February 01, 2005

What does abstinence mean?
Abstinence-only programs like those promoted by the Bush administration don't seem to be working on teenagers in the president's home state, according to a state-sponsored study by Texas A&M University researchers.

The ongoing study, the first evaluation of the abstinence programs across the state, found that students in almost all high school grades were more sexually active after undergoing abstinence education.
posted by George the Curious 19 years ago
  • abstinence is the sexual equivalent of former first lady nancy reagan's "just say no" war on drug use.
  • Whoawhoawhoa -- 28% of girls in grade nine had intercourse after the abstinence program? Maaaaaaan, did I ever go to the wrong high school...
  • This thread is making me randy.
  • Well, I suppose that little bit more time has passed during the course of the sex ed, giving that 5% a chance to catch up with their peers elsewhere; plus, as Name That Itch ably illustrates, any mention of sex is enough to set febrile minds a-whirring.
    Still, at least they're getting a healthy dose of guilt to go with their first forays into the erotic world. I'd hate the kids of today to miss out on that.
  • About the only way I know to prevent kids from having sex is to provide them with little opportunity to have it, or to shield them from the very idea of it. Popular music, television, and the internet have guaranteed us that the latter is an option no more. The former can possibly still be done, but it requires an enormous amount of intrusive effort. I have no idea how I will prevent my kids from having sex (if and when I have kids, that is). I am not sure how to educate a kid about sex and then be able to convince them that they should not engage in this fantastic activity until they are older. Perhaps I will just go with some tried and true Catholic guilt. It kept an enormous amount of my peers virgins until college.
  • Prohibition didn't work, either -- this new nonsense is prohibition applied to folk's private parts.
  • I love how this study was conducted to give them the most favorable results possible, and it STILL gave them bad press. No control group. No tracking of pregnancy \ STDs. (which in a rational society woudl be the REAL issue) Just a blatant attempt to try to generate a "See! Abstinence-only programs cause LESS SEX!" article. And it couldn't even manage that. Since, of course, if they actually compared preg \ std rates in abstinence-only schools to those with comprehensive sex-ed, the results would be absolutely horrifying to those who believe in this nonsense.
  • "Still, public health experts say these and other studies may eventually help fashion abstinence-only approaches that can make a difference. " How deluded can you be? Outside of creating a 'Public Flogging Program for Wayward Teens' there's not much hope for abstinence-only classes.
  • About the only way I know to prevent kids from having sex is to provide them with little opportunity to have it, or to shield them from the very idea of it. But, how will you shield them from puberty and their own powerful drives? Clearly having kids surrounded by sexually charged images on the teevee, in the movies, magazines and billboards 24/7 isn't helping reinforce healthy attitudes about it, but curiosity about it and desire for it are very normal things. This abstinence only thing is typical conservative bury-our-heads-in-the-sand-and-hope-the-problem-goes-away nonsense that (like "just say no") only succeeds in making the problem worse.
  • Spay and neuter them from orbit, it's the only way to be sure.
  • All abstinence only education teaches kids is to be unprepared for sex. The government will give an abstinence program money *only* if it contains no information on birth control -- except for (often inflated) failure rates. Kids who've gone through abstinence programs think that if they're prepared for sex (with knowledge of birth control or -gasp!- actually obtaining birth control)they're somehow slutty or evil. This leads to having "unintentional" unprotected sex, which leads to more unplanned pregnancies and disease. Here is the .pdf of senator Waxman's report on abstinence programs. Waxman's report (which I think has been linked here before) found that abstinence programs (I hesitate to call them "education") contain a lot of false information (I think one program said that condoms protect against pregancy but not STDs), and are ineffective in keeping kids from having sex. These programs also fail to contain any information about how to choose a potential partner -- what qualities to look for in a good relationship -- and fail to teach anything about rape or the concept of active consent (not just not saying no, but actually saying yes). Kids come out of abstinence programs believing that if a boy spends a lot of money on a girl (one study defined "a lot of money" as about $10), she's obligated to have sex. I'm all for teaching kids to wait until they're mature enough to have sex, but scaring them away from sex and giving out deliberate mis-information on birth control only creates sexually wacked-out individuals. ... sorry for the long post. I'm including this information in my dissertation, in part because I was taught abstinence only and had to spend a lot of time un-learning all the mis-information I was taught.
  • So this increase in rates after the abstinence program -- what is it? Simply the lure of the forbidden?
  • Personally, I'll be encouraging my kids to have as much sex as possible, as often as possible, as long as they're smart about protecting themselves. I sure wish I had taken all the opportunities I now realize I foolishly threw aside out of guilt, notions of propriety, and sheer ignorance as to the possibility of it. Youth is SO wasted on the young. Of course, having your parents actively encourage you to have sex and have nonchalant conversations about whether you got lucky last night or not might in fact be the best way to promote abstinence ever devised. The Bush Admin. should look into SEX ONLY abstinence programs. What I say.
  • Do we really think that Bush cares about this? He has NO agenda regarding this other than making the religious right happy with the "abstinence" line of BS.
  • Two things I noted: One, kids are liars. 23% of girls in 9th grade? Bullshit. 23% of girls in 9th grade said they had engaged in sexual intercourse. That's different than 23% of girls actually having engaged in sexual intercourse by 9th grade. If they're getting Texas sex ed, they probably define intercourse as any level of touching/petting/tongue-kissing. Second, when will the religious right get that there are ways to be open about sex without making it taboo, and therefore attractive? Y'know, like pointing out that a large purality of kids who have sex during high school end up working at Wal-Marts, while those who are socially retarded end up getting Ivy League educations and thus banging people far more attractive than anyone they could have scored in high school. Just like with drugs, I plan on telling my kids: Wait for college. You can take 8 years to finish if you fuck up. High school is less forgiving.
  • hmm, don't be so quick to call foul on the 23% or the definition of sex involved. it's been a while since I was that age, but there were about the many sexually active girls back then (in a "good school" in a "small town").
  • "Of course, having your parents actively encourage you to have sex and have nonchalant conversations about whether you got lucky last night or not might in fact be the best way to promote abstinence ever devised." For most teenagers that should work quite well. Oh and don't forget to leave a fishbowl of various condoms on the coffee table.
  • js, I have friends in Houston who teach public school. The stories they tell me about what's going on in the grade schools scare the bejesus out of me. When I hear stories about pregnant kids in grade school, I don't doubt that almost a quarter of freshman HS girls have had sex. As for the definitional exercise, I would be willing to bet kids in Texas are among those having oral sex because "it's not real sex and you're still a virgin". Bill Clinton, bless his hairsplitting heart, didn't come up with that out of nowhere.
  • I say, if you want to cut down on teen pregnancy, tell 'em all that they are expected to have as much sex as possible and to crank out as many babies as possible. When have you ever met a teenager that did what they were supposed to do?
  • Abstinence, a wonderful idea but not realistic. Funny that, I took a lot of crap from my family and friends for teaching my children about sex, STDs and birth control before their hormones kicked in and made them crazy. I was told that my daughter would be pregnant before she was 14. That by teaching her what I taught her I was only giving her permission to have sex. I was told my sons would have some girl knocked up by the time they reached the age of 15. I also taught facts about drugs and drug abuse. That made heads spin. My kids were all going to be junkies. My main lesson to my kids was this; Everything you do has consequences. Adults have to deal with consequences and making informed choices everyday. If you f-up, you will have to deal with the results. Mom will not bail you out. I will be there to support you in the ways that are needed, but I won't enable you to make bad choices and not deal with the consequences. My kids are stable adults. No druggies, No unwanted pregnancies. On the other hand, my family and friends that were so sure I was wrong to be so open about life and the facts of life, went the other way. They didn't teach their kids anything. They told them, you will not have sex, you will not do drugs or drink alcohol. Abstinence was the only way to go, no talking about sex or drugs. If you don't bring it up, except to say it is bad, don't do it, there won't be a problem. Well, funny that, I have two neices with unplanned for babies. My best friends two daughters both had problems with drugs and alcohol. One got pregnant the other got lucky. From my own experience, I believe my way is better and their way was wrong. Just saying, sorry for being long winded. This just fires me up. I went through so much myself as a teen, I know it is wrong to teach abstinence only.
  • Two things I noted: One, kids are liars. 23% of girls in 9th grade? Bullshit. 23% of girls in 9th grade said they had engaged in sexual Seem to forget that there can be a huge difference in sexual mores between different groups of teenagers. I went to highschool in a large city and had honest friends in a number of different highschools, public and private. Experiences ranged from practically Quaker to highly hedonistic, with continuous drunken parties and lots of sexual activity. Just because you think your children are 'good kids', doesn't mean they aren't. Just because you're afraid of them engaging in risky behaviour, doesn't mean they aren't smart enough to avoid it all on their own, without your torturing them with disinformation.
  • The best thing you can do, imo, is raise smart kids--not smart about sex, just smart, thinkers, encourage them to reaosn things out. Most will be able to sort things out, or will ask you if they can't, provided your relationship is good. And I know it's the popular notion, but thinking back, I don't remember being a reasonless fucking machine as a teen. I had a boner most of the time, sure, but that didn't turn me suddenly into an idiot. I think...
  • reaosn s/b reason, obviously. Oh, and I knew lots of folks in hs who were stupid about sex. But guess what? They were stupid about EVERYTHING. So there you go.
  • Monkeyfilter: This thread is making me randy God, you guys are slipping...
  • I took the same sort of approach with my daughter, as bratcat did. When she was twelve and started to rev up about boys I gave her a little promise that whenever she felt ready to be sexually active, I would give any consent she needed for birth control. At age seventeen, she asked and didn't even need my consent anyhow, at that age. She married the same fellow. I took the same rather blase approach to other behaviour in my attitude and just plain took all the fun and sting out of breaking taboos. She'd had some incidents in her early life that had left her high-risk but has done great. / not that she thanks me for my approach, though. She still grumbles that I'm not a regular type mother.
  • Nice tactic dxlifer, but of course, peer contact has a *lot* to do with how well that works out. I can remember clearly seeing a few girls on the edge of my peer group for the first time. Each one, a year later, pretty much regardless of background, she had become a neighbourhood "skag" or the like. I don't know that these girls had overcontrolling parents particularly. Raising kids to be smart, though, is definitely the way to go, and that means encouraging them to think for themselves and not just repeat what someone tells them -- including you. The problem is that many parents don't just want their kids making *mature* choices -- they want them making narrow, sheltered choices. By that definition, my oldest niece, for example, is a failure. She's had premarital sex, she smokes (pot and tobacco) on occasion, goes clubbing, etc. On any adult playing field, though (she's 25) she's a great success. Thinks for herself, has a career, and tempers wilder decisions with more moderate ones.
  • meredithea - Henry Waxman is a member of the House of Reps... not the Senate. :)
  • No, I still call foul on 23%. That's about 1 in 4. When I went to high school, not too long ago, that's about what the rumored level of sexual activity was among seniors (from thumbing through the yearbook). Among 9th graders? Nah. There have been more than a couple of studies that show kids consistently believe more of their classmates are having sex and doing drugs than actually are (I even took part in some of the U of M studies now being published as a kid). I have to believe this is flawed data. And hell, I even live in a lower-income predominantly minority area, which would have higher expected sexual activity. At graduation, I can believe 1 in 5 pretty easily. Freshman year? Maybe 1 in 8, 1 in 7. But 23% is only valid if the question was asked of the guys "How many of the girls do you think put out?" I DEMAND THEIR DATA SETS!
  • Grumble grumble.. why can't you be like Alice's mom? She, likes forbids her things.
  • argh. s/likes/like,/
  • Immlass, when I was a teenager conventional "wisdom" had it that girls who were "penetrated" only anally were still virgins, but boys who were weren't.
  • I live in Texas and will gladly have sex with anyone who asks. I'm Muffpub and I approved this message.
  • Bernockle: "I have no idea how I will prevent my kids from having sex (if and when I have kids, that is)." A Young Persons Guide to Chastity Belts
  • 23% sounds about right, at least for my school. For seniors it'd be closer to 30, 35%. We had the sexual disease slides and a scary Dr. Ruth like old lady. "This is what you'll look like if you don't wear condoms." *Slide of a oozing sores* "Enjoy your lunch." Then she laughed. Local nurse for all the little schools, and she runs a clinic here in town for std checkups/pregnancy stuff. We had to sign papers and stuff for that though. The one person who's parents didn't went to the library for the day. I don't know, I just teenagers can handle more than parents want to give them credit for. I know that of the people in my school at least, nobody choose abstinence.
  • I don't remember being a reasonless fucking machine as a teen A chance would have been a fine thing...
  • Outside of creating a 'Public Flogging Program for Wayward Teens' there's not much hope for abstinence-only classes. Hee hee, just flog them on general principles. Bratcat: I bored my kids to death with sex talks and drug info (oh, god, mom, not AGAIN!) and didn't bother to take them to church. My religious Mormon in-laws kept sex a dark and nasty secret and had their kids at the Stakehouse (church) all the time. Guess whose kids had unmarried sex, are PG and not married, are multiple divorced and take/took drugs? A couple of mine have/had their problems also, but on average, fewer of mine than their bunch, and much less severe. Just sayin' discourse helps. Surlyboi: nice catch, but you missed a couple-- MonkeyFilter: How deluded can you be? MonkeyFilter: Spay and neuter them from orbit, it's the only way to be sure. MonkeyFilter: Simply the lure of the forbidden
  • MonkeyFilter: BlueHorse was here.
  • js- I was Buzz Pruitt's R.A. when I was in grad school. He is an ethical and honest researcher, and would not manipulate data sets to prove a point. Although, I understand your skepticism. Also, though my own research in the subject matter is dated, I remember reading that about half of kids had sex by age 16.
  • Pruner: ack! I *always* get that wrong!
  • Solution to keeping kids from having sex? Get them hooked on Star Trek at a young age. They will be too busy learning Klingon or designing spaceships to be dating. (not that I speak from experience or anything)
  • The only way abstinence education can work is if blowjobs are allowed. immlass is spot on.
  • Uh... but blowjobs will still pass on STDs. The only thing you won't get is preggers.
  • Alnedra, but the point of abstinence education (to kids, anyway) isn't safety. It's "God loves virgins". Technical virginity is everything. So you do whatever you can get away with that leaves you technically a virgin: blowjobs, petting, anal, whatever. When I was a teenager, I had friends who kept their virginity by the strict definition but were certainly doing things the abstinence educators would frown on. I'm sure some of them were taking horrible risks with their health--I graduated from HS in 1985, when AIDS was still a river in Egypt for the straight population--but they were virgins, and that was the talismanic thing. Realistic evaluation of the risks of sexual activity wasn't on the cards. And I bet my friends were better educated than kids under the abstinence-only regime.
  • Oy vey. That's really, really sad, immlass. Keeping to the letter of the law, but not the spirit.
  • Kamikaze- I'm not saying that he's unethical. What I'm saying is that kids are liars. Having been a part of the UofM drug study when I was a moppet, I can tell you that though I wasn't shooting H in 6th grade, I thought it was hilarious to color in the bubble that said I was. The only way self-reported studies of kids get anywhere near the actual incidence count is by accident, since kids who have will say they haven't and kids that haven't will say they have.
  • Oy vey. That's really, really sad, immlass. Keeping to the letter of the law, but not the spirit. Personally, I wouldn't have seen anything sad about girls in my youth group allowing anal. AT ALL.
  • le sigh.
  • Hmm. So does this mean if a friend tells me s/he is "being celibate for a while" they're subtly asking me to pound them in the arse?
  • Maybe they should go all out and just make unmarried sex illegal?
  • We could make all of those who are unmarried and have sex wear a Scarlet "A".
  • So... as long as I'm not getting laid, can I apply for some kind of abstinence grant / subsidy?
  • You get a Scarlet "W".
  • What if I call it performance art? A conceptual piece, if you will. Any NEA funding that can come my way?
  • Q: What does abstinence mean? A: Abstinence means never having to say you're sore when you pee.
  • Isn't abstinence that cloudy green drink that makes you do blind?
  • Abstinenceter Jekyl Minovsky Q. Retzes!