have more sex, whether they're religious or not. I think what is far more important than some weird program is to raise kids in a stable, happy way and teach them to be WISE, have COMMON SENSE and have SELF-RESPECT. It's strange that you never see the idea of teaching the now-foreign-concept of WISDOM to kids in recent decades (in America, at least). For thousands of years parents conveyed the idea to their chidren that they should make wise decisions. Now all the sudden, born-yesterday America says it's ok for kids to be dumb sh*ts and make tragic, early mistakes in their lives.

A second problem is the reality-check. I am all for good ideals that can improve our lives, but you need to adjust those ideals sometimes, to something called reality. When you're not dealing with reality, something's gonna break, and you bear responsibility for that. People, parents, church leaders need to ask themselves, and ponder it hard, "Now, what is REALLY going to happen if I do this or that". In the end, any effort intended to influence kids for the better will not have 100% success, but an effort that really works for some might be worthwhile.

[nacktman]

Though I am rightly suspicious of biased media publications, I have seen anectdotal evidence that abstinence programs don't work very well. I think it really doesn't matter what you set up as "the rules" or what you get teens to promise... what matters is the underlying psychology which is causing them to do this or that. Insecure, trouble teens have more sex, whether they're religious or not. I think what is far more important than some weird program is to raise kids in a stable, happy way and teach them to be WISE, have COMMON SENSE and have SELF-RESPECT. It's strange that you never see the idea of teaching the now-foreign-concept of WISDOM to kids in recent decades (in America, at least). For thousands of years parents conveyed the idea to their chidren that they should make wise decisions. Now all the sudden, born-yesterday America says it's ok for kids to be dumb sh*ts and make tragic, early mistakes in their lives.

A second problem is the reality-check. I am all for good ideals that can improve our lives, but you need to adjust those ideals sometimes, to something called reality. When you're not dealing with reality, something's gonna break, and you bear responsibility for that. People, parents, church leaders need to ask themselves, and ponder it hard, "Now, what is REALLY going to happen if I do this or that". In the end, any effort intended to influence kids for the better will not have 100% success, but an effort that really works for some might be worthwhile.

Well said :applause:

[EricNY]

Noise machine whir, spit, sputter, whir,spit, sputter,whir, spit, sputter ...

I am done with your behavior on this site. You insist on making light of moderation, you continue to disrespect your fellow man for having opinions that differ from yours. You refuse or are not capable of debating topics without insulting others and groups of others [political parties for example]

I have asked nice, I have begged and pleaded with you. I gave you a week to think about it, and you have proven that you are not willing to control yourself.

The week didn't work...try a month, and as I told you before the next step will be permanent.