Zar

Contrary to the crankish insistence of right wing Christians in the U.S., who are very backwards about discussing sex with teenagers and who seem to want a repressive and reactionary policy toward sexuality as a solution to teen pregnancy, a recent report refutes their argument for a "tight lipped" approach to the issue.

Depite the haranguing to the contrary, it is clear that European societies which are more open and honest about sex in general, and who do not shy away from promoting and accepting birth control among teens, have markedly more success than the U.S. does at producing more responsible and desirable results overall.

The U.S. suffers ~50 births per 1,000 teens, while France and Sweden hover around 8 or 10. These are much more "secular" societies from top to bottom than the right-wing United States is.

In short, the so-called "liberals" are right:

The link to the whole article is here: <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/news/664476.asp" target="_blank">http://www.msnbc.com/news/664476.asp</a>

Any comments on this?

[ November 29, 2001: Message edited by: Zar ]</p>

Jamie_L

The thing is that for a lot of Americans, less teen pregnancy or less sexually transmitted disease is not the goal. The goal is less teen sex. They may be right in that the two goals may be somewhat exclusive. The argument really should not be about "how do we reduce teen pregnancy and disease", but which is a more important goal.

In my opinion, the Europeans have it right. Teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease hurts people (and society) more than elevated levels of teen sex. Let society keep itself safe, and let parents take the responsibility for instilling morals in their kids about when to have sex.

Jamie

brighid

I agree that an open and honest approach is always the best way to handle any situation. My mom was told that she would get pregnant if a boy kissed her. Imagine, to her surprise that when she kissed a boy over and over again that she didn’t get pregnant. My mother has ZERO sex education. By the time she was 16 she was pregnant and had an ectopic pregnancy that almost killed her. Swoosh – right away my mother and father married – it was the right thing to do you know back then. A few months after the wedding baby #2- (me) comes along followed by two others and 23 years of a horrible marriage. Because of course the Catholic Church told her she couldn’t divorce my father, even though he was an abusive alcoholic.

Sex education was not big in our house either. My sister learned about birth control and sex through Planned Parenthood. I was a little more fortunate – but our sex ed class was still a bit lacking. At my junior prom my mother was so worried I was going to loose my virginity that she nearly had a nervous break down. She handed me a dime and told me to hold it between my knees and DON’T drop it or else I could get pregnant!

Anyway – enough of my sad stories!

Children in Europe are taught about sex, not to be afraid of it, to enjoy it but to be practical and safe. European children are also bettered educated and education levels have been shown in comparison with teen pregnancy rates. The higher the education level the less likely a teen will become pregnant.

How many American girls have gotten pregnant thinking they can’t get pregnant the 1st time they have sex? How many think they can’t get pregnant if he pulls out in time? And what teenage boy has THAT much control? How many teenage girls know that the clear drop of semen that comes out prior to the milky gush is far more potent than a cup full of cum? How many kids are taught that STD’s can be caught through oral sex, even if no fluids are exchanges (like HPV/genital warts) and so on and so forth? It should also be noted that teen pregnancy is higher (I believe) in the Southern Bible Belt states! Christianity is doing so much to help!

So many problems in this country could be averted if Christianity would keep their moral busy bodies OUT of the equation.


Brighid

Captain Pedantic

Last year, a discussion on how to prevent teenage pregnancy on another site turned into an argument when I expressed horror at another girl's suggestion that to prevent pregnancy, girls should be made "terrified to even look at a penis" - that they should be told that sex is dirty, wrong etc. This girl replied to me with "So they might have a few sexual problems - I think this is far better than teenage pregnancy"

I felt vindicated not long ago when I read that about half of those diagnosed with paraphillias (sexual perversions) were taught about sex along the lines prescribed by the girl I mention above. Of course, I have no children, but I get a feeling I would rather be mother to a teenage parent than mother-in-law to a horse (I shit ye not: one story described a boy who was beaten by his mother for engaging in sex play as a child. He was told sex would turn him into "a crazy man". He now lives with his "wife", who is a horse).

Many others say that children should be taught only about sex after marriage. I have nothing against people who wish to wait until marriage, but I don't think it's happening for most people. Furthermore, young people tend to be attracted to what their parents don't allow them to have. I'd wager that kids who get told not to have sex get down and dirty before the kids with more permissive parents.

I had fairly good sex education, but I was lucky. The thing that pissed me off the most was the culture of giggling and acting silly that surrounded the whole thing. I was out of step in many ways at school, and I really didn't think it was hilarious to blow up a condom, draw a face on it and put it on Mr Dunn's chair. Maybe this is my problem.

Bree

I had very strange sex education, taught by a fundie man who was exactly that, in every sense of the word.

This man brought in a OB/GYN who proceeded to show us pictures of his patients' genitals. Of course, all the patients had some kind of horrid disease due to "rampant sexual hungers" or something like that. Our teacher refused to teach us about condoms or other birth control because he believed it would "allow" us to think that sexual activity outside the sanctity of marriage was okay.

Oh, and AIDS? "It's a disease for fags." In fact, he recently told my sister the same thing (she is now in his health class). No one batted an eyelash.

DMB

Studies a few years ago showed that children who received adequate sex education on average had their first sexual experience later than those who didn't. Fundies make the erroneous equation:
ignorance=innocence.

I'm curious as to how the majority of American fundies manage to shelter their children from all the implicit (or even explicit) sex used to sell just about any product you can think of.

Danielboy

Children should be taught to think. They should be taught to love themselves above all things.
Sex is just one of those things that could be dangerous if there weren't some instructions and warnings, but we do it anyway.

Fundies are, IMO, over-estimating themselves if they think they can control their children's behaviour completely. Anyways, sex doesn't turn people crazy, repression does. I belive a great percentage of rapists are actually sexually repressed people whom 'could not resist it' any longer. Just look at all the reports of child-molesting priests.

In 'secular' morality, there is absolutely nothing wrong with sex. Why should there be. Its fun. Its exciting. It can even exercise your heart. Why the Victorian Prudishness?

In my country Singapore, the Ministry of Education is beginning to lossen up about sex education, though they still keep a negative position on homosexuality. Yet some parents complain about this. They say it's a family affair, as though they will actually have the guts to explain it to their children themselves. It really disappoints me to be living in such a small city-state and yet have such closed-minded groups of people.

You know which country really has a very liberal-minded society? Taiwan. They really are open about sexual issues. They have a TV programme. It is a forum like thing with speakers from all backgrounds and ages [some as young as 7]. They talk about problems and issues regarding sex, and even encourages masturbations as clearly a better way then to risk pregnancy or STDs. This is what I call a truly respectable sex ed program IMO.

dangin

I am involved with a program that teaches parenting and life skills to teen aged high school girls at an inner city school near here.

The superintendent of this school has been quoted as saying 1 in 4 of their female students will be pregnent before graduating.

Condoms and birthcontrol are a bandage on a hemorhage here. That is why we are going straight to teaching parenting skills. These same young mothers think that it is OK to put an infant in a crib and go partying for hours because the baby can't get out. Or that it is OK to give a baby milk that has been sitting around in the bottle for hours.

It would take a massive influx of birth control training to correct this situation, and of course. Religious parents would freak out.

The message here is, even when 1 out of four teen girls are getting pregnent. Christianity still rejects sex education.

Zar

Wow, thanks for the feedback, everyone.

I especially agree with those who say that contraceptives are necessary but not sufficient. A wide range of awarenesses are probably needed to prevent unwanted pregnancy. Basically, a society more sophisticated than that in the United States in general.

It is so very petty and shameful how these vocal right-wingers will take any chance they can get to put the Ten Commandments in a park or a courthouse, and force others to fight them like they were pulling so many annoying weeds. Its just sick and twisted. I mean, whole coalitions of Christians are put together just to pick fights and annoy people and generate Constitutional crises that really aren't real crises at all. It smacks as something only plump, satisfied, bored, milquetoast people with nothing better to do engage in.

It all takes such a tremendous amount of energy away from solving any real problems. Sad, really.

[ November 29, 2001: Message edited by: Zar ]</p>

Beelzebub

The common threads amongst all these answers are ignorance and fundies. These go together like soup and sandwich. You simply can't be a fundie without being kept ignorant about sex, science, history, etc. They are terrified of education and for good reason. Without ignorance they will disappear.