Sabine Grant

In the past 10 years that my children have been schooled, I have never encountered an "abstinence only" presentation as part of the Sex Ed curriculum in the Us Public School system.
Both abstinence and protected sex should be presented from 5th grade and up.
The initial purpose of Sex Ed was to equip pre teens and teens with ways and means to be protected from STDs as well as HIV and unwanted pregnancies. The ethical aspect of it all belongs in the home not in the school.
The same precautions that apply to heterosexuals (except for pregnancies) also apply to homosexuals. Only UPDATED scientific data should be presented to the students. The battle for ethics is up to the parents or legal guardians in the privacy of their home.
I found myself having to lobby for equal presentation of both curriculum as my kids were attending the Department of Defense Dependents School System while stationned in Naples Italy for 6 years. As I sat in one of the presentations by a Science teacher and later a Red cross RN, I became concern with the misconception that the use of a condom equals to "safe sex". The speakers neglicted to inform the kids that the exchange of body fluids which may carry blood pathogens such as HIV and Hepatitis can still occur EVEN with a condom.
The notion that total safe sex is abstinence from sexual intercourse was left out.
Giving a false sense of safety to kids is as criminal as trying to deny the normal pulsions they will experience as teens and how they can satisfy them safely.
Abstinence is to be taught in the home if it is the parents's belief. In our schools it is to be objectivly presented as the only total way out of unwanted pregnancies and sexualy transmitted diseases. It is part of the equipping.
So far my 18 year old and 15 year old daughters have chosen abstinence. It is a way of life to them. Not so much motivated by the fear of pregnancy or STDs or the terminal verdict of Hiv. They have joined the "True Love waits" program. My older daughter wears a simple ring at the very finger where her wedding band will go.
But they also both know that mom will embrace them and support them if they get pregnant.
Trying to push for one legislation or the other to restrict the Sex Ed curriculum is nonsense and will result in leaving out scientific data.
If any of you are parents, your best bet is to ask to view the sex Ed curriculum from the school your children will attend. Inform yourselves and verify the data. Do not hesitate to challenge the school board and school administrators if you detect a failure to present both curriculum. The rest you do it in your home. Do not expect the government to raise your child for you.

Derec

Sabine,

if you are consistent, then "abstinence" from participating in traffic should be tought in driver's ed as the only possibility to totally avoid the possibility of being in an accident.

I think the "don't do it" approach is pretty laughable as everything we do in life carries a certain risk. Risk of responsible sexuality is not even high on the list of the risks American teenagers are exposed.

Sabine Grant

Man on campus.... rather than trying to prove that I am consistent, I only pertain to point that if we really have the kids'best interest at heart, then we need to offer them all the alternatives.
You seem to want to perceive extremes in what I presented earlier when I equaly dealt with both curriculum.
I agree with you that there are greater dangers for teens than sex. The danger of video games addiction or cyber addiction which turns a healthy teen into someone who has no social life and resides in their bedroom most of the time is one.How about the teen raised with white supremacist tendencies and ends up beating up a schoolmate? how about the arsenal kept at home by a careless parent which ends up in the hands of an angry teen? and various religious cults which endoctrinate young adults away from their family?

Comparing driving with sex leaves out the fact that we need to pass a test to be allowed to drive. Rules are set in place to keep it safe. You get caught driving drunk, you may lose your license.Nothing "regulates" our risks as we become sexualy active. The regulation comes in place if we have hepatitis or are HIV positive and we withold that information from our partner..we can even be charged with man slaughter if we transmitted it knowingly. But it is too late. We basicaly killed someone.
We can only prevent tragedies when it comes to sex ed.
As for masturbation, the taboo has been in place for a very long time. In my country we are told as a kid "if you masturbate you will become deaf".
I recently attended a parenting class where the counselor was honest enough to tell us that 90% of Americans masturbate and the remaining 10% who say they do not are lying.(chuckle).
Idealy it would be helpful to instruct a teen couple who wish to share intimacy to practice mutual masturbation (granted they wear latex gloves as they come in contact with their genitals).No kidding.... what applies as standard precautions to a health care worker when giving a perineal bath, applies to all.
Both intercourse and oral sex present a definite risk to be infected with a death sentence. This is medical data. Not an ethical issue. That is what kids need to be told.
And it is an unchangeable reality that the only 100% safe way to not be infected is to avoid both oral sex and intercourse.

Grumpy

Interesting analogy. However, I wouldn't want to see a sex-ed teacher instruct students on how to "drive." See Monty Python's The Meaning of Life. To put it another way, Kama Sutra is not a textbook for teenagers.

Derec

Well it does not tell them why they should not drive either.

Haven't yet. Will rent.

And why not? I don't see how it would not be appropriate for later (>=16) teenagers, or at least the 18 and 19 year olds. It is certainly more appropriate for them than for 40 year olds


[ October 06, 2002: Message edited by: UglyManOnCampus ]</p>

Toto

I think using rubber gloves for mutual masturbation is going a bit overboard. HIV transmission requires contact between bodily fluids - the HIV virus does not survive outside a fluid environment. There is some theoretical risk if one partner has a skin problem, but I tried searching for some data on risk levels, and did not find it. (I know that for some time oral sex was assumed to be low risk, but statistics showed it to have some level of risk.)

Of course, you realize that threatening teen agers or others with a death sentence for having sex has been proven ineffective over the ages. (Read the Bible.) The danger of "abstinence only" programs is that the teen ager assumes he or she will never have sex, and is then more likely to have unprotected unsafe sex when that resolve loses out to hormones.

frostymama

I sure hope that ring works better at warding off penises for your daughter than it did for me. One semester away from Mom and Dad (at college) and that little sucker was worthless.

Derec

Inflating the risks of sexual activity does not equate to "presenting all alternatives"


Abstinence has to do with sex ed as much as staying at home has to do with driver's ed.


Thanks.

What about other forms of supremacy?


My analogy had to do with the fact that in both sex and traffic (ironicaly both can be translated as a form of "Verkehr" in German) one can endager oneself by behaving recklessly (one night stand without protection, being secxually active with a boyfriend/girlfriend without birth control) but also that there are risks that, no matter how safe you try to be, you cannot avoid. A condom might fail or a drunk driver may cross the median and hit you head on. Yet few people see a need to advocate abstinence from transportation.

And no, you do not need a licence to participate in traffic, as pedestrians and cyclists are also participants and very much exposed to the 'residual risk' of participation.


That is why we need informed people, able to behave resposnibly, instead of trying to get those people to refrain from sex.

Jeez, you are going way overboard with that. It kind of reminds me of Spacer societies in Isaac Asimov's novels.

Every human activity "presents a definite risk [ of a] death sentence". That's life. We can take precautions to minimize that risk where possible but we will never get 100% safety.


Not unless they are also told that the only way to avoid the risk of slipping in the shower and breaking their necks is not to shower.

It is an unchangeable reality that the only 100% safe way to not be exposed to risks (including non-STD infections) is to avoid both doing anything at all and all human contact (as humans are potential carriers of all sorts of non-STD infectious diseases).

I do not see how risks from sexuality (especially being much lower than other risks that teenagers and young adults are exposed to) are qualitatively any different from any nonsexual risks. Trying desperately to construct such qualitative difference is a telltale sign of a deep mistrust towards sex, possibly stemming from your religious upbringing.

[ October 06, 2002: Message edited by: UglyManOnCampus ]</p>

Derec

And just why do you hope that? I mean, what is rong with a college girl to be sexually active if she so choses?

Parents like hers (and my own ugliness ) are the reason it is so difficult (if not impossible) to get laid around here. <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

4th Generation Atheist

Rings emphatically don't ward off the opposite genitalia. There's a "type" found in both sexes who seem to be attracted to those "already taken", as a category. My female relatives have found that in some circumstances putting the wedding/engagement ring in a pocket makes it less likely that creepy strange men will hit on them. For guys, there's the stereotypical "homewrecker" to look out for; same type, other gender model.