More AFA Crap
The American Family Ass. has sent me their first news letter and I'm so excited it has not one but three stories to comment on. I'm going to start with Sex Education: Spinning the Truth the reason to start with this is because it focuses on one of my favorite (okay probably the most favorite) past times, having sex. Like last time, the AFA text is in italics, my comments are in bold
Sex Education: Spinning the Truth
By Jane Jimenez
March 22, 2005
(AgapePress) - Abstinence is an idea as old as the hills. We know abstinence works. It prevents unwanted pregnancies. We know you won't come down with any of the 25 common STDs if you abstain from sex. So what's wrong with abstinence?
Jane, slavery is also an idea as old as the hills just because something is old doesn't mean we should endorse it. It is true that, if you don't have sex you can be pretty sure you won't get pregnant, and depending on how you define abstinence you will mostly likely not come down with any of the "25 most common STDs" (Shit, I didn't even know that many existed, Jane if you read this post would you be so kind as to send me the list? Thanks!) One thing I'm going to guess though is that hepatitis and AIDS are counted among those and you know, if you eat at a restaurant where the cooks don't wash their hands well after using the bathroom you can get hepatitis. Also if you shoot heroin (I'm not endorsing shooting heroin, it is a very, very bad idea but you can abstain from sex and be a drug user) and share the needle with someone who is infected you can get AIDS, so unless abstinence includes not shooting up and dining, you still can get STDs. To answer your question about what's wrong with abstinence? Um, not having sex is a _major_ drawback.
Everything? That's right. Some people are working to convince parents that abstinence education is unpopular, unrealistic, and unsafe.
Unsafe? That's right. Some people claim that abstinence education is a two-minute lecture delivered by an uptight prude: Don't do it. Just don't do it. Say NO. And don't ever, ever do it.
What we need, critics of abstinence cry out, is truth. We need medically accurate information. We need to talk about sex. Our kids need to know how to stay safe. They need more information than just saying No. They need the truth.
Truth? Consider that the abstinence teacher often spends as many as five to ten hours in one classroom. What are they talking about? Well, actually, they have quite a lot to talk about, and it's just the kind of no-nonsense, medically accurate information that could save a teen from the biggest mistake of her life.
Okay, we can agree to disagree on the first one, before we were talking about abstinence as a good way to prevent STDs and pregnancy and it is pretty damn effective, except for that fact that "abstinence education" and "abstinence" are two very different things.
As for safety and medically sound information research conducted by The Center for AIDS Prevention Studies (CAPS), based at the University of California at San Francisco shows that abstinence education alone is NOT as effective as a program that starts by teaching abstinence and ALSO explains how to protect yourself if you do engage, in sexual activity, in fact students who have had ONLY abstinence education are far less likely to use a condom and thus more likely to spread disease and get pregnant.
Yes critics of "abstinence only" education do use the truth, they also inform you of the truth that teens will have sex and the truth about how to protect yourself if you do have sex. The truth and listen closely here, is that abstinence only education DOES NOT FUCKING WORK, that is the truth. I'd also like you further expand on the medically accurate information that is distributed with the "don't have sex" talk, please put up a sample lecture.
How about these facts:
Medically accurate information proves the ineffectiveness of condoms in preventing serious STDs leading to infertility, lifelong genital herpes, and cervical cancer. Cervical cancer kills more women each year than AIDS. With teens, condoms approach a 20 percent failure rate in preventing pregnancy.
This is at best a half-truth, while condoms are not 100% safe, if used properly, their effectiveness increases greatly. Do you know how to get people to properly use condoms? Educate them on how to use them properly when giving them sex education, have them practice putting them on bananas that way if they choose not to abstain, this will not be first time they are putting one on, because the emotions and excitement of having sex for the first time, plus the mobility limited by the back seat of a car will not also be coupled with the first time you put on a condom. This lesson is not taught in "abstinence only" education.
Meanwhile, critics of abstinence want to take over with their own brand of risky sex education. Their brand of truth ignores medical realities, suggesting that teens can flirt with sex and not get burned. What does risky sex look like? Try these ideas out:
Risky sex educators' version of sex education counsels teens to try "outercourse." This highly risky behavior, using their own definition, can include naked body-to-body intimacy just short of intercourse.
Risky sex educators put their version of "abstinence" into a virtual smorgasbord of sexual behaviors that teens can engage in ... when they are ready. In their curriculum, abstinence is little more than an "option" that teens may abandon ... when they are mature.
No, not really you see all of the comprehensive sex education programs start with abstinence and explain that it is the most effective methodology but... they also realize that people will have sex and want them to know what to do to be as safe as possible. Another thing that you don't mention is about the '"option" that teens may abandon' you don't even consider the fact the people get married and can use their comprehensive sex education to prevent pregnancy even post marriage, you aren't suggest that people should abstain their whole live are you? (I'm secretly hoping that you are so that you and your ignorance promoting friends don't reproduce but that is only wishful thinking)
Research proves parents are the most effective educators of sexual values for their children. In spite of this, risky sex educators use "confidentiality" as a means of promoting secrecy that distances teens from their parents.
True, parents are key to effective education, but from the sounds of it you aren't going to show your children how to use a condom and about how to lower risk. Now also when you are a parent of a teen, especially if they have judgmental parents like you appear to be, you are the last people they are going to go to. I hope that with my children, they know that I will advocate abstinence as the most effective method, but if they decide to go forward I also want them to know that they can come to me without, fear of stigma, and they will get the information they need to be safe rather than just hearing another lecture about how they shouldn't have sex.
Best of all, risky sex educators are engaged in an all-out attack on the money that supports abstinence education. They print articles and lobby legislators and governors. "Stop abstinence education," is their battle cry.
The battle cry isn't "Stop abstinence education" the battle cry is "Stop abstinence ONLY" education, as I've stated before the comprehensive sex ed. programs start with abstinence and share the rest of the facts, instead of keeping them in the dark and ignorant.
So what kind of money are we talking about? While risky sex educators are concerned that $120 million is being spent on abstinence programs, it is reported that in FY 2002, the federal government spent half a billion dollars on teen sex-ed that ignores the medical realities of condom failures. We are paying risky sex educators to teach our children such "safe sex" concepts as outercourse.
Abstinence only education ignores the realities the teens have sex and is NOT AT ALL EFFECTIVE to those teens that do have sex.
What do parents get for their money? The "statistical results" of 30 years of the condom, outercourse, and "mature sex" message are evident. Today, one in five children over the age of 12 tests positive for Herpes Type 2.
You can get herpes type 2 by sharing a cup with someone or kissing your grandma. As a matter fact in places where abstinence only education is taught there are more teen pregnancies and in places where there is a comprehensive program teens are less likely to be pregnant and spread diseases.
What has happened to choice? Abstinence is an important option and choice parents deserve. It reinforces parental values by giving students truly medically accurate information to help them understand the importance of remaining sexually abstinent until marriage.
Choice means explaining ALL of the choices, not just abstinence, teaching "abstinence only" is the antithesis of choice, look up "only" and then look up "choice" if you still need help let me know.
Abstinence education embraces the same no-nonsense, truth-telling approach we use in teaching young people about drugs, tobacco, and drunk driving.
"Just Say No" was a pretty shitty program, what does work is explaining the truth to teen about drugs, tobacco and drinking. If you follow your abstinence methodology, you teens will be told. "If you ever smoke pot you will become a junkie." They will then have a friend who has tried pot and is not a junkie and then your kid will not have reason to believe you on anything else, while drug education is out of the scope of this post, I think you get the gist, if not shoot me an email and I'll explain it to you in more detail.
It is a grassroots effort that has taken hold over the past ten years, fully supported by medical experts who have witnessed the explosion of the STD epidemic in their medical practices. During this same period of time, as abstinence education gains ground, the CDC in an extensive report just released says teen pregnancy, birth and abortion rates dropped from 1990 to 1999.
1990 to 1999 is also when comprehensive sex ed. was in place, which is why I was taught in both home and in school how to practice safe sex.
Abstinence educators know what our kids need. They talk medically accurate information. They give our children the information and reasons for saying No to sex. They know what risk is about, and they are not willing to put one cent our into pretending that "outercourse" is a good idea. And that's the truth.
This last paragraph is so divorced from reality that I cannot believe you signed your name to it. Your belief that ignorance is the way to inform teens, flies so much in the face of reason, that if I didn't know better I would swear you are writer for The Onion I personally think parents who don't explain the realities of the world to their children are not only doing a disservice to their children, but to the world as whole. If the world were truly just, parents who keep their children ignorant would be just as guilty of abuse as those that beat them.
Sex Education: Spinning the Truth
By Jane Jimenez
March 22, 2005
(AgapePress) - Abstinence is an idea as old as the hills. We know abstinence works. It prevents unwanted pregnancies. We know you won't come down with any of the 25 common STDs if you abstain from sex. So what's wrong with abstinence?
Jane, slavery is also an idea as old as the hills just because something is old doesn't mean we should endorse it. It is true that, if you don't have sex you can be pretty sure you won't get pregnant, and depending on how you define abstinence you will mostly likely not come down with any of the "25 most common STDs" (Shit, I didn't even know that many existed, Jane if you read this post would you be so kind as to send me the list? Thanks!) One thing I'm going to guess though is that hepatitis and AIDS are counted among those and you know, if you eat at a restaurant where the cooks don't wash their hands well after using the bathroom you can get hepatitis. Also if you shoot heroin (I'm not endorsing shooting heroin, it is a very, very bad idea but you can abstain from sex and be a drug user) and share the needle with someone who is infected you can get AIDS, so unless abstinence includes not shooting up and dining, you still can get STDs. To answer your question about what's wrong with abstinence? Um, not having sex is a _major_ drawback.
Everything? That's right. Some people are working to convince parents that abstinence education is unpopular, unrealistic, and unsafe.
Unsafe? That's right. Some people claim that abstinence education is a two-minute lecture delivered by an uptight prude: Don't do it. Just don't do it. Say NO. And don't ever, ever do it.
What we need, critics of abstinence cry out, is truth. We need medically accurate information. We need to talk about sex. Our kids need to know how to stay safe. They need more information than just saying No. They need the truth.
Truth? Consider that the abstinence teacher often spends as many as five to ten hours in one classroom. What are they talking about? Well, actually, they have quite a lot to talk about, and it's just the kind of no-nonsense, medically accurate information that could save a teen from the biggest mistake of her life.
Okay, we can agree to disagree on the first one, before we were talking about abstinence as a good way to prevent STDs and pregnancy and it is pretty damn effective, except for that fact that "abstinence education" and "abstinence" are two very different things.
As for safety and medically sound information research conducted by The Center for AIDS Prevention Studies (CAPS), based at the University of California at San Francisco shows that abstinence education alone is NOT as effective as a program that starts by teaching abstinence and ALSO explains how to protect yourself if you do engage, in sexual activity, in fact students who have had ONLY abstinence education are far less likely to use a condom and thus more likely to spread disease and get pregnant.
Yes critics of "abstinence only" education do use the truth, they also inform you of the truth that teens will have sex and the truth about how to protect yourself if you do have sex. The truth and listen closely here, is that abstinence only education DOES NOT FUCKING WORK, that is the truth. I'd also like you further expand on the medically accurate information that is distributed with the "don't have sex" talk, please put up a sample lecture.
How about these facts:
Medically accurate information proves the ineffectiveness of condoms in preventing serious STDs leading to infertility, lifelong genital herpes, and cervical cancer. Cervical cancer kills more women each year than AIDS. With teens, condoms approach a 20 percent failure rate in preventing pregnancy.
This is at best a half-truth, while condoms are not 100% safe, if used properly, their effectiveness increases greatly. Do you know how to get people to properly use condoms? Educate them on how to use them properly when giving them sex education, have them practice putting them on bananas that way if they choose not to abstain, this will not be first time they are putting one on, because the emotions and excitement of having sex for the first time, plus the mobility limited by the back seat of a car will not also be coupled with the first time you put on a condom. This lesson is not taught in "abstinence only" education.
Meanwhile, critics of abstinence want to take over with their own brand of risky sex education. Their brand of truth ignores medical realities, suggesting that teens can flirt with sex and not get burned. What does risky sex look like? Try these ideas out:
Risky sex educators' version of sex education counsels teens to try "outercourse." This highly risky behavior, using their own definition, can include naked body-to-body intimacy just short of intercourse.
Risky sex educators put their version of "abstinence" into a virtual smorgasbord of sexual behaviors that teens can engage in ... when they are ready. In their curriculum, abstinence is little more than an "option" that teens may abandon ... when they are mature.
No, not really you see all of the comprehensive sex education programs start with abstinence and explain that it is the most effective methodology but... they also realize that people will have sex and want them to know what to do to be as safe as possible. Another thing that you don't mention is about the '"option" that teens may abandon' you don't even consider the fact the people get married and can use their comprehensive sex education to prevent pregnancy even post marriage, you aren't suggest that people should abstain their whole live are you? (I'm secretly hoping that you are so that you and your ignorance promoting friends don't reproduce but that is only wishful thinking)
Research proves parents are the most effective educators of sexual values for their children. In spite of this, risky sex educators use "confidentiality" as a means of promoting secrecy that distances teens from their parents.
True, parents are key to effective education, but from the sounds of it you aren't going to show your children how to use a condom and about how to lower risk. Now also when you are a parent of a teen, especially if they have judgmental parents like you appear to be, you are the last people they are going to go to. I hope that with my children, they know that I will advocate abstinence as the most effective method, but if they decide to go forward I also want them to know that they can come to me without, fear of stigma, and they will get the information they need to be safe rather than just hearing another lecture about how they shouldn't have sex.
Best of all, risky sex educators are engaged in an all-out attack on the money that supports abstinence education. They print articles and lobby legislators and governors. "Stop abstinence education," is their battle cry.
The battle cry isn't "Stop abstinence education" the battle cry is "Stop abstinence ONLY" education, as I've stated before the comprehensive sex ed. programs start with abstinence and share the rest of the facts, instead of keeping them in the dark and ignorant.
So what kind of money are we talking about? While risky sex educators are concerned that $120 million is being spent on abstinence programs, it is reported that in FY 2002, the federal government spent half a billion dollars on teen sex-ed that ignores the medical realities of condom failures. We are paying risky sex educators to teach our children such "safe sex" concepts as outercourse.
Abstinence only education ignores the realities the teens have sex and is NOT AT ALL EFFECTIVE to those teens that do have sex.
What do parents get for their money? The "statistical results" of 30 years of the condom, outercourse, and "mature sex" message are evident. Today, one in five children over the age of 12 tests positive for Herpes Type 2.
You can get herpes type 2 by sharing a cup with someone or kissing your grandma. As a matter fact in places where abstinence only education is taught there are more teen pregnancies and in places where there is a comprehensive program teens are less likely to be pregnant and spread diseases.
What has happened to choice? Abstinence is an important option and choice parents deserve. It reinforces parental values by giving students truly medically accurate information to help them understand the importance of remaining sexually abstinent until marriage.
Choice means explaining ALL of the choices, not just abstinence, teaching "abstinence only" is the antithesis of choice, look up "only" and then look up "choice" if you still need help let me know.
Abstinence education embraces the same no-nonsense, truth-telling approach we use in teaching young people about drugs, tobacco, and drunk driving.
"Just Say No" was a pretty shitty program, what does work is explaining the truth to teen about drugs, tobacco and drinking. If you follow your abstinence methodology, you teens will be told. "If you ever smoke pot you will become a junkie." They will then have a friend who has tried pot and is not a junkie and then your kid will not have reason to believe you on anything else, while drug education is out of the scope of this post, I think you get the gist, if not shoot me an email and I'll explain it to you in more detail.
It is a grassroots effort that has taken hold over the past ten years, fully supported by medical experts who have witnessed the explosion of the STD epidemic in their medical practices. During this same period of time, as abstinence education gains ground, the CDC in an extensive report just released says teen pregnancy, birth and abortion rates dropped from 1990 to 1999.
1990 to 1999 is also when comprehensive sex ed. was in place, which is why I was taught in both home and in school how to practice safe sex.
Abstinence educators know what our kids need. They talk medically accurate information. They give our children the information and reasons for saying No to sex. They know what risk is about, and they are not willing to put one cent our into pretending that "outercourse" is a good idea. And that's the truth.
This last paragraph is so divorced from reality that I cannot believe you signed your name to it. Your belief that ignorance is the way to inform teens, flies so much in the face of reason, that if I didn't know better I would swear you are writer for The Onion I personally think parents who don't explain the realities of the world to their children are not only doing a disservice to their children, but to the world as whole. If the world were truly just, parents who keep their children ignorant would be just as guilty of abuse as those that beat them.
posted by dan at Tuesday, March 22, 2005
by C.S. Walton
![](http://dcdan.com/images/dcbloggersbutton2.gif"/)
2 Comments:
Dan, dan, dan...you never fail to entertain me! When I'm bored at work I go straight to your blog and sit in my cube and laugh. Thanks for all of the entertainment!!!
Dan,
Found you on SPD. I think I might be in love. Thanks for the laugh. You have been favorited. I'll be back.
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