March 10, 2004

• "For Asians, 10.5 percent of virginity pledgers had STDs compared with 5.6 percent of non-pledgers." Asians are twice as likely to get STDs if they pledge to be virgins? The mind boggles. Well, actually it doesn't. Just say no? What planet was that lady living on?
• So first we teach them about contraception, then about abstinence. Ahh, I see now.
• Not that I didn't anticipate this but: Yikes. I have a 13 year old boy and a 9 year old girl: Any Monkeyparents have any advice. (Beside the "you will go out on a date...(something about cold dead)?
• "99 percent of non-pledgers and 88 percent of pledgers have sex before marriage." Heh. The lucky ones even have sex after it. Parents should teach the kids to wear a condom. Good lord, it's not that hard. Hell, in seventh grade everyone knew the "cover your stump before you hump" line. (Coolest sex ed teacher ever.) Not that anyone was humping at the time, but at least the concept was understood.
• vapidave: I'm not a mom, but I always thought that those posters in doctor's clinics would be very useful - you know, the ones where physical symptoms of various diseases are caught in bright, vibrant color. "I am not trying to preach, but have a look at these pictures.*point* If you ever, EVER want to have sex - and I'm sure you will - it doesn't matter what he (she) says. Wear protection. Or one day a doctor will be saying to you," Wow, that's a doozy! Mind if I take a picture?"
• Vapidave: Show them pictures of hardcore fetish porn, and beat them violently with a belt, for at least six hours every night. They should grow up with a well-adjusted and healthy attitude to sex.
• I'm a parent too - two boys, 4 and 0 - and my plan is to try and remember what it was like when I was 13-14 (Every man has walked a mile in those nightmare shoes, so I'm going to try my best not to make it worse for them, if I can) while making sure they have at least heard the real deal of sex and the consequences from me rather than assume their idiot school has told them what they need to know. And I might just make subtly sure that they are aware that dad has a GIANT (and, unbeknownst to them, bottomless) box of condoms in the bottom drawer of his dresser, surely he'd never miss one or two...? My sons are going to want to get it on - that's simple biology. But it's MY fault if they are ignorant about it and the potential consequences.
• I wish you were my pop, Fes.
• When I was a teenager, my mother said, "Use latex, not sheepskin. Do you know why?" "Yes," I replied, "because sheepskin is a semi-permeable membrane." "Exactly." My mom was a nurse, and I'm a big geek, so that's how it went. That being said, Fes's advice is also very good. And teaching kids that, if they're going to make promises they can't keep, they should break them in a small way, not a big way.
• is this sort of like the studies i've seen, saying that aids rates are high in some central and south american countries because of a cultural difference in interpreting what a sex act is? ie, men can have sex with other men, and as long as they're a top it doesn't make them gay, and as aids is a gay disease, they needen't worry? guess what i'm trying to say is that the kids i teach (18 to 24) have vastly different ideas about what constututes sex than i did, 8 to 10 years earlier. these are the ones that matured during the clinton "blowjobs aren't sex" era. seriously. oral sex doesn't seem to count. you can get an STD from oral sex. but you're still abstaining from intercourse, so didn't break your promise. also, (and admittedly i have no proof of this, as i can't remember where i heard the stats, but i'm sure it's true) some bible-belt regions teaching abstinence-only sex "education" are apparently telling kids that various forms of birth control don't work, either by outright lying (akin to the pope saying "aids passes through condoms") or by stretching the truth (ie, including those who forget to wear condoms or forget to take the pill in with the statistics, to skew the results towards the negative) therefore when kids forget to abstain (why isn't THAT stat ever included?!?) they very often eschew birth control altogether, as they've been taught that (a) it's a sin and (b) it doesn't work anyway. here's a test: you're a horny, undereducated teen in the back of daddy's car. your equally horny, equally ill-educated significant other is naked in front of you. you've got a choice between two sins compounded and less friction, or one sin and skin on skin. which option do you go for? teen pregancy and STD rates seem to say kids are taking the prize behind door number 2... yet we keep electing morons who confuse religion with plain old common sense.
• fact is, biologically speaking, the ONLY reason for the existence of any form of life is to make more copies of itself. denying that basic biological fact in the name of god, morality, politics, etc. is just setting yourself up for what we have today - kids having kids before they're ready, 'cause we too often give them no outlet for their urges. don't believe me when i say sex is the strongest most basic urge we have? what about the early days of the AIDS epidemic, when sex with a stranger was just like playing russian roulette? people didn't stop having sex. they just kept spinning the cylinder and pulling the trigger. they did in the mid 80's, and they still are in many, many parts of the world. a choice between an orgasm and a possible horrible, wasting death still quite often comes down to "gee, i'll take the orgasm." and don't go into the "they need to learn to control their urges" either - teens are freakin' insane, biologically speaking. their brains are getting completely re-wired. they are honestly physically incapable of making rational adult decisions until after the wiring job is finished. that's why we don't let them vote, drink, or drive until a specific age (and even then we look at them with suspicion until they've had a chance to practice and get good at it). condoms, pills, etc. kept my wife and i kid-free and STD-free up to the present. we started dating in high school. i'm damn glad that we didn't have a kid as seniors, like quite a few other members of our student body that we (didn't) graduate with... we probably wouldn't have been able to afford college. but we were lucky. both of us had parents who realized the urges were there, supervised us as best as possible, and (knowing they wouldn't always be there to supervise) made sure we knew about our options. i imagine one of the hardest things my father-in-law ever did was sit down with us and say "i'll buy you condoms if you're too embarassed to do it yourself". that takes guts. (and apparently a shot or two of whiskey to get up the courage to come in and do it.) i just hope if i ever have a daughter i've got what it takes to do the same. sorry to have to post this as two parts - it apparently didn't like my lengthy post the first time i tried...
• Fes : wait until you have daughters. They'll want to get it on, too. What then?
• They'll take the condoms and give them to their boyfriends.
• and what caution live frogs said, too.
• wait until you have daughters. They'll want to get it on, too. What then? At that point, I'll freak out. Then I hope I'll have the psychological wherewithal to suck it up, tell them what they need to know, get them an appointment with a good, no-nonsense gynecologist, written permission for a prescription for Nordette, subtle tips as to where the condom box is, then go home and sacrifice a bullock to Aphrodite in hopes that she'll watch over them.
• That is, in addition to scrutinizing her boyfriends with first-week-on-the-job Airport Security Guy zeal.
• Sandspider : well, my thought was, "would you have such sangfroid if it was your little girl?". I'm curious to see if any sort of gender politics would take place -- would there be a twinge if it was the impregnatee you were responsible for? I know we'd all like to believe we'd do what's most logical or responsible for our children (theoretical or no), but can we always get past our emotions to deal with these issues so clinically?
• boo's right - I don't know that I'd have the same reaction, dealing with my sons or dealing with a daughter. Certainly the conversation would be... different. I'd like to think that I could control my visceral reaction in the knowledge and furtherance that it's the best thing for my daughter to have the same - perhaps even more extensive - knowledge about sex and its consequences, since the consequences could be so much more far-reaching for the impregnatee.
• I was lucky to have a high school sex ed teacher who could talk about *anything* without embarrassment. Her approach to the abstinence question was to say that having sex is an adult thing to do, so when you decide to have sex you need to be a grown-up about it and take precautions. She had a whole section on over-the-counter birth control methods (although she was pretty forthright about believing that a combo of the pill and condoms was the way to go) and I remember her making a very big point one day of holding up a tube of spermicidal jelly and saying "now if you are going to rely on this to keep from getting pregnant, don't be stingy with it! Use the whole darn tube! Yes, it is expensive, but it's a heck of a lot cheaper than getting pregnant!!!" She also had what I see now was a remarkable amount of foresight in insisting that we all learn safe sex practices- this was 1986, when many people still perceived AIDS to be a "gay disease" and the fact that she would even discuss things like watersports and rimming and so forth is pretty amazing. And she also made a point to explain female anatomy to the boys "This is a clitoris. This is how it works." with the not-so-subtle hint that pleasing their girlfriends really well is the best strategy for getting more sex. God bless her.
• ... and that's why ambrosia got hitched to her home-room sweetheart ...
• sounds like a great sex ed teacher, ambrosia. unfortunately she also sounds like the kind of sex ed teacher that would get fired in most school districts, generally following a round of angry yelling from parents too embarassed about sex to discuss the same things at home with their own kids.
• clf: we had to have signed permission slips to take the class, and there was pretty full disclosure that she would answer any and all questions honestly and completely, so that was the way she and the school covered themselves. And, it was only open to seniors, which made a difference, I think, even if it was a little late. What your father-in-law did was pretty remarkable too. My parents were too embarrassed to talk to us about sex, and were enormously relieved to have someone else do it for them, to the extent that sometimes that year at the dinner table one of them would ask "So what did you learn about in sex ed today?" Talk about awkward... boo: LOL! I didn't, but it's a great example of a win-win situation...
• some bible-belt regions teaching abstinence-only sex "education" are apparently telling kids that various forms of birth control don't work, either by outright lying (akin to the pope saying "aids passes through condoms") or by stretching the truth I went to a Catholic Bible-Belt high school, and I can vouch for that. This was our sole sex-ed text. The rest of our education consisted of repeat viewings of The Silent Scream (with follow-up lessons that made sure to point out that contraception was really just as gruesome).
• teens are freakin' insane, biologically speaking, their brains are getting completely rewired, they are honestly physically incapable of making rational adult decisions until after the wiring job is finished Her approach to the abstinence question was to say that having sex is an adult thing to do, so when you decide to have sex you need to be a grown-up about it and take precautions Isn't there a contradiction here?
• verstegan- I oversimplified it a bit to save space, but her point was, sex is for adults, so if you think that you are grown up enough to have sex, then prove it by using protection, and if you can't be responsible for your own body then what the hell are you doing? But I think that real point is, rather than simply preaching abstinence and not providing any real information, she actually gave us all the information we needed. Some of us might still have taken stupid risks, but none of us could say that we'd never been told.
• boo_radley, it's hard to say how I would treat my hypothetical children. I don't think I'd have a lot of hang-ups with respect to female vs. male children, partially because I try to treat people like people and partially because I'm the sort of weirdo who, by and large, treated women with respect, even when I was in High School. The standard curse is that, if you have a daughter, all the high school guys will treat your daughter like you treated girls in high school. But that wouldn't really work so much as a curse on me. On the other hand, all manner of strange and frightening hormones go rushing through your system when you first discover that you're going to have kids, and they don't stop until you're dead, so I'm sure my position would change somewhat. However, I'd like to think that I would maintain my, "If you're going to have sex, do this, this, and this. Oh, and don't have sex," posturing that I currently recommend. I might also write and leave lying around a book called something like "How to Seduce Women" that would be filled with all of the standard cheap-o methods that men use to seduce their way into women's hearts. I would make it super-cheesy, and my daughter would read it because she is intensely curious. So when someone tried one of the standard tricks, the daughter would just laugh and laugh.
• ambrosia: I agree. My point was that there seems to be a contradiction between what clf was saying (i.e. "teenagers are irresponsible sex maniacs") and what you were saying (i.e. 'teenagers should be treated as responsible adults").
• well, not so much a contradiction, verstegan; really i was saying that in the context that teens aren't mature enough to deny their urges, given a private moment and a willing partner. (hell, not too many adults are that mature, right?) they can't be counted on to remember their promise to themselves not to have sex. so, it's up to us to do what ambrosia's teacher recommended - make sure that, at the very least, they know what contraceptive devices and/or schemes are most reliable, rather than giving in and resorting to pull'n'pray. ('cause all teenage boys think they can master their bodies enough to pull out in time. well guess what, i had a condom break once, right near the end - and i sure as hell couldn't get out in time. if not for the spermicide on the condom, i might have a 10 year old kid right now.) so, if your kid is relatively mature, you teach them about contraception. if they aren't that mature, but still grown-up enough to try to get a little action, you get them a fail-safe method, like pills or shots or what-have-you. you can usually rely on them to listen to what you have to say, but you can't count on them to make mature decisions about what's safe sex and what isn't, with no adult input.
• My mother - who was a demon in other ways, but an awesome progressive mom in others - told me when I went to residential high school (at age 13!): "Sometime I'm sure you're going to want to have sex. Make sure it's with a boy you really like. And let me know ahead of time, and we'll get you some birth control, no questions asked." As it happens, I did, and ended up on the pill. Then she showed me how to use a condom properly. Thanks, mom-who-was-a-slut-as-a-high-school-freshman! I basically grew up with no false ideas and no false shame about sex in all its forms, so I've had a good, guilt-free sex life since.
• caution live frogs: yes and no. I agree about the need for honest, realistic, no-nonsense sex education. But this is not the same thing as sexual permissiveness. Earlier in the discussion, you seemed to be suggesting that all a father could reasonably do for his son was to give him a box of condoms, make sure he knew how to use them, and then leave him to get on with satisfying his natural urges. To me, this seems utterly irresponsible. I don't believe that sex education can or should be separated from moral education; and if teenagers are mature enough to learn about contraception, they are mature enough to participate in a discussion of sexual ethics. I think the worst thing you can do for a teenager is to give them the impression that moral standards apply in some cases and not in others. "Your mother and I would prefer it if you didn't have casual sex .. we'd rather you waited till you were older .. but here's a packet of condoms, better safe than sorry, eh?" That's the kind of attitude that causes teenagers to despise their elders for hypocrisy and blatant double standards.
• My sex-talk was from my mom who gave me a pack of condoms and said "Wear these! There's more in your room." Sure 'nuff there was a box of 20 in my room. I have a 5 year old daughter. I have no problem talking about the birds/bees. STDs, AIDS, etc. are very scary subjects. She must be prepared. It is the only responsible thing for a father to do. She will receive the full gamut of options; condoms, creams, chastity belt, pills, patch, shot, diaphram, IUD.... While I am anxious to become a grandfather one day, I want it to be the fairy-tale she dreams of, not a "mistake." Inconceivable props to rogerd on the post.
• verstegan Your mother and I would prefer it if you didn't have casual sex .. we'd rather you waited till you were older .. but here's a packet of condoms, better safe than sorry, eh?" That's the kind of attitude that causes teenagers to despise their elders for hypocrisy and blatant double standards. Sorry? I think I'm missing how that's a blatant double-standard, or hypocritical? If it were to be a double-standard, they'd have to say "You can't have sex, Jimmy (13), you're too young. Bobby (14) - pound away!". For hypocrisy - "No sex for you. Sex is evil. Excuse us whilst we get down to bidness right here". All the parent is saying is that casual sex is not the ideal, but SHOULD YOU FIND YOURSELF in a position where you really really really want to, there's not a force on this planet that can stop you putting tab A into slot B*. Use these - it'll mean you can go afford to go to college, and consequently WILL be able to find a job somewhere other than Walmart**. Well, that's my view. Any potential boyfriends for any of my theoretical daughters will have to prove themselves in the Pit o' Doom first.... As for my own sex ed, my parents were pretty upfront about it through primary school.. some random sex-ed classes with graphic videos of births and pictures of diseases. Risk-minimisation strategies provided, etc etc. My parents never offered to buy me condoms, but I knew that (should I ever get that lucky, and in school I never did) that I could bring the girl back home, no questions asked, other than perhaps "What does she want for breakfast?". They took a similar attitude to alcohol - whilst they didn't approve of binge drinking, they saw no harm in buying me a sixpack to take to a party or if friends were coming around.. they knew that I'd end up getting it somehow, and they also knew that it'd be MUCH safer if I accidentally overindulged, or something went wrong, for me to be doing it in the comfort of my own home, where they retained some measure of control. It's all about risk-minimisation. * Why yes - I was an adolescent male too. How'd you guess? ** And no - not implying that you can only work at Walmart if you don't go to college - it's a parent trying to scare a kid, gettit? ;)
• I don't have kids, but my girlfriend does, and let me tell you, it's not going to be easy with at least the littler one. Two boys. They have love 'em and leave 'em in their blood. I plan to be there and be available to talk to them, to give them straight information when they need it (for "queer information" they can talk to their uncle) so that they don't make more trouble for themselves than they can handle. Their mom and I both want them to be better men than their biological fathers are...
• verstegan, I wear a crash helmet, gloves, boots, and an armoured jacket when I ride my motorbike as a minimum. If my kids want to ride, they will too. Not because I condone riding like a fuckwit, but because sometimes, bad things - errors of judgement, innocent or otherwise - happen. I prefer my helmet, rather than my head, hit the tarmac when it happens. Refusing to give contraceptives to a teenager with functioning genitals in case they fuck is like refusing to give a crash helmet to a teen with a motorbike in case they ride.
• rodgerd: I never suggested that one should "refuse to give contraceptives to a teenager". I am not in the business of "refusing" anybody anything. But there is more to being a parent than merely ensuring that one's teenage son/daughter is well supplied with contraceptives. "It's all about risk-minimisation." Well, no, actually it isn't. It's about teaching your children to take responsibility for their own actions, and to treat other people with respect. It's about teaching them to avoid selfishness, deceit, cruelty and exploitation in their relationships with others. It's not just about the self-interested avoidance of risk. It's also important to remember that teenagers are part of a peer group, so that the way you bring up your own children will inevitably affect other people's children as well. Were I the father of a 15-year-old daughter, I might not be best pleased to discover that my next-door neighbour was liberally dispensing condoms to his 16-year-old son.
• Were I the father of a 15-year-old daughter, I might not be best pleased to discover that my next-door neighbour was liberally dispensing condoms to his 16-year-old son. You're British, aren't you verstegan? Because, surely the 16 year old boy is legally allowed to have sex, and buy condoms, and do want he damn wants (just not with your 15 year old daughter, obviously). I don't see what his father has to do with it.
• dng: indeed I am; and I have no objection to the public sale of contraceptives. I was merely responding to the comments of several people earlier in the discussion, who suggested that teenagers might be too inexperienced, or too embarrassed, to buy their own contraceptives, so that it was the parents' duty to make them available.
• OK. Sorry.
• verstegan - wasn't trying to say that all a parent can do is to hand the kid a pack of trojans and say "go to it". my parents didn't do that, and neither did my wife's parents. what they did do was make it abundantly clear that having a kid before you are ready is not a good thing, and they expected no less of me than to make sure i wasn't ever in that situation (nor should i put anyone else into that situation). they also made it clear that, failing all common sense, they would be the adults if need be, and make sure that what i needed was on hand when i needed it. my father-in-law made it clear to us that sex was a personal decision, and that offering to purchase contraceptives for us if we were too chicken-shit to do it ourselves was not his way of saying that it was OK for us to run out and start having sex. it was his way of saying that, if we chose to do so, we sure as hell better be doing it responsibly (what with him being a police officer, and ex-marine, i wasn't going to do anything to make him mad at me, see?) it would indeed be hypocritical of me to say to my own (hypothetical) kid "premarital sex isn't for you, don't do it." i didn't wait until i was married. i did however wait until i was in what i felt would be a lasting relationship with someone i cared deeply about. this wasn't anything my parents taught me with words so much as by example. i hope to set the same example - telling my future kid that sex shouldn't be a casual decision. i feel that i made the right choice, for me... the relationship did last, still together and happily married. i don't expect any kid of mine to find lasting love the first try, but i do expect that the examples my wife and i set through our own actions and willingness to talk frankly will result in a kid who is respectful of his/her partner, willing to wait until both participants are ready, careful about protection when the time comes, and willing to take responsibility for his/her actions if something does go wrong. the whole part about the "uncontrollable urges" was brought up to make a point. if you, as a parent, can't remember how important and overwhelming the urge to get naked was when you were a teen, you need a straightforward statement like that to wake you up and make you face facts. kids have sex. the average age of first sexual contact is dropping lower and lower. kids in my dad's elementary school, first and second graders, are talking about having sex. if you are too blind to admit that your kid might do the same things you once did, at an even earlier age than you started trying, then by all means make the man next door stop handing out condoms to his son. after all, his son won't be the one that has to carry the child if he can't control his genetalia. you can arm your kids with all the advice you want, but making sure they know birth control is an absolute must in any sexual contact situation is never a bad thing. and seriously, thanks for the good conversation. it's interesting to me to have to put myself in my parent's shoes and ask myself "what would i do?" guess i'll never really be sure until i have a kid myself...
• wait, I have it.......you have a kid and you'll have to share the ps2.