Mom against "abstinence"

by Doctor Science

There's been an interesting conversation about sex education going on in the comments to the previous post, which I invite you-all to roll over into this one, to leave the abortion discussion over there.

I'm starting off with something I wrote a few years ago. I've tacked in one cite where I could find it; if there's anything else in here that strikes you-all as needing supporting evidence, please point it out -- most of it seems incredibly self-evident to me.

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I think "abstinence until marriage, faithfulness afterward", far from being "the only 100% safe approach", is a proven formula for disaster.

As far as I can tell, "abstinence" in this sense includes never having any orgasm-related contact with another human being before marriage. That is, it encourages ignorance, clumsiness, and lack of knowledge of self and others. For women in particular, this means that they are much more likely to find marital sex unsatisfying, as neither half of the sketch has enough hands-on knowledge of female sexual response to get her where she wants to go. Unsatisfying marital sex is a Bad Thing, not least because it leads to more divorces, a Really Bad Thing.

Abstinence-until-marriage also naturally leads to earlier marriages, as young people get married so they can legitimately have sex. Early marriages lead to more divorces, which, again, a Really Bad Thing.

Abstinence-until-marriage also encourages the mindset in which certain behaviors are labeled "sex" by adults, and so teenagers indulge in other behaviors because they "don't count", but without taking appropriate precautions either medically or emotionally.

For instance, oral sex is a *really* effective contraceptive, but there are still disease risks -- which is why teenagers could stand to learn about flavored condoms -- and it has emotional/relationship risks if it doesn't go both ways, if it just becomes a power trip. Exploitative sex is also a Really Bad Thing.

One of the worst things about "abstinence until marriage, faithfulness afterward" as an educational program is that it is so patently hypocritical. Kids aren't stupid -- they look around at the behavior of the adults they know and the ones depicted in movies, TV, and ads, and they will infallibly conclude that AUMFA is not standard, normal adult behavior. "Do as I say, not as I do" is a Bad Thing, because it leads kids to assume adults are always lying, even when we say "don't mix downers and alcohol" or "don't drive 70 on that twisting road". And those are Really, Really Bad Things.

AUMFA makes adults feel good, but it is a disservice to young people on multiple levels, and I'm against it.

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Some comments re sex ed from the earlier post that I think are particularly good jumping-off points:

Hartmut (speaking of Germany):

Moreover, we don't seem to apply this "my kids must be forbidden from learning X!" approach in any other area besides sex-ed, so I'm curious: why the difference? It seems like there's a belief that teaching children sex-ed before they're "ready" damages them somehow...how? Is this the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?

There is a highly organized movement that tries to forbid to even talk about a lot of things they do not like at school (evolution is just the tip of the iceberg).
An important part of the homeschooling ideology* is to keep the children 'safe' from knowledge that the parents consider harmful to their souls, minds and bodies (usually in that order). Financial problems (of parents and/or schools) are a distant second.
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Over here there is a nearly 100% overlap of those that claim that sex-ed should be the sole responsibility of parents with those that will under no circumstances teach their own kids about sex. Until rather recently the theory was in pious (Roman Catholic) circles that the priest should explain the biological facts to couples going to marry in the preparatory meeting (there are even f-ing manuals for that**).

The Bavarian Ministry of Education got its windows broken once a week for some time by a catholic organisation (not officially endorsed by the church) that demanded to cease all sex education in all schools for everyone. For them an 'individual opt-out' (not legal either) was not enough. Public Sex-ed had to be denied in general.

Today it is more a problem for traditional Muslims but the state takes a hard line on that. One could say over here it is actually a crime to keep certain information from children. That does not mean that there is no dispute about appropriate age but that's another cup of fermented leaves.

*I exempt here those parents that do homeschooling because there is no acceptable school available. I know of some liberals doing it because the public schools in their area have been taken over by religious and political fundamentalists that even steep so low as to incite other 'conservative' children to beat up the offspring of liberals.
**couldn't resist the pun

more from Hartmut:

When I grew up (that is 3 decades ago) sex-ed stretched from elementary school to the end of highschool* (in the latter as part of biology). Iirc it started with the general idea of pregnancy long before it moved toward anatomy. The actual sex act came more or less last. In later years more and more details were added like venereal diseases, contraception, deviant** sexuality. AIDS was a late add-on because at the time it was still relatively new in our parts.

I think this is a very reasonable approach but as we have seen not long ago this very approach by Obama became the basis for a RW smear campaign of 'Obama wants to teach our toddlers to have intercourse'.

Btw, I did not witness a single case of teen pregnancy at the schools I attended and have heard of only one case that happened there before my time (and that girl was in her last year at school, i.e. about 17 years old).

*I'll ignore the differences between the German and Anglosaxon/American school system here
**meant in the neutral sense as deviating from the 'norm' without attaching a judgement of merit.

hairshirthedonist:

It seems we have two issues mingling here: who gets to decide what kids learn in school, and at what age they should learn those things. Or maybe the question is simply who gets to decide at what age kids should be allowed to learn certain things, assuming that we agree that they should be learning those things at some point.

The very idea of public schools puts the direct decisions about what kids learn in schools and when in the hands of, broadly speaking, "the government." Of course, it is a democratic government, and we have some collective input into the decisions it makes. I don't think anyone is suggesting that no one should ever disagree with any decision the local school board or the state or federal government might make on such matters, sex ed or otherwise, or that, if they do disagree, that they should remain forever silent about it.

So how do we arrive at appropriate ages for various subjects to be taught? I don't think it's by asking all the parents what they think and choosing the highest age suggested among all suggested. I don't think it's by teaching each kid whatever each kid's parents think their kid should learn at whatever age. I think there has to be a good faith effort to make an objective determination that a sufficient number of people can live with.

Were I to begin an attempt to arrive at the appropriate age for teaching a given subject, I would start with the age at which I would expect the child to be able to grasp the material intellectually. There's a minimum. After that, depending on the nature of the subject, I'd go with emotional readiness. Beyond that, I don't know. That might be it.

As to fifth graders learning about, say, condoms, I guess it would depend on the level of detail. I don't know what sort of laboratory-based material would have to be presented. I'm not sure what that would ential - maybe anatomically correct mannequins? That might be a bit much. Has anyone heard of such a thing? Are the boys being sent into the bathroom to put condoms on, or what?

I mean, if it's just a matter of being told generally what condoms are and how they work, I don't see the big deal, particularly if there's already agreement that the biology of sex is appropriate subject matter for fifth graders. So long as you can discuss penises, semen, sperm and vaginas (and micro-organisms that cause STDs), what's the big deal about saying you put a condom on your penis to block the semen containing the sperm from entering the vagina to prevent preganancy (and block exchanges of micro-organisms to prevent STDs)?

DecidedFenceSitter :

As having friends who teach at the high school level, and friends who teach at the elementary school level - 5th graders are having sex. And those are just the ones that make the news.

They are sneaking to the auditorium to engage in sexual activities up to and including PIV intercourse.

This is the reality. Your little 11 year old boy or girl could possibly have a friend trying to encourage him/her to engage in something.

Either the state through the schools can teach them, parents can teach them, friends can teach them, or they can figure it out on their own. Those are the choices. The latter two are bad ones, IMO, for all that I was self-taught (my parents never really had a discussion with me, but didn't look askew at books I got from the library when I was curious). Which leaves us the first two - and well, anecdotally at least, it seems a lot of parents are failing the responsibility of teaching sex ed appropriately for the realities on the ground.

Versus the realities in their head, or for what they want their precious little angels to actually be. You can't make policy as if the normative world is the descriptive world.

Well you can. It just means the policy is FUBARed.

JanieM:

I too was in 5th grade half a century ago, in Catholic school no less. One day without warning (I don't think the parents got any either) they kicked the boys out, but unlike in your experience, they did talk to the boys as well as the girls, just in a different classroom. They sent home a pamphlet -- I remember it vividly to this day -- "To the Parents of Fifth Graders."

I don’t think it was remotely what I would now call sex education. It told us girls that we would be having periods soon and that was about it. You certainly didn’t talk about sex in fifth grade in Catholic school in 1960 or 1961.

Bottom line, my sex education -- from parents, or school, or the world -- was for all practical purposes non-existent during my childhood years (to age 18), even setting aside the fact that my own flavor of sexuality was never so much as mentioned in the world I grew up in. A more reticent family than mine I don’t think you could find. My mother, one day when I was about 10 and with discomfort dripping everywhere, asked me if I had heard of periods from other girls. No, I hadn’t. She gave me a book to read. It did mention sexual intercourse, half-explicitly and half obliquely and in passing, and honest to any deity you would like to name, I did not believe it literally for one nanosecond. (Age 10.)

Later, sex was the initial and explicit trigger for my rebellion from the guilt-ridden puritanical world I grew up in. (Hey, I went to college from 1968-1972. What can I say.)

I was determined to do better by my kids in relation to sex education, and I tried, but I would much rather have had more help. (My kids were homeschooled. I may get to that later.)

An early opportunity came when Magic Johnson announced he was HIV-positive. We were rabid basketball fans; even my kids at ages 4 and 5 heard this news. My son sort of fearfully asked if he could get that sickness. My answer led to our first conversation about sex, and to one of the most hilarious and precious conversations we ever had. (Which will remain a private memory.)

After that I bought Usborne's How Your Body Works and we looked at it a lot for a couple of years. The surprising and interesting thing to me was that the kids weren't the slightest bit interested in the pages about sex, what they were obsessed with was babies and pregnancy. I don't think the explicit mention of sex scarred them for life (to say the least), it just rolled off their backs until later, when they were "ready" for it.

This is anecdotal, and, especially as the parent of a family that homeschooled, I would like to say something about public policy in relation to sex education among other things. But this is too long already. Maybe later.

Comments

[JanieM]

Doctor Science, great post.

I was thinking, when forcible vs statutory rape was being discussed in the other thread, how unfortunate it is, and how symbolic of how our culture treats sex in general, that the example I gave (ordinary 18-year old having consensual sex with ordinary 17-year-old in a jurisdiction where 18 is the age of consent and there's no close-in-age exemption) is even called "rape" at all. I'm unhappy that it's treated as rape, of course, but until that thread I hadn't thought before of how the terminology is just another detail of our often insanely unhealthy collective approach to sex.

I realize -- actually, I strongly believe -- that there are no easy answers to the gray areas. What age is the right age? It differs wildly from person to person. But as an ordered society where we at least try to address harm inflicted by one person on another, we do have to address abuse of various kinds. But again, we shouldn't have that 18-year-old on a sex offender's list for the rest of his/her life. I've listened to people being interviewed who were the equivalent of that couple, who later married each other and had kids, and the one is still on the list....

[Rob in CT]

Seems to me that any proper sex ed class points out, right at the get-go, that the only 100% safe thing is abstinence. Sex entails risks (physical and emotional). Those risks, however, can be mitigated in various ways. Thus, if you're going to have sex (and the vast majority will, at some point), here are the things you need to know...

That's what the class I got delivered, as I recall. The "emotional risks" part was clumsily done, and most of us didn't get it. I recall it only vaguely, and mostly because I ended up being the subject of mass ridicule during it (ah, highschool, wasn't it grand?).

[nous]

Still waiting for the abstinence only drivers ed classes. I mean we know that many of those kids aren't ready for the responsibility and a bunch of them will experiment with drinking and driving or with going too fast and the results will be devastating. Better to just let the parents decide when they should learn to drive and not tell them anything about driving until that point because talking about how to drive will just make them want to do it all the more. The only responsible choice is to tell them not to drive until they have a job, and then only to drive for work or groceries or maybe to the doctor if they are really sick.

I mean they are just kids after all and you know that they are under a lot of pressure from the media what with all the car chases and NASCAR...

[hairshirthedonist]

(ah, highschool, wasn't it grand?)

We did sex ed in what was called "Health." It alternated between sex ed and first aid. I don't remember if the year was cut in half, with two marking periods for each, or if it was split by alternating years.

One question asked in the sex-ed part by one of my fellow scholars was, "What do they call donkey balls in Mexico?" Grand, yes.

At any rate, back over at the abortion thread, Marty is talking about someone filming a man putting a condom on a banana in front of a fifth-grade girl and posting it on the internet. You just can't make this stuff up.

[wonkie]

The basic problem is our culture's dirty minded attitude about sex. I don't know what we can do about that except model as much as we can a more mature and rational attitude in as many venues as possible, including school.

My parents taught me and my sibs the biological facts when we asked which was when I ws about seven, my sister eight and my brother about six. It was my brother who asked, BTW.

All of us reacted by saying something along the lines of "Eww, that's gross."

Then my brother explained things to a neighbor kid which got the neighhbor kid's parents all hot and they called my parents.

My parents then had to explain that lots of other people are nuerotic about sex so we should keep our knowledge to ourselves.

That really didn't help, although I don't know how else they could have handled it. I was left with the impression that I was in on a dirty secret that people would condemn me for knowing.

I remember sitting silently in an elementary school sex ed class that discussed the effects of sperm on an egg without explaing how the sperm got to the egg. I kept my mouth shut.

Around here sex ed starts in elementary school and includes how the sperm gets to the egg. By the time sex ed is taught in high school here the kids can chime in with personal testimonials of their own experiences. Heck, some of the middle school kids are experienced.

The teachers try for a tone of mature matter of factness in an atmosphere of tolerance for the various choices kids can make. Abstinance is discussed as a safe option, safe physically and and emotionally. However there is lots of info given about birth control for those who decide to be sexually active. The key is choice. The basic message is that kids need to make a conscious choice about whether or not to engage in sexual activity. Middle school and high school students are encouraged to discuss sex with adults they trust and to form a personal policy, a plan for how they want to handle that aspect of their development.

I don't recall having anny conversations like that at school. I do recall my parents saying to me, when i was about thirteen, that they expected me to get through high school without getting pregnant because they ahd told me abouut birth control and no child of theirs was going to be dumb enough to get knocked up. It worked. I did not want my parents to think I was stupid.

[Marty]

from hsh on the other thread:

"If you're going to move over to that one, I'd be interested to know how schools should approach sex education, if at all, in your opinion, given what you say about the cookie-cutter approach being inappropriate."

The problem I have as a parent is this:

"The teachers try for a tone of mature matter of factness in an atmosphere of tolerance for the various choices kids can make."

This, in a school setting, is implicit, if not explicit, approval of something many parents do NOT want schools expressing approval for.

There shouldn't be anything matter of fact about these decisions, and the person discussing them shouldn't be someone who has to treat them that way.

Matter of fact is the best a teacher can do.

The rest really is just timing. School, in this case, is reinforcement for good parents and a safety net for poor parents. It shouldn't try to be early and out in front of the good ones or too late for the kids that have bad ones.

[bobbyp]

This, in a school setting, is implicit, if not explicit, approval of something many parents do NOT want schools expressing approval for.

You crack me up, Marty. That's funny stuff. Really.

[Fraud Guy]

I had a relatively enlightened school experience. In 2nd grade you were taught what the parts were. In 5th the actual mechanics was discussed, and in 8th the overall issues were gone over.

They discontinued some of it after I left that school, to the point where the younger brother of a friend asked me, when he was going into high school, to confirm if he actually had to urinate while engaging in order to cause pregnancy.

Facts is facts, folks, and education should teach them, and not be embarrassed, otherwise kids will pick up whatever whenever they can.

[sekaijin]

A good part of all the reactions against sex ed on the part of adults, particularly parents, would go away if parents themselves educated their kids about the joys and pitfalls of it, because think - who better to do this than your own parents, who made you and me and everyone else we know?

But I don't get any sense that at least in the States, parents are willing to do this. They leave it up to school districts, who inevitably try to brave this through the minefield of assorted wowsers like religious groups, opportunistic politicians, Christine O'Donnell wanna-bes, and parents themselves, who, when realizing what real sex ed actually entails, recoil in horror and indignation.

So it all ends up getting botched up badly, with scapegoated teachers, weak-kneed principals and school administrators prostrate with apologies galore, and idiotic remedies like abstinence-based sex ed, which, if that isn't an insult to the actual intelligence of teenagers, then I don't know what is.

Measures like ab-based SE reveal more about the implementers than the implemented-upon, who can go look up what they hope is the real thing online, or catch it on cable TV any day of the week. The worst part of it is that it only looks real, is as misinformed, and done by practicing adults who likely had no sex-ed of any kind as youngsters, but who look like experts, and who, after thoroughly botching their own emotional lives over it, keep repeating the same mistakes again and again.

In such a climate, what's a poor boy supposed to do...but sing in a rock'n'roll band? To get girls, that's what.

[Shinobi]

I had a similar sex ed experience to Fraud Guy. However as I went to catholic school ABSTINENCE was a major focus.

From above: "As far as I can tell, "abstinence" in this sense includes never having any orgasm-related contact with another human being before marriage"

How abstinence ed actually played out in a large community of teens educated by encouraging them to abstain from intercourse, was that everything else became fair game. In the world I grew up in, Anal sex was not sex, oral sex was not sex, mutual masturbation was not sex. These were not penis-in-vagina sex and so they were largely on the board.

(This was just before the whole Clinton thing happened, Oral sex was not sex before that.)

I had a friend who had had anal sex with 3 guys, and still considered herself a virgin.

Abstinence education just leads to kids redefining sex in a way that gets around the rules. It leads to risky sexual behavior.

Refusing to teach kids about sex, isn't the same as not teaching them about Lynching when they learn about civil rights, or leaving Latin or comparative relligion off the curriculum. It is even worse, in my opinion, than teaching evolution as a theory.

Not teaching kids about their sexuality at a young age, is essentially leaving kids without a user manual for their bodies. Without it they are confused and vulnerable. I think their should be a rigorously tested, standard curriculum for sex education that gives kids the information they need and encourages them to treat their sexuality and the sexuality of others with respect.

[Anonymous writer]

Dr. Science,

I agree with you on the major points, but I disagree with you on a minor issue: That is, it encourages ignorance, clumsiness, and lack of knowledge of self and others.

I happened, partly due to shyness, partly due to religious conviction, to "practice" abstinence until I found my current wife. She was, also, a virgin, only a year younger than I (24). You know, two adult people can learn sex on their own but it really takes time. And love. And it is, at times, really frustrating. However, it is possible.

[Hartmut]

I get the impression that at least parts of the US are still at the level of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_Awakening_%28play%29>this era, if not worse. then it was 'simply' enforced silence, today it's enforced lies (at least in some abstinence only curricula).
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concerning children getting their 'sex ed' from watching animals reproducing: that actually became a topic of discussion in the German parliament in the Weimar republic. The original topic was a censorship bill for the protection of minors but it took a turn for the absurd when an ironic remark from the left led to the question whether children could be protected from seeing animals having sex (example: dogs in the street) and whether the owners of said animals could be held responsible for the 'damage'.
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Allegedly there is still a law in one US state that bans male and female underwear on the same clothesline (or even drying underwear in public at all)
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off-topic
I actually took the effort to read the decision about the parents suing the school district because they were not notified in advance about the contents of some books (i.e. mentioning the existence of families with parents of the same sex). In a footnote another case was mentioned that actually reached the Supreme Court(!) before being dismissed. If I get it right someone actually tried to have the teaching of foreign languages at school declared unconstitutional. Admittedly that was in 1923 but one would expect that to have been even then a fringe mindset. But given the attempts by some* GOP legislators to make speaking Spanish on US soil illegal not extinct yet.

*fringe of the fringe's fringe I assume but still...

[someotherdude]

I’m new to this debate, but please allow me to ad this bit of insight. We must not assume that those who follow the "abstinence until marriage, faithfulness afterward" always have poor sex life. Because there are quite a few couples who follow this “theory” of sexuality that then have a very exciting and thrilling sex life, with each other, and then assume it is possible for everyone. On top of that, many of the organizations who push "abstinence until marriage, faithfulness afterward" have an army of “sluts and whores” who share tales of a string of empty and loveless sexual experiences which were never enjoyable. And they make fun of “non-believers” as being the real Puritans with a distorted view of sex.

All that, just to say, that the real argument here, should be the rights of certain religious groups should not trample of the rights of their “outsiders.”

[Slartibartfast]

You crack me up, Marty. That's funny stuff. Really.

Ridicule as a counterargument is just awesomely effective.

[Rob in CT]

Oh whatever. I give up on this debate.

I value comprehensive sex ed in school as I think it's a good idea in general and I think it's a good thing for my daughter someday to hear about the facts from multiple sources. Yeah, I intend to be a good parent and talk about it w/her, but reinforcement from a non-parent is good, IMO. Parent-child communications can be difficult, particularly around puberty...

I actually have no idea how the school system in my town handles this. I hope, given that I'm in CT, that kids are taught at least what I got in HS back in the 90s. If not, I guess I'll have to fill in the blanks (or fight some sort of crusade on the issue, which I not really interested in doing).

[Slartibartfast]

So, people are coming out with anecdotes. My own is pretty typical: sex ed was in "health class" in (IIRC) seventh or eighth grade, and was pretty embarrassing for me because...well, I just wasn't comfortable talking about sex. Especially in front of girls. In fact, I was mortally uncomfortable with the opposite sex. I still don't know why, and just tie the whole episode up in a neat package labeled "late bloomer". By mid-high school most of my best friends were girls, which didn't mean I'd lost all of my shyness, but I'd certainly lost some of it. Looking back on it, "health class" wasn't so much about health as it was a pretext to talk about human reproduction and of course venereal disease. Because VD is for everybody, not just for the few. Anyone can get VD!

My kids know pretty much everything. They know (but certainly don't yet understand) that adults find sex to be very pleasurable, and they know most about how reproduction works. We get into these conversations periodically. They know a lot more than they'd learn at school.

For which a huge amount of credit goes to my wife. See, she went through that all girls in the auditorium thing, and when she came home her mother said "do you have any questions?" That was the entire extent of her sexual education. My own education at the hands (so to speak) of my parents was a bit more detailed, but inevitably awkward and probably horribly insufficient.

I personally am, therefore, a little torn on this issue. On the one hand, I don't want my kids overly sexualized. I think there are genuinely, culturally useful aspects to waiting for more emotional and personal maturity to indulge in sexual activities, and the potential for an unwanted pregnancy is only one of many hazards, there. Our girls know that we want them each to be their own person (not that such a thing is measurable) before they form deep, emotional relationships with other people.

On the other hand, of course, there are people who just don't want their kids educated in this way by complete strangers, yet won't do what's needed to fill the role themselves. And those people are now (more than in my time, at least) more free to take their toys and go home.

On the gripping hand, there are parents who simply don't care enough, or are too ignorant, or whose life situation is horribly difficult and absorbing, who are just never going to have those conversations with their kids. And I think it's those kids whose home life isn't as great and caring as that of my own children who are most in need of guidance from someone else, and that someone is going to be the school system.

Which, unfortunately, mostly don't engage in any sort of moral guidance, because it's wrong to tell children that it's Not Good to be having sex at their age & level of maturity. So we're left with instructions on how sex works, some instructions on contraception that may or may not get followed, and then it's hands-free operation from there.

Damned if you do; damned if you don't.

So, once more: I'm torn. Anyway, that's me.

And as a point of clarification: nothing I've said in the above comment is intended to, through some fantastical added meaning, impugn the morals of other people.

[hairshirthedonist]

Which, unfortunately, mostly don't engage in any sort of moral guidance, because it's wrong to tell children that it's Not Good to be having sex at their age & level of maturity. So we're left with instructions on how sex works, some instructions on contraception that may or may not get followed, and then it's hands-free operation from there.

What makes you say this, Slart? Why don't you think school systems generally allow for, if not moral guidance, per se, at least cautionary guidance on the problems with pre-mature sex?

It's not that I know that schools do provide such. It just seems like it would be hard to know that there's some sort of general ban on discussing the personal side of sex in sex ed class. And I seem to remember some of that emotion-/self-esteem-based discussion when I was in school.

[Turbulence]

Which, unfortunately, mostly don't engage in any sort of moral guidance, because it's wrong to tell children that it's Not Good to be having sex at their age & level of maturity. So we're left with instructions on how sex works, some instructions on contraception that may or may not get followed, and then it's hands-free operation from there.

This is something that I'm skeptical of. There are millions of teachers in this country and as a group, they're like Americans as a whole: they don't want teenagers having sex before they're emotionally ready. The notion that schools can only give fact based instruction and never moral instruction seems...wrong to me. I mean, I certainly recall my teachers speaking positively about the military service for example. Teachers are people embedded in a culture; as such, they reflect its values, no matter what the curriculum says.

I could be wrong but I believe at least some sex-ed standards in use today talk significantly about the need to delay sex until one is emotionally mature enough.

[Slartibartfast]

Why don't you think school systems generally allow for, if not moral guidance, per se, at least cautionary guidance on the problems with pre-mature sex?

I don't think such conversations are particularly effective when they take place between a teacher and classrooms of 20 or more students. I think it's a parenting thing, and starting to have those conversations at age 12 or 13 is doomed to fail, I think.

[hairshirthedonist]

I think it's a parenting thing, and starting to have those conversations at age 12 or 13 is doomed to fail, I think.

Too late, or too soon?

[Turbulence]

Slarti, forgive my confusion, but you started out saying that schools "mostly don't engage in any sort of moral guidance"...and now you're saying that they do but it is by nature ineffective. Is that right?

[Slartibartfast]

Too late.

By "these discussions", I meant the ones that talk about how important it is to develop as a person before developing attachments to other people. Sex education is part of that discussion, certainly, but not even close to the entirety of it.

[Slartibartfast]

In my experience, which is naturally limited to what I've lived through, what my wife has lived through, and what my daughter has seen at school, moral guidance of the sort I imagine is limited; nearly nonexistent. The closest thing Emily got to moral guidance was in the church school she attended for less than six months, and that sort has its own flaws. "Because God wants you to wait" is nice and compact, but tends to not be as clearcut on close scrutiny, and is ultimately too shallow to have the kind of traction you'd want it to.

But I think depending on schools for moral guidance would be mostly ineffectual. To ask teachers to also be parents to their students is unfair and unrealistic.

But I see a lot of other parents who want the school to take up a big chunk of parenting. I don't know what kind of failure this represents, but it just can't ever work. IMO, naturally.

[Hartmut]

I just remember that I wnated to comment on something that seemed to cause a bit of puzzlement: the splitting by sex of the sex-ed classes. Over here this is done occasionally. It has (today) nothing to do with any 'secrets' that only the boys or the gils should hear but with observed problems of effectiveness in mixed groups (at least at a certain age). It turned out that the atmosphere was/is far more relaxed, if no member of the other sex was present when certain aspects were discussed. There would be less giggling, blushing and (almost) everyone is more inclined to talk freely.

[hairshirthedonist]

So, Slart, do you think schools should just stick to the biomechanics of sex, contraception and disease? It seemed like you were complaining that there isn't enough moral guidance on sex provided in school, but now that you're saying it just won't work.

As far as the strictly "scientific" part of sex ed goes, I would imagine that school would be in a better position to obtain and present prepared materials in an organized fashion than would parents, who also might not actually know nearly as much as would a sex ed teacher about the scientific aspects of sex, STDs, pregnancy and contraception (and abortion?) to begin with.

I guess I'm still not really sure what sort of sex ed you think kids should get and when. I may have missed it, since we've been at this for a while.

[wj]

JanieM, thanks for the response. I was only a couple of years ahead of you (and in suburban/rural Northern California), and boys were totally left out. No sex ed of any kind for boys -- although us farm kids had at least some clue. Either you were in a more advanced school system or the education system had advanced to including boys by then.

It occurs to me that there is a very large pool of voters out there in the US who are over 65, and therefore had similar (lack of) experiences to what we had. I wonder to what extent the perceived "public" resistance to sex ed is influenced by the lack of sex ed in all of those folks' memories.

[MosesZD]

My wife, and I, have been very clear with our two daughters about sex and this idiotic abstinence thing. Including all the 'Really Bad Things' that can happen.

I use my cousin Bobby, and his wife, as a great example of 'abstinence' ruining marriage. Bobby's wife was strict 'no sex until married' so, at relatively young age they got married.

Then she comes up frigid. Incapable of enjoying sex. Which lead to power and control and fighting over sex since she didn't have a pay-off and Bobby did...

Three years and one kid later, they're divorced... He can't stand the power-crap. His pissed-off because he had drop out of college to support his wife (who stopped working once she got pregnant and refused to get a job) and kid. And so on...

And, yes, it's 'Just an Anecdote.' But it's supported by the data and I do talk about the data. And how abstinence-only trained people actually start sex earlier, get more STDs, get in worse sex-situations, have more negative-emotional issues around sex, get married younger, have children earlier, suffer from economic issues because of the consequences of having children prior to getting their educational and economic lives tougher, have more 'shotgun weddings' because of failing to use birth control, and divorce at a significantly higher rate because of all these pressures and problems.

The only thing we say to their conduct is (1) legal age of consent rules must be adhered to, (2) use condoms and birth control and (3) only have sex with someone you want, when you want, never giving into to pressure and boys will pressure the hell out of you, but don't worry about it, the ones worth training can be trained and those that can't, aren't worth it...

[someotherdude]

My father and most of my uncles were so homophobic; they created an environment wherein me and my cousins were encouraged to start having sex very young, 12-16. And the consequences were mixed,….many became young fathers, some of us became comfortable with our sexuality early, some experienced healthy and unhealthy compulsive behavior. It’s certainly not for everybody.

The sad thing is, I figured out the young ladies from middle-class neighbors tended to be shooting for college and have other things to look forward to, so they would be more likely to be on the pill, in other words they were more likely to avoid getting pregnant. But the young girls and young women in my neighborhood were less likely to take precautions, as well as the men. And I assure you; religion had nothing to do with it. When your life options seem limited, taking chances like that becomes an intense way to depression and hopelessness.

[someotherdude]

That should be:

When your life options seem limited, taking chances like that becomes an intense way to ignore or escape or avoid depression and hopelessness.

[Another anonymous]

There seem to be two issues being conflated here: what young people should *learn* about sex, and how they should *act*.

I fully agree that kids should have comprehensive sex education as soon as they're ready for it. (And I see that most of the discussion here centers on this.) But in terms of *action*, I'm also in favor of encouraging abstinence before marriage (and faithfulness afterwards). It's not always the easiest course, but it's doable.

Like an earlier commenter, that's what I ended up doing myself, and I didn't get married till my late 20s. (I did, however, have a pretty comprehensive understanding of sex and related topics by the end of middle school.) And it worked out fine.

As the other poster also suggests, what kept me abstinent early on was probably as much shyness as conviction. But by the time I met the woman I would eventually marry, I was also secure enough in who I was and what I wanted that I could be clear early on that I didn't want to engage in sex or "sort-of-sex" while being unmarried.

And with that clearly off the table, we were affectionate in all sorts of other ways for a few years before we married, without worrying about "how far we could go". We knew what each others' boundaries were, respected them, and took lots of pleasure playing where we were both comfortable.

And while it's true that it takes time to learn how your partner can most pleasurably get "where they want to go", that's true whether you start sexual activity before or after marriage, so I don't see that as an argument for sex before marriage. It is useful to know ahead of time that the relevant parts are normally sized and functioning, but there are ways one can be reasonably sure of that. And a couple can be (and I certainly hope they are) just as patient and understanding teaching each other about joyful sex together after they make their vows as before, if not more so.

It's true that movies, TV, and ads don't often portray sexual relationships like this. But I'm more inclined to consider this a problem with those media than a problem with me. I intend to bring up the media issues with my kids, so that they can understand that media often only show some kinds of sexuality-- those that tend to attract eyeballs or sell products-- and that they shouldn't think they're freaks if they don't conform with what they see on the screen. Even for folks who are less conservative about sexual behavior than I am, I think that's a very useful lesson to get across.

[wonkie]

I don't think that abstinance only sex ed leads to the consequences listed by Moses20. I think that the attitude toward sex that supports abstinace only sex ed leads to the connsequences he listes.

As somneother dude poinnted ot girls with plans for the future may plan sexual activity premarriage as part of thhat future but they don't plan pregnancy. They plna to avoid pregnancy just like thye plan to get their homework done to get good grades to go to college ...

It's the planning that is thhe key. Young people who see themselves as personally responsible for plannning for the outcomes of their loives are far less likely to get unp-lanned pregnnacies or STD'. Young people who behave as if sexual activity is something that just happens, unplanned for, ar the ones who are more at risk.

Of course a person wh is capable of amakinng plans can plan to waitr for marriage and that's is at least a perfectly valid choice. A choice. Not the only choice.

Kids need to know the choces, the consewuences of the choice (including what activities are age appropritae)and know that they are in charge of what choices they make.

[Countme--In]

"When your life options seem limited, taking chances like that becomes an intense way to depression and hopelessness."

"When you life options seem limited, taking chances like that becomes an intense way to ignore, escape, or avoid depression and hopelessness."

Either formulation gets you to the end (of the sentence).

[Countme--In]

This, for those of us reminiscing about condoms on bananas:

http://nymag.com/news/features/70977/

My sense all along, since puberty right up until today, is that girls are smarter than boys about sexuality, as are women smarter than men.

Also, by coincidence, NPR, soon to be defunded by vermin ignoramuses who are, on average, more dangerous than murderous Mubarek (if you disagree, watch the violence that is coming in America in coming years, on a street near you. Perhaps you can catch it on FOX; if we're lucky, a portion of the violence will happen IN the FOX studios), had a a segment the other day on fatal allergies to latex, which oddly enough transfer to bananas and other fruit, by some sort of molecular mimicry.

I makes a guy want to itch, but where to start?

[Countme--In]

Here's more, originally via Andrew Sullivan:

http://jonathanlast.com/2011/02/07/required-reading/

I find the conversation about teaching sex-ed in the schools a little quaint, if we're not also talking about the prevalence of online porn.

And believe me, daughters watch it too.

Welcome to lj, who had a post up at Taking It Outside regarding hentai and anime, Japanese animated porn, which I don't pretend to understand.

I can't get the Warner Brothers cartoon inside the thought bubble above my head around this Japanese phenomemon.

Maybe if Mel Blanc did the voices, a person (not me, maybe you) could get off.

[liberal japonicus]

What, there's porn on line? I wish I had known that before I agreed to front page duties...

But seriously, you make it sound a lot more exciting that it actually was. Still might try to get something about that.

But if anyone has some ideas for a post, feel free to post them at TiO. Ideally, I will get the regulars there to research it, and then I will post here and take credit for it.

[Hartmut]

I can only speak form the armchair here (not the bedroom) but personally I think sex should be the final test before the vows. If it turns out not to work then it's the last chance to bail out safely.

[Thomas Jørgensen]

Harmut has a point- marrying someone you have not had sex either indicates that you have a really cavalier attitude towards divorce, a flippant attitude towards your, and your future spouses happiness, or that you are.. kind of nuts.
Two virgins having a go at it need to
a: have compatible sexualities. Now, in theory, it most people should have a clue what they want in this department before getting into bed with anyone, but the population of De Nial is very high. Lets call it a 5 percent chance that one of the partners in a virgin match rolls over afterwards and goes. "yhea, I think I am gay. Thanks for the science experiment". This is funny if a "science experiment" is all it is. Not so funny if it is your wedding night.
Then there is the whole panolopy of details of sexual preferences even within broadly matching sexualities. For example, I am personally utterly unable to satisfy any woman who craves any variation of submission /dominance play, because I cannot keep a straight face for more than 15 seconds doing that kind of thing.

[Brandon]

People have gotten married before without having sex and it seems to work in Christian homes. Just my opinion.

[Coach Footwear]

In this indifferent world, where people become more and more estranged, it's really nice feeling to be that someone you miss and worry about!