Abstinence vs. Condoms in our schools..

In responding to the thread “Pope v. Science on Condoms” by LiveUninhibited, I could not help but wonder.

What the church teaches is abstinence until marriage right? This has become a religious stance. What I want to know is why is it considered JUST a religious stance?

Teaching proper use of condoms and other such protection is important but why is it considered a right wing religious conspiracy to force abstinence on our children? Shouldn’t the idea be stressed to our youth, at this point especially?

The next generation coming into their own is playfully referred to as generation sex. They are taking nudes and sending them to friends, spamming them across the internet. Girls and boys have sex with numerous partners; even if they think ‘Oh, it is just oral’, it is still sex.

I am looking to hear some real opinions on the topic because if there is one thing we all know, each generation has to be more shocking than the last and looking at the newest generation, which is a little terrifying.

 

I am far from being a religious conservative, but I definitely believe in teaching abstinence as a means of birth control. If the end goal is to reduce teenage pregnancy, then opposing the teaching of abstinence is merely ideological.

However, teaching the proper use of condoms is also a way of reducing pregnancy and that should be taught as well.

 

by the way I started taking sex ed about eighteen years ago in public school and they taught abstinence was the best way back then. It isn't something new, we also had an abstinence only club at my high school of older students that went around and talked to the freshman classes. The group was made up of the cheerleader etc, half were not abstinence. I thought it was hilarious when they came to my class and one coupld had been getting it on at a party that weekend. This is why they also taught us proper condom us along with abstinence.

 

I agree, I believe BOTH should be taught. I don't believe that focusing on abstinence-ONLY while locking out all other information is productive, because from the teen pregnancy statistics I've seen, just teaching abstinence-ONLY has been a miserable failure.

From my own experience as a teen (which I grant was over two decades ago), abstinence was a practical ADVANTAGE, not a punishment. As most of us know, there is NO contraceptive on the market that is 100% guaranteed against pregnancy occurring, or a guarantee against sexually transmitted diseases, which can be incurable (Herpes) or worse, potentially fatal (AIDS).

Abstinence from ALL sexual activity is the best protection available, and it allows teens the freedom to do what is most important; which is, complete high school, get their diplomas, and either go on to college or vocational school. That's why I say it's the practical advantage.

 

I'm curious: Why do you consider that a commendable goal to begin with?

I'm not of the opinion that schools should be indoctrinating people into any particular behavior pattern, but the hierarchical structure of schooling prevents that to begin with...

 

Let's see. I was 14 in 1957. Many of the girls I knew in various rural towns in Oregon and Washington were married before they were 18, and had 'early' deliveries, usually about six months after marriage. The major differance in sexuality and teens then and now is that the male felt that the child was also his responsibility. Nature has seen fit to give us the most harmones when we have the least brains, thus ensuring the continuance of the human race, and that mothers will continue to get gray.

 

I don't know where you got that idea. Adolescence is itself a social construct developed in the late nineteenth and earliest twentieth centuries; reference to "the least brains" is itself dependent on a perspective derived from a certain set of cultural conditions. Regardless, it is enlightening to examine the stability of youth marriage in times past whilst so many now claim that such relationships suffer from inherent instabilities. The fact that a rising divorce rate paralleled a rising average marriage age, as well as the fact that men aged 18-20 have lower divorce rates than slightly older men, certainly puts a dent in that claim.

 

Schools should be for reading, writing and arithmetic, not social policy.

 

LOL. I distinctly remember the period between my 13th and 20th birthdays. There is no way from the perspective of my present adulthood that I would label myself sane during that period. Some of the chances I took, some of the ideas that I had, had no logic at all to them. Adolescence is a definate period in almost everyone's life where the physcal development has exceeded the mental. A wonderful, strange, and sometimes terrifying period of exploration of ones physical and mental development.

 

The problem with random anecdotal accounts is that they do effectively nothing to provide empirical evidence that can serve as a basis for policy formation. If I were to attest to the fact that my experience was entirely different than yours, that would not establish a form of empirical evidence any more than your anecdotal account would, simply because of the nature of the widely varying spectrum of human experiences, actions, and behaviors.

But regardless, I don't believe you've understood my meaning. Adolescence was not conceptualized as a separate stage of life until after the Industrial Revolution; it was effectively nonexistent prior to that. The entire conception of childhood itself has only been significantly strengthened from its biological boundaries during the past several centuries.