So yes I'm using this term for its giggle inducing connotations. So hows the whole no-sex sex education working? Well according to anyone who's ever been a teen it won't work, and now even the White House has had to admit it. So how does our government deal with finding out conclusively that a program they have put so much faith in (so much so that they reduced aid to Africa if they didn't teach abstinence only) doesn't work? Friday night news dump of course. This is my favorite line,
"We have been promoting ignorance in the era of AIDS, and that's not just bad public health policy, its bad ethics"Now I work with teen mothers (ok I only work in the office), I have several friends who had children while they were hardly more than children themselves. I also know very religious people who refuse to use birth control because thats against gods plan, and they don't like condoms, claims to be allergic but they make non-latex for that reason. Shockingly they have had a few scares (Late/STDs), although it is genuinely shocking that they have only been scares and not worse. Teach people the truth is that too much to ask? They are going to do what they are going to do, they can either know all the dangers and the ways to reduce those risks or they can go blindly into the night. Either way young people are going to have sex, there is no way to prevent that, its genetics, animals want to fuck. Its just that simple, teaching people to be responsible is the hard part, telling people "just say no" is a lame excuse to try to avoid a topic that is so natural, yet so taboo in our society. It doesn't have to be awkward, in the words of the movie "Van Wilder" don't be a fool, wrap your tool. Its sad that their is better sex-ed in a national lampoon movie than there is in our classrooms. But thats useful actually, if safe-sex can become the norm within popular culture it can be a very powerful tool for changing the national mindset of young people. Oh and obviously any sex-ed includes the fact that abstinence is the only fool proof method of not ending up with a child and not having it hurt to pee.
Ok and here is the promoters defending their program against this report.
"The field of abstinence has significantly grown and evolved since that time, and the results demonstrated in the Mathematica study are not representative of the abstinence education community as a whole."Um... Quick question how can "the field of abstinence grow and evolve?" How many ways are there to say no humpy humpy? Oh they also point out that it was only a sample of 1% of the programs, yup thats how studies work, you can't study everyone, you study a few thousand and make inferences based on that. One of the programs had children meeting every single school day. That could reduce teen sex by simply not giving them time to fornicate. Or they'll be thinking about sex every single day.. oh wait.. teens, they're already thinking about sex many many times a day.
They teach abstinence until marriage, its not a bad idea to have family planing in your mind even when your married. You might be in a good relationship, but that doesn't mean your ready for a family yet. There is no evidence that these abstinence only programs work better, but this also didn't show they work worse, which is an important point that in the interest of fairness must be pointed out. I think there is enough info in the world that kids don't really gain much from sex-ed. They learn details about STDs and anatomy, but those who were planning on have sex are still going to, those who want to wait till marriage still will, my only concern is making sure that they know about safe-sex, and how putting a condom on wrong makes them ineffective. Nothing worse than trying to be smart and still having the unwanted outcome.
Hat tip to Crooks and Liars for being awesome, and for the links to the CNN article. Heres one from The Guardian.
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