Freethought & Rationalism Archive

lpetrich · 11-16-2002, 10:49 PM

I think that our society has failed in creating a road map for starting in sex. The teen years are when one makes the transition from childhood to adulthood, learning how to drive, how to handle money, and so forth. One such transition is, of course, sex, and our society does not handle it very well.

And what I mean is more than "insert tab A into slot B". I mean things like masturbation, mutual masturbation, and such acts as penis-between-legs sex. Such acts seem to me to be the ideal way to start -- it is difficult for them to cause pregnancy or spread STD's.

I find it disappointing that this is not discussed more clearly -- why not be explict in championing masturbation? I ask that because of the fate of Dr. Joycelyn Elders, who was denounced by the Religious Right after she suggested that it be a good subject for sex education. Clinton lamely fired her; it often seems to me that he ought to try out for the Vatican Choir.

Nataraja · 11-17-2002, 03:29 AM

Yeah, teach the kids masturbation. Far more effective, if you ask me. Sex ed has become redundant these days, my 13 year old brother is already more active than I am.

lpetrich · 11-17-2002, 05:18 AM

Boys may not need much instruction or encouragement in this department. But the same cannot be said of girls.

pz · 11-17-2002, 11:04 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by lpetrich:
Boys may not need much instruction or encouragement in this department. But the same cannot be said of girls.

Oh, sure. Go ahead and get in front of the local school board and tell them that they need to start offering courses that teach teenage girls how to masturbate.

I'd guess the odds are about 1 in 5 that there will be some degree of riot, and the police will be called; even odds that the police will start a file on you; and it's just about dead certain that you will never be able to walk down the street again without a bunch of prudes whispering behind your back.

Although if the prudes would masturbate more often, this really shouldn't be such a problem.

Nickle · 11-17-2002, 08:08 PM

I'm surprised my school didn't teach "abstinence-only." I grew up in a Dallas suburb and I remember them teaching us how to put a condom on in 8th grade. In high school, masturbation was taught as a good thing, and they spent quite a bit of time on the different risk levels for different birth control/sex acts.

I guess the fundies haven't taken over the whole metroplex yet.

Toto · 11-18-2002, 02:41 PM

Follow the money:

Pork for Prudes

Quote:

Bush's support for abstinence-until-marriage has outraged liberals, who question whether such programs can actually reduce teen sex--and who, consequently, boycott the grants. But the effectiveness debate has largely obscured one underlying reason for the Bush administration's support: politics. Funding abstinence-until-marriage programs allows the White House to reward conservative groups by putting them on the federal gravy train.

For 30 years, sex education has been at the center of the culture wars, with liberals struggling to safeguard services that teach teens about contraception against conservatives' efforts to eliminate federal support for them. But since 1996, conservatives have adopted a new strategy: Instead of simply attacking initiatives they oppose (which, incidentally, are often administered by liberals), they have begun winning federal funding for their own alternative programs. With the administration's blessing, conservatives are breeding a new kind of federal pork geared entirely to their kindred spirits. Though it flies in the face of small-government ideology, nourishing the nascent abstinence movement with federal funds marks an important shift in GOP strategy to court its restless social-conservative base.

Toto · 06-06-2003, 01:49 PM

Orange County School Board rejects Project Reality's Game Plan

Quote:

. . .many Game Plan supporters reacted spitefully to the unexpected verdict, with one self-proclaimed minister going so far as to insist to the audience that trustee Audrey Yamagata-Noji voted against the abstinence-loaded program because of lingering bitterness over the Japanese-American internment in World War II.

. . .

Game Plan was conceived by Project Reality, an Illinois-based nonprofit organization established in 1985 with the expressed intent to implement abstinence-only sex education across the country. Project Reality, in turn, is a subsidiary of the Committee on the Status of Women, another Illinois-based organization founded in 1975 by ultraconservative pundit Phyllis Schlafly. Through Schlafly�s political clout, according to a 1996 report by the liberal watchdog group People for the American Way, Project Reality won state contracts to teach abstinence-only sex-ed courses in Illinois and elsewhere worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, contracts that continue to be enforced to this day.

. . .

The problem with Project Reality�and the reason it was rejected by a slim majority of the SAUSD board�is that it teaches virtually nothing about contraceptives and very little about sex in general, other than stressing that it be avoided. The program�s booklet, titled Game Plan, paints a sex-crazed world where even shampoo commercials pressure children into having sex. Condoms are allotted one page, and then only to dismiss their use as worthless. More insidious, however, is the underlying theme throughout the pages of Game Plan that romantic heterosexual relationships are necessary to be a functional high schooler; homosexual teens and those without boyfriends or girlfriends are invisible.

Schools in 25 states use Game Plan, which Project Reality has targeted at mostly minority youth in inner-city schools. There�s even a Spanish-language version of Game Plan intended for heavily Latino districts such as the SAUSD. This approach spilled over into the local lobbying effort as well; many of the more than 90 speakers who spoke in support of Game Plan on May 13 used their Latino ethnicity to argue that the program would be good for them. "We [Latinos] are religious people; we don�t want [our kids] exposed to sex," one parent told the Los Angeles Times.

But would Latino parents be as enthusiastic about Game Plan if they knew of the involvement of Schlafly, a notorious Latino-baiter who insists in nationally published columns that Mexicans are planning to retake the Southwest? Or that Project Reality leader Kathleen Sullivan once told a Chicago magazine that minority youth ". . . are not going to learn to punch the time clock and to be there on time and produce a day�s work if they can�t even control their own emotions in the important area of sexuality"?

JonathanChance · 06-07-2003, 09:56 AM

Well, back when I was in high school in rural Northeast Wisconsin (1994-1998), This was sex ed as taught in Freshman Health class and a class called Social Problems that was taken by Juniors and Seniors (both of which required one's parents to sign a permission slip to take):

Don't do it, don't do it, don't do it, dont do it, These are STD and here is how they spread, don't do it, don't do it, don't do it, don't do it, homosexuality are, in general confused, don't do it, don't do it, don't do it, you might get pregnant! Don't do it, don't do it, don't do it abstinence is the only 100% way to be sure you don't get pregnant or contract an STD, don't do it, don't do it, don't do it, condoms are not effective*, don't do it, don't do it, don't do it, don't do it, wait for marrigae, don't do it, don't do it, don't do it, you don't have to take your clothes off to have a good time with your boy/girlfriend, don't do it, don't do it don't do it, don't do it, dont do it, and if you are still thinking about doing it, here are some images of the mangled genitalia of people in various stages of various STDs.

Guess what? It didn't work. We ended up having three girls get pregnant out of a class of 92, (and carry the fetus to term, there were rumors of other girls in our class who got pregnent and thier parents had taken them down to either Fond du Lac or Milwaukee to have their pregnancies terminated) and by senior year, according to a survey taken by a UW-Green Bay stats class, 3/4 of my graduating class had had sex by the time they were seniors. (IIRC, the national average is 2/3.)

*Our health class and the Social Problems classes gave us some bullshit statistics on condom failiure rates that hadn't been up to date since 1983. From what I have been able to gather form people who recently graduated, these statistics are still in use, despite the fact that they are now two decades old.

Sabine Grant · 06-07-2003, 10:01 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by pz
.
Although if the prudes would masturbate more often, this really shouldn't be such a problem.

Bonjour PZ... I think the problem is moreso if the "prudes" were to admit they masturbate. While in a parenting Class, the instructor stated " 95% of Americans masturbate.... and the 5% who does not is lying about it". Whether or not her data was correct, the sexual instinct is as powerful as the instinct of preservation or maybe more. Young children will explore their genitals without aknowledging consciously that they are experiencing pleasure related to the act of masturbation.

When Freud announced that he related succion of an infant to the sexual instinct.... talk about riots.

If a Health Class or science class were to study the various instincts which constitute the profile of human nature, the word " sexuality" would not be the " dirty notion word" anylonger. Maybe that is the angle school education should take so it would not step on any toes when it comes to masturbation. I support all sex ed alternatives and I believe they should all be presented if the public school is truly abiding to educating students. However, the choice of the student in which method to use is not to be directed by the school. There should be no cohersion exercised on the student.

So IMO a strictly abstinence curriculum as well as a strictly pregnancy control curriculum based on birth control methods only can be cohercive.

As far as masturbation is concerned from a biblical stand, there is NO ref. to the act of masturbation. There is ref. to immoral sex which can be commited in other circumstances. If the religious powers want to deny public schools the right to include masturbation as part of a sex ed curriculum, they cannot use a biblical ref.

Masturbation if practiced as a natural relief to what the sexual instinct directs our bodies to NEED is healthy. Not only can it keep a single individual from seeking relationships only for sexual relief ( which can lead to multiple partnerships, exposure to STDs , unwanted pregnancies and at times among women a degradation of self estime), but it is also a mean for couples who suffer of various physical handicaps to achieve a healthy sexual life.

I recently talked to a supervising nurse to inquire how my two quad patients who had just got married could experience a sexual relation as part of their union. They benefited of the assistance of a nurse on their nuptial night.....in the medical field there is nothing dirty about it.

Now that can be compared to the flasher who has to find stimulus by being an exhibitionist.... masturbation is not the "evil". What roams in the mind of the individual is what can be considered " evil". And it applies to all forms of sexual activities.

On the other hand ( no pun intended), I was listening to a christian program recently dealing with the topic of masturbation. The guest speaker came from the angle that if masturbation is used as a placebo to satisfy unfulfilled needs in a couple caused by lack of communication and the fear of rejection etc...then isolated masturbation by one or the other partner can contribute to the ongoing problem. However his angle was never rooted from the notion that masturbation is a sin. So there are reasonable christians out there who aknowledge the humanity of mankind and do not believe that sex is only for procreation.

I think the Song of Salomon makes it clear that it is not only for procreation.........

Am I the only theist who dared to even " touch " the subject in this thread? I admit.... I did not read the entire thread.

lpetrich · 06-07-2003, 11:59 PM

More insidious, however, is the underlying theme throughout the pages of Game Plan that romantic heterosexual relationships are necessary to be a functional high schooler; homosexual teens and those without boyfriends or girlfriends are invisible.

Those without partners are not mentioned?

Those without partners may not be likely to get much partner sex, as it may be called, which would presumably make them VERY virtuous. But is it cheating not to have a possible sexual partner?

06-07-2003, 09:56 AM	#28
JonathanChance Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Stevens Point, WI Posts: 538	My sex ed experience Well, back when I was in high school in rural Northeast Wisconsin (1994-1998), This was sex ed as taught in Freshman Health class and a class called Social Problems that was taken by Juniors and Seniors (both of which required one's parents to sign a permission slip to take): Don't do it, don't do it, don't do it, dont do it, These are STD and here is how they spread, don't do it, don't do it, don't do it, don't do it, homosexuality are, in general confused, don't do it, don't do it, don't do it, you might get pregnant! Don't do it, don't do it, don't do it abstinence is the only 100% way to be sure you don't get pregnant or contract an STD, don't do it, don't do it, don't do it, condoms are not effective, don't do it, don't do it, don't do it, don't do it, wait for marrigae, don't do it, don't do it, don't do it, you don't have to take your clothes off to have a good time with your boy/girlfriend, don't do it, don't do it don't do it, don't do it, dont do it, and if you are still thinking about doing it, here are some images of the mangled genitalia of people in various stages of various STDs. Guess what? It didn't work. We ended up having three girls get pregnant out of a class of 92, (and carry the fetus to term, there were rumors of other girls in our class who got pregnent and thier parents had taken them down to either Fond du Lac or Milwaukee to have their pregnancies terminated) and by senior year, according to a survey taken by a UW-Green Bay stats class, 3/4 of my graduating class had had sex by the time they were seniors. (IIRC, the national average is 2/3.) Our health class and the Social Problems classes gave us some bullshit statistics on condom failiure rates that hadn't been up to date since 1983. From what I have been able to gather form people who recently graduated, these statistics are still in use, despite the fact that they are now two decades old.

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11-16-2002, 10:49 PM	#21
lpetrich Contributor Join Date: Jul 2000 Location: Lebanon, OR, USA Posts: 16,829	I think that our society has failed in creating a road map for starting in sex. The teen years are when one makes the transition from childhood to adulthood, learning how to drive, how to handle money, and so forth. One such transition is, of course, sex, and our society does not handle it very well. And what I mean is more than "insert tab A into slot B". I mean things like masturbation, mutual masturbation, and such acts as penis-between-legs sex. Such acts seem to me to be the ideal way to start -- it is difficult for them to cause pregnancy or spread STD's. I find it disappointing that this is not discussed more clearly -- why not be explict in championing masturbation? I ask that because of the fate of Dr. Joycelyn Elders, who was denounced by the Religious Right after she suggested that it be a good subject for sex education. Clinton lamely fired her; it often seems to me that he ought to try out for the Vatican Choir.

11-17-2002, 03:29 AM	#22
Nataraja Regular Member Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: NC Posts: 433	Yeah, teach the kids masturbation. Far more effective, if you ask me. Sex ed has become redundant these days, my 13 year old brother is already more active than I am.

11-17-2002, 05:18 AM	#23
lpetrich Contributor Join Date: Jul 2000 Location: Lebanon, OR, USA Posts: 16,829	Boys may not need much instruction or encouragement in this department. But the same cannot be said of girls.

11-17-2002, 08:08 PM	#25
Nickle Regular Member Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Texas Posts: 385	I'm surprised my school didn't teach "abstinence-only." I grew up in a Dallas suburb and I remember them teaching us how to put a condom on in 8th grade. In high school, masturbation was taught as a good thing, and they spent quite a bit of time on the different risk levels for different birth control/sex acts. I guess the fundies haven't taken over the whole metroplex yet.

06-07-2003, 11:59 PM	#30
lpetrich Contributor Join Date: Jul 2000 Location: Lebanon, OR, USA Posts: 16,829	More insidious, however, is the underlying theme throughout the pages of Game Plan that romantic heterosexual relationships are necessary to be a functional high schooler; homosexual teens and those without boyfriends or girlfriends are invisible. Those without partners are not mentioned? Those without partners may not be likely to get much partner sex, as it may be called, which would presumably make them VERY virtuous. But is it cheating not to have a possible sexual partner?

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