One of the disturbing aspects of the purity pledges we talked about last week is that it is but one face of a powerful abstinence-only movement that affects education, public policy and social welfare.
How effective is this emphasis on abstinence?  Abstinence pledges were generally effective in postponing initial sex experiences (by about 18 months):
- They worked only as long as those pledging were in the minority.  Their abstinence was then reinforced as a counter-cultural, identity-forming movement.  In situations where the majority of teens took the pledge, it was ineffective.
- They only postponed the initial experience.  Nine out of ten teens broke their pledges.
I support teaching children the benefits of abstinence.¬† I even back teaching them that kids really shouldn’t be having sex with each other.¬† But what I adamantly oppose is abstinence-only education.¬† Here are some of the problems of emphasizing abstinence while neglecting the subjects of birth control and safe-sex:
- They were more likely than non-pledgers to engage in high risk sexual behavior, including oral and anal sex and sex without contraceptives.
- Their STD rates were comparable to non-pledgers (though the reported numbers could be low because pledgers are less likely to get tested and to recognize and report STDs).
What really gets me steamed is the broad federal support for this phenomenon.¬† In the past decade, more than a billion of Uncle Sam’s dollars have gone to support abstinence-only programs in 47 states (California, Pennsylvania and Maine refuse the aid and the stipulations tied to it).¬† In order to qualify, programs have to follow the federal definition of “abstinence only.”¬† Here are four of the eight points for what qualifies for the federal sexual seal of approval:
B) teaches abstinence from sexual activity outside marriage as the expected standard for all school age children;
D) teaches that a mutually faithful monogamous relationship in context of marriage is the expected standard of human sexual activity;
E) teaches that sexual activity outside of the context of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects;
F) teaches that bearing children out-of-wedlock is likely to have harmful consequences for the child, the child’s parents, and society;
This isn’t just “abstinence-only education”; this is conservative Christian abstinence until you are legally married (presumably as monogamous heterosexual couple).¬† The government poured a thousand million of the taxpayers’ dollars into a program that teaches that even consenting adults who have responsible sex outside of marriage are engaging in a “harmful” practice that is not part of the “expected standard.”¬† Whose standards?¬† God’s?¬† Pat Robertson’s?¬† The above standards reveal that this federal policy is just Christian morality disguised in a thin (but permeable) membrane.¬† If you still don’t believe me, read the full article.
Abstinence pledges and abstinence education without teaching about contraceptive protection and safe-sex practices is not only misguided public policy, but it endangers our youth and inadequately prepares them to become sexually responsible adults.  Let me close with this quote from a study in the Journal of Adolescent Health:
There is broad support for abstinence as a necessary and appropriate part of sexuality education. Controversy arises when abstinence is provided to adolescents as a sole choice and where health information on other choices is restricted or misrepresented. Although abstinence is theoretically fully effective, in actual practice abstinence often fails to protect against pregnancy and STIs. Few Americans remain abstinent until marriage; many do not or cannot marry, and most initiate sexual intercourse and other sexual behaviors as adolescents. Although abstinence is a healthy behavioral option for teens, abstinence as a sole option for adolescents is scientifically and ethically problematic. A recent emphasis on abstinence-only programs and policies appears to be undermining more comprehensive sexuality education and other government-sponsored programs. We believe that abstinence-only education programs, as defined by federal funding requirements, are morally problematic, by withholding information and promoting questionable and inaccurate opinions. Abstinence-only programs threaten fundamental human rights to health, information, and life.
Amen.
12 responses so far ↓
1 Elaine Frei // Feb 27, 2007 at 12:23 pm
The thing that has bothered me about abstinence education ever since I first started hearing about it years ago is that sometimes teens are told as part of these programs that they will die if they have sex outside of marriage. Not that they could contract HIV or another STD, and that the chances of that rise with multiple partners, but that death is a usual, expected, and unavoidable outcome of premarital sex.
That harks back to when I was in junior high and high school in the late 60s and early 70s and they kept telling us that marijuana would lead unequivocally to heroin addiction (the big horror back then). Since we all knew plenty of people who smoked pot who were not addicted to heroin, who had never even tried heroin, that pretty much meant that we were not going to listen to much of anything the teachers said about drugs. Same principle applies to such strident claims relating to sex.
It is a bad thing to make such statements because it will stop teenagers not only from paying attention to the obviously bogus information that is being handed out, but it will stop them from listening to valid arguments about why they should take precautions against contacting STDs if they do have sex.
2 nee // Feb 27, 2007 at 1:17 pm
There needs to be comprehensive health and well being classes that are compulsory parts of the curriculum. The reason is two-fold. First, many parents are ignorant. Second, many parents are absent to teach some things themselves, either due to apathy or lack of time (by choice or otherwise).
It had become society’s responsibility to educate the youth to minimize society’s suffering as a whole. Sidenote: An ignorant relative of mine told me once it wasn’t fair that he had to pay taxes to support schools when he didn’t have kids in school. Some people can’t or won’t grasp the bigger picture. Ah well.
It needs to be 100% secular in nature. Just facts about health - prevention and protection and improvement thereof. And these days, not just about sex but nutrition and mental health and wellness too.
3 Miko // Feb 27, 2007 at 5:59 pm
This is an especially personal topic for me because I don’t feel that I got adequate information until I got to college. Even then, when I got a skin illness from working out with a bunch of sweaty men four times a week (judo) I thought it was an STD and was afraid to tell anyone (which could’ve prevented it from being spread around the dojo…). I was never asked or pressured into signing an abstinence pledge, but I certainly was not given the tools to figure out what counted as “sex”. Kissing was certainly just as bad as having sex in the information I was given.
I loved Family Guy’s episode about this, “Prick Up Your Ears”, when Lois teaches sex ed at school; the Opal Ring Crusade convinces everyone (including Peter) to “be obstinate!” “Abstinent.” “Absinthe.” “Abstinent.” “Shut the hell up.”; and then everyone starts trying to have sex in the ear in order to remain “pure in the eyes of the Lord”; and Lois declares that ear sex, “is just unnatural!” not to mention not as good as vaginal. The way that Peter is convinced to join the opal ring crusade is through a pamphlet, which declares that “If you have sex, your penis will fall off and land in another dimension populated entirely by dogs, who will eat it.” It’d be funny if it wasn’t so close to the truth…
4 John White // Feb 28, 2007 at 9:23 am
I’ve always seen abstinence-only education as a side-effect of a very weird moral priority in our county, sexual purity. Why is sexual purity more important than stopping the vast majority of unwanted pregnancies in the country?
Of course, I’m assuming that proper sex education and access to contraception decreases rates of high-risk behavior, STDs, and unwanted pregnancies.
5 Miko // Feb 28, 2007 at 10:08 am
The whole sexual purity thing is rooted in dichotomies that I’ve never been comfortable with. While I’m sure most xians would agree that it’s just as important for men to remain pure as for women, it’s only with the women that it seems to come out. We’re the ones who wear white (or off-white, or, as my step-mom-in-law’s aunt would demand, “Scarlet! She should wear scarlet!”) and if we don’t, it’s discussed. Even at my cousin’s wedding where no one who wasn’t in my absolute immediate family even pretended purity, jokes were made about the whiteness of her dress. No one thought it was improper, but no one mentioned what her husband was wearing. At least we don’t hand blood-spotted sheets out the window the next morning any more…
6 John White // Feb 28, 2007 at 11:06 am
What’s a xian? Oh. Wiki disambiguation to the rescue. I assume you don’t mean a Daoist immortal.
Not being a huge wedding attender (most of my extended family is far away), I always assumed that the white dress as a symbol of virginity was a historical reason for the dress to be white. But you’re saying that people still associate it with that today?
7 Bonny // Feb 28, 2007 at 11:54 am
I completely agree with the fact that abstinence only education is an inadequate method of providing our youth with the information they need to be sexually responsible adults.
One thing that I have personally struggled with is the fact that abstinence-only education seems to depict sex outside of marriage to be unhealthy and unnatural, which seems to create this really skewed view of sex as something that is off limits, wrong, and even scary.
I think this creates a great deal of hardship for youth who are taught to view sex in this way.
It’s hard to believe that someone who has perceived sex in such a manner for their whole life would instantly be able to change the way they feel about sex after they are married (or when they feel like they might be in a relationship in which they are ready to have sex). I heard a lot of stories from fellow Christian students while I was in school about couples who had gotten married and were not willing to engage in sex until several months into their marriage because they were so scared of it. It’s scary to me how much rehabilitation people could tend to need after viewing sex as such an off limits thing for their whole life.
I think that education should be 100% secular in nature, but at the same time this is a hard thing because it causes me to question what values we should try to put into context of secular education. You don’t want to teach youth how to be safe and responsible without also telling them to that within their ability to be safe and responsible they should also make smart choices and value sex as something that is special within a relationship, if that makes sense. But I think in making that last statement I am maybe tending towards a value I think is important, and I am now considering whether or not it is wrong to convey my own value through education.
What values should we be able to communicate through sex education (if any) besides completely factual information? Hmmm. That’s a pretty difficult question.
8 Miko // Feb 28, 2007 at 1:00 pm
JW: it’s like xmas, sorry for the confusion…I’m impressed there’s a wiki entry! People definitely still talk about it, even in jest.
Bonny: I think it’s entirely possible to teach values without teaching religion. I don’t think there’s anything contradictory to saying, “sex is a powerful thing that can have more than just physical consequences, both positive and negative” and discussing the release of endorphins and exchange of fluids in that context.
9 Bonny // Feb 28, 2007 at 1:37 pm
Miko:
I didn’t mean to (hope I didn’t) imply that values cannot be taught outside of the context of religion. I guess the question that I was considering overall was who gets to determine which values we teach? I guess my line of thought is that values tend to be really personal things that are based on many different influences.
I like your statement and the emphasis on sex as something that is powerful outside of the physical consequences. That’s a value statement that wouldn’t step on anyone’s toes.
10 Miko // Feb 28, 2007 at 4:51 pm
It seems like values = religion to a lot of ppl. I don’t know if it sounded like you implied it, but I’m so used to ppl assuming it, that I did, too. Sorry :-[ And I can see how it would get sticky to try to teach values since there are so many ways to do it that someone would end up being offended… Somehow, I feel like my teachers were all such moral beings that it didn’t occur to me that they were teaching-by-example with regard to their values. Some I’m sure my parents didn’t agree with, but since it wasn’t on a syllibus or anything, it slipped under the radar. I don’t know if that’s good or bad…
11 John // Feb 28, 2007 at 10:48 pm
Elaine (#1): Thank you for bringing up the misinformation angle–it’s something I wanted to include but the post was already so long. The scare tactics/negativity that Bonny and others mentioned are great points as well. The harshness often backfires–what happens when someone feels like they’re doomed to hell anyway? Or when sex out of wedlock turns out to be a marvelous, beautiful thing?
But more often than not, the evilness of sex out o marriage just spills over into sex within it.
The values that I think society can come to a sort of lowest common denominator agreement on (maybe I’m being naive here) are responsibility and respect. Religions can add their stuff in their heavy-handed manner on top of that foundation.
12 Miko // Mar 1, 2007 at 1:56 pm
an interesting commentary on the effects of abstinence-only when it comes to rape
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