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Sarah Kliff of NEWSWEEK’s “The Human Condition” blog wants Feministing and the rest of the liberal blogosphere to chillax about the results of an abstinence-education study that was published this week in the Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine. Here’s the skinny on the study:
[Study] authors looked at African-American middle-school students in the Northeast who enrolled in an abstinence-only program (no instruction on contraceptives) and were taught, sans moral or religious arguments, that they should delay sex until they were ready. Marriage was notably left out of it. The students in this program were more likely to delay sex in the two years after the program, as opposed to those who enrolled in no program or those who were instructed in safe sex. The study says nothing about whether their program would have (or should have) received federal funding under Bush’s scheme, which required teaching “abstinence until marriage.”
The concerns voiced by Feministing and other left-leaning blogs are perfectly understandable: Individuals who don’t read the complete study might misunderstand and generalize; conservative pundits can easily spin the study outcome to suit their particular worldview. What if, as a result, federal funds end up back in the ineffective programs Bush supported?
For her part, Kliff is encouraging folks to put aside party politics and to get excited that a moral/religious-argument-free program might help prevent teen pregnancies and the spread of STDs. She’s not suggesting we do away with “comprehensive sex education” — she’s jazzed to have another plausible means of prevention. Read more about it at AlterNet and The New York Times.
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I don’t see anything wrong at all with teaching abstinence education at this level.
Middle school kids are typically 12 to 14 years old (at least in my district) and they actually need to be taught why it’s a good idea at their age not to have sex.
Hmmm. Perhaps taught is the wrong word. I think any type of support at this age will help these kids to delay having sex. This particular age group is extremely sensitive to peer pressure.
But at some point, they are going to need more information. Let’s not use this study as an excuse to think that ignore that.
Are we going to hand out the condoms before or after the class?
I first read about this study over the weekend. I was wondering if it was going to make it to ZL. Yeah, 12-14 years old were the ages in the study and I completely agree with you once again. (It’s just cuz you were up earlier today) :)
Or just be old-fashioned. I went to two girls schools for high school. The second one boadinschool run by nuns. As a result I was a virgin until university.
Girls who had hetro penetrative sex were sluts, dirty dirty sluts.
Blowjobs were standard.
Sounds about par for the catholic school course. They say that catholic girls give the best hand jobs too.
In my HS it was all the christian kids getting busy. I used to go to a couple of bible study groups and there was much dating and making out going on including undies off type stuff and more. I think I’ve mentioned my friend who didn’t consider anal to be real sex already, she saved herself for marriage because she never had vaginal intercourse. My other friends weren’t doing anything like that, some kissing at parties and dances but that was it.
I wonder if she ever thought that gays and lesbians stay virgins forever since only anal or oral is going down. Butt-sluts are soo silly :) I tried it once with my husband. It was way too ouchy to attempt a 2nd time. And I was drunk off of tequila and we had lube…
I don’t imagine it matters if you have premarital sex or not if you’re just going straight to hell for being gay anyway.
Is that in the bible anywhere that gays go to hell? My impression from reading genesis (as far as I got, the story of Lot disgusted me) is that it’s better to offer your virgin daughters to be be raped by a mob than to let the raging gays into your house to defile another man. The point of that story was lost on me. I know in modern times I have never heard of a gay man raping another man (outside of the odd prison cases). I’m sure it has happened, but not as much as men raping women. I wonder if the bible is to blame for this? I know I’d rather walk through heaven’s gates with a gay man than with a rapist… how far off-topic have I gotten? Haha!
I honestly couldn’t tell you, never did pay much attention to the hellfire and brimstone stuff. As I understand it the bible doesn’t say anything wrong about it being wrong to be gay, just that gay sex is wrong. I do know at least one christian who is gay but who has chosen to remain celibate. I find that very sad but if he wants to live his life that’s his business.
I used to be a sunday school teacher but only taught kids up to age 10. I could shoot off lessons on just about any parable you like but oddly enough my lesson book for 2nd graders didn’t cover homosexuality ;-)
As far as that goes, hetero sex is a sin too unless you are trying to pro-create. Do you think the bible equally frowns upon married people doing it for fun as they do any kind of gay or lesbian sex?
Interesting point. I have no idea what the bible actually says about contraception. I do know that it says that husbands and wives should please each other sexually and I don’t think there’s any restriction on that e.g. it shouldn’t stop just because a woman hits menopause or because she’s infertile. I think the idea that sex is only for procreation is pretty much a catholic thing. There’s the quiverful movement too but that’s very much a modern phenomenon.
I like to take my undies off during bible study group.
you crack me up. If that is not a zinger I quit.
It wasn’t during group silly, it was afterwards when we all went back to the pastor’s house for tea and cookies and people would disappear off to bedrooms or head out for a walk down the road to the playground.
For some reason I never got any action. Probably a good thing since I only fancied two of the guys in group; one is most definitely gay and the second turned out to be beating his girlfriend and he raped a couple of girls. Fortunately my taste in men greatly improved approximately 5 minutes before I met my husband.
Hmmm. Well.
I attended a Lutheran high school, and honestly, sex-ed was mostly abstinence-based. But teachers did cover birth control as well.
I waited until I was 18 and madly in love, so I guess it worked out reasonably well for me?
Hmm. I appreciate the “wait until you’re genuinely ready” message, but I can’t decide if one should be leaning about contraception in middle school or not.
I’m a Junior, and in my middle school days I could think of a good number of people who could’ve used some contraception. Now in high school and in a class with twenty girls, and four or five of them are mothers.
Problem with that is, back in middle school when we did have our annual sex-ed class, no one took it seriously. Boys laughed and girls flinched, but nothing changed. Still today with one out of maybe thirty girls in my school walking around pregnant, no one cares to take any information about preventing it seriously. There’s no way to force feed this information, or condoms or pills down the throats of students (terrible wording, my apologies) if they don’t want it. They know sex can equal babies, and they don’t care. End of story.
Ignorance is bliss, and the people around me are mighty happy.
Damn. That’s depressing.
I don’t think a once per year class can possibly cover what these kids need to know. No way.