IS THIS WHAT ABSTINENCE-ONLY EDUCATION LOOKS LIKE?: Simcha Fisher

at the National Catholic Register:

...I stumbled across this XOJane post, in which thoroughly secular people recount their experiences in school with abstinence-only education. Here's a typical story:

[G]irls were given two glasses of water and told to chew up food and spit it into one of them.

Their teacher -- a guest speaker from an anti-abortion "crisis pregnancy" group, then asked them which glass they'd rather drink. The lesson, in case you haven't guessed already, is that premarital sex makes you a gross glass of regurgitated food.

The readers recounted many variations on the "used food" theme: kids were supposed to lick a Hershey's Kiss and then invite someone else to lick it, too. Or kids were asked to take tape and stick it to their arms or the floor, and then pass it down the line. At the end of the activity, you look at the tape, or the candy, or the cup of water and think, "Ew, this is used. I don't want any."

Is this what a typical abstinence-only education is like? If so, I'm as horrified and disgusted as the XOJane commenters.

What's so bad about this kind of presentation? I'm going to answer as someone who remembers being a teenage girl (maybe men will have a different perspective, and can share it in the comment box).

Here are the problems: First, the message simply won't work for so many girls. What about the girls who have already had sex or "gone too far?" These demonstrations teach them that they are already ruined, worthless, revolting, useless. Many will despair, and throw themselves into promiscuity whole hog out of misery, or out of some desire to compensate themselves by at least getting some pleasure out of their "ruination."

And what about girls who are in love with their boyfriends, or think they are? They'll think, "Well, this is no problem for me and my boyfriend. I can give myself to him and it will be pure and beautiful because we'll be together forever <3 <3 <3" (and meanwhile, the boyfriend is thinking, "Score!").

more

Labels: abstinence, adolescence, culture, Marriage, premarital sex, sex, sex education

posted by Eve at 5:07 PM VOTE

MOST U.S. HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS HAVE NEVER HAD SEX: Carolyn Moynihan

at MercatorNet: Here is some important info from the US that we missed last week. A report from the federal health monitoring agency, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), brings the news that births to teenagers aged 15-19 are down by 44 per cent on 1990. The 2010 birth rate for that age group of 34.3 per 1000 females represents a 70-year low, and record lows for all racial/ethnic groups.

Actually, by itself a lower teenage birth-rate is an equivocal statistic. It could have been brought down by abortion. It could mean that hundreds of thousands of young women are on hormonal contraceptives that make them vulnerable to diseases and facilitate harmful relationships. It is a matter for ethical evaluation whether it is worse for an 18- or 19-year-old to have a baby than to be subject to these alternatives.

The good news is that the dramatic drop in pregnancies is related first and foremost to increased sexual abstinence among teens. Those reporting (in the National Survey of Family Growth) that they had never had sexual intercourse increased from 48.9 per cent in 1995 to 56.7 per cent in 2006-2010 - a 16 per cent change. Significantly, this increase was greater among 18- to 19-year-olds (from 28.9 per cent to 36.5 per cent, which = 26 per cent increase) than among 15- to 17-year olds (from 61.4 per cent to 72.9 per cent = 19 per cent).

That suggests at least three-quarters of high school teens have never had vaginal sex, and more than a third of those starting college. Well over half of the combined age-groups say they have never had sex. You can believe them or not, but there is no evidence to support a statement like, “Most American teens have had sex by the time they leave high school.” more

Labels: abstinence, adolescence, contraception, culture, premarital sex, race, virginity

posted by Eve at 10:28 PM VOTE

ABSTINENCE IS DEATH: Storied Theology

blogs:

In an interview with Christianity Today Christine Gardner talks about the language that Evangelicals use to talk about abstinence. Gardner’s book is entitled, Making Abstinence Sexy–a telling encapsulation of how Evangelical abstinence are striving to affirm the culture’s obsession with sex–and visions of abundant, great sex in particular–while giving it a distinctive, Christian veneer:

They are using the very thing they are prohibiting to admonish young people to wait. They are saying, “If you are abstinent now, you will have amazing sex when you are married.”

Holy non sequitur, Batman! Gardner thinks that Christianity has something to offer that has been largely missing from these abstinence campaigns:

Language of sacrifice and suffering can be transformative to those who know that sex sells everything from cars to deodorant and, now, abstinence.

I think she’s getting close. Abstaining from sex is suffering, dying to the desires of our bodies. In a world where people are regularly remaining single into their thirties and beyond, it’s death with no this-worldly promise of new life. Perhaps reframing abstinence as participation in the cross of Christ is better preparation for marriage than the promise of great sex on the other side.

more

Labels: abstinence, Christianity, culture, Marriage, premarital sex, religion, sex

posted by Eve at 6:08 PM VOTE

TEENAGE BIRTH RATE IS LOWEST SINCE 1946: NYT

health blog [Why no abortion stats whatsoever? I know teen pregnancy rates are also falling, but still. --E]:

Fewer teenagers gave birth in 2010 than in any other year since 1946, government researchers announced last week, and there is good evidence that today’s teenagers are initiating sex later and using birth control more consistently than previous generations did.

According to a report from the National Center for Health Statistics, birth rates among young women ages 15 to 19 fell in all but three states and in all racial, ethnic and age groups. From 2009 to 2010, the rate of teenage births fell by 9 percent, to 34.9 per thousand, the lowest rate ever reported in the 65 years for which data is available.

“I think the current generation of youth are perhaps more conscientious and cautious,” said Dr. John Santelli, a professor of clinical population and family health at Columbia University who was not involved in writing the report.

Data from surveys conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention back up Dr. Santelli’s assertion. Since 1991, the percentage of teenagers who have ever had sex has decreased by 15 percent, the number who have had sex with four or more partners has decreased by 26 percent, and the percentage using condoms has increased by 32 percent.

more

Labels: abstinence, contraception, culture, demographics, out-of-wedlock births, premarital sex, race, sex education, teenage pregnancy

posted by Eve at 4:49 PM VOTE

THE RHETORIC OF CHASTITY: Interview

in Christianity Today:

Evangelical abstinence campaigns have shifted their emphasis from "just say no" to sex before marriage to "just say yes"—within marriage, that is, says Christine Gardner. In Making Chastity Sexy (University of California Press), the Wheaton College communications professor examines the rhetoric of three evangelical abstinence organizations, comparing them with an abstinence campaign in sub-Saharan Africa, where HIV/AIDS is a common threat. Christianity Today online editor Sarah Pulliam Bailey spoke with Gardner about the larger ideas communicated to young people in the campaign.

What did you find upon examining the language of the U.S. abstinence movement?

This is a study of rhetoric in the classical sense—the study of the art of persuasion, focusing on three very specific church-related evangelical campaigns. These groups are using a savvy rhetorical strategy: They are using sex to sell abstinence. They are using the very thing they are prohibiting to admonish young people to wait. They are saying, "If you are abstinent now, you will have amazing sex when you are married." The argument then becomes a promise of marriage.

What are the limitations of this approach?

Such campaigns don't address the challenges of singleness. Also, what if you are gay? What if you do get married, but sex isn't all it's cracked up to be? There are many challenges with this kind of strategy, as savvy and persuasive as it is.

Evangelicals are quite good at interacting with secular culture. We have a long history of adapting secular forms for religious ends. The language of self-gratification in "sexy abstinence" is showing the ability of evangelicals to speak the language of the culture. But in doing so, are we actually transforming it?

You looked at how Africans view abstinence, saying they "saw their bodies as temples of the Lord and themselves as caretakers … a more deeply theological response."

I assumed that HIV/AIDS would be the big motivator for [African] young people to commit to abstinence. It is big, but I found this other undercurrent that was deeply theological. A leader of one of the programs told me that yes, they do talk about AIDS as a motivator for young people to commit to abstinence, but they noted that "you can get malaria and die, too." AIDS is not as much of a motivator as a Western researcher coming in would have assumed.

How do the American and African messages compare?

Americans have turned a prohibition into a more positive admonition. In this case, pleasing God is an end in itself. Pleasing God will have tangible benefits. In Kenya and Rwanda, it was more of a combination: "Avoid death. Avoid HIV/AIDS, and do it out of fear of God, because he wants you to do this."

Also, in the places I visited in Africa, the condom is viewed as a medical device, a tool for saving lives. It is not viewed as a tool for promiscuity, as evangelicals in this country largely view it. The same little piece of latex is described so radically differently by evangelicals in two different cultural contexts.

How does Western rhetoric translate to the African context?

It offers an understanding of self and empowers young people, especially women, to respect their bodies. This is, of course, fabulous and indeed, very biblical. But the language of individualism and self-gratification can seep in and pose a problem.

more

Labels: abstinence, Africa, Christianity, culture, Marriage, premarital sex, religion, sex education, STDs

posted by Eve at 10:35 PM VOTE

WISC. SENATORS PASS CONTROVERSIAL BILL PUSHING ABSTINENCE OVER CONTRACEPTION IN SEX ED: Fox News

reports:

Wisconsin school teachers would have to promote abstinence and marriage over contraception in sex education classes, under a controversial bill passed by the state Senate on Wednesday night.

The Republican-backed legislation was passed 17-15 on party lines and will now head to the GOP-dominated state Assembly -- possibly as early as Thursday, the Wisconsin State Journal reported.

Democrats slammed the bill during floor debate, saying it would not give children the information needed to make responsible choices.

A state law was passed last year by Democrats, requiring schools that offer sex education to include information on contraception methods. ...

"We are trying to back away from the bill passed last year that we feel mandated sex ed that was too nonjudgmental, too explicit and at too young an age," said Republican state Sen. Glenn Grothman.

more

Labels: abstinence, culture, schools, sex education, Wisconsin

posted by Eve at 2:57 PM VOTE

WOMEN WHO LOST VIRGINITY EARLY MORE LIKELY TO DIVORCE: NEW STUDY: Huffington Post

reports:

There might be a new argument to try when convincing your teen to wait to have sex. According to the a study conducted by the University of Iowa, women who lost their virginity in their young teens are more likely to divorce.

The study, published in the Journal of Marriage and Family, surveyed the responses of 3,793 women and found that 31 percent who lost their virginity as teens divorced within five years, and 47 percent divorced within 10 years. On the flip side, the divorce rate for women who had waited to have sex was only 15 percent at the five year mark, and 27 percent by the time 10 years rolled around.

But the study also found that a first sexual experience before the age of 16 -- wanted or not -- was still strongly associated with divorce.

Of course early sexual experiences can have lasting effects on relationships later in life. So it's not surprising that with 42 percent of participants claiming their first sexual experience before the age of 18 wasn't completely wanted, that it could affect them in their adult life.

more

Labels: abstinence, adolescence, culture, divorce, girls, Marriage, premarital sex, sex, sexual assault, virginity, women

posted by Eve at 5:17 PM VOTE

Semengate Strikes the American Council of Surgeons: A pseudonymous blogger at Slashdot

reposts:

"Lazar Greenfield, M.D. is no ordinary surgeon. Until last week, he was the president-elect of the American College of Surgeons, and was also the lead editor of the Surgery News. In the February issue, he penned some thoughts on Valentine's Day under the heading of 'Gut Feelings.' Greenfield proceeded to then discuss the mating habits of fruit flies, and the rotifer. In each case, Dr. Greenfield made sure to reference to the scientific literature. Then he turned his attention to humans. Dr. Greenfield noted the therapeutic effects of semen, citing research from the Archives of Sexual Behavior which found that female college students practicing unprotected sex were less likely to suffer from depression than those whose partners used condoms (as well as those who remained abstinent). His comments apparently didn't sit well in certain quarters. Dr. Greenfield was forced to resign as editor of the Surgery News and gave up his stewardship of ACS after learning that his article had spurred threats of protests from outside women's groups."

link

Labels: abstinence, culture, heterosexual couples, men, mental health, professional associations, sex, universities, women

posted by Imapp Staff at 10:23 PM VOTE

WEDDING OF GARETH WARREN AND LINDSAY MARSH: Washington Post

"On Love" feature:

...Over the next few months he occasionally picked up the book, reading a chapter at a time. Author Lindsay Marsh describes her Shaker Heights, Ohio, upbringing in a home where virginity was valued but not explicitly discussed. During high school her sexual interactions with a boyfriend were quickly escalating when she found out he was sleeping with another girl. Dejected, she turned to her faith for solace. In the years that followed, Marsh's virginity became increasingly important to her, eventually inspiring her to write the book and launch an organization, Worth the Wait Revolution, which encourages others to reserve sex for marriage.
ad_icon

The book "guided me in the right direction," says Warren, who stopped listening to music with hyper-sexualized lyrics and cut ties with a woman whose values didn't match up with what he now believed.

In early February 2009, days after attending a church ceremony with his godson's family, the woman who gave him the book asked if he'd be interested in being set up with a young lady who'd been seated in the row behind them. Her name was Lindsay Marsh.

more

Labels: abstinence, Christianity, culture, dating, Marriage, premarital sex, religion

posted by Eve at 3:19 PM VOTE

SHOUTING THE BLUES: Eve

I reviewed Red Families vs. Blue Families in the Weekly Standard. Please pretend I did not mess up the "rich man goes to Heaven/camel goes through needle's eye" thing at the end! I have actually read the Bible.

In 1998, Fugees frontwoman and single mother Lauryn Hill scored a hit with her hip-hop ode to her son Zion, in which she described how the people around her had pressured her to abort him: “They said, ‘Lauryn baby, use your head’ / But instead I chose to use my heart. / Now the joy of my world is in Zion!”

Hill’s voice won’t be found in Naomi Cahn’s and June Carbone’s deeply flawed, intermittently important book. In fact, Red Families v. Blue Families contains virtually no voices representing alternatives to the elite lifestyle of contraception, college (and probably postgraduate) education, and late childbearing. The book is replete with numbers, but because it incorporates very little qualitative research—in which the voices behind the numbers might get a chance to explain themselves—it’s impossible to gauge the accuracy of Cahn/Carbone’s analyses of the reasons behind the American class-based marriage gap.

Judging by my admittedly limited experience, Red Families offers a sanitized picture of elite family life—ignoring the degree to which shame, and abortion in response to shame, shapes elite young women’s choices—and a distorted picture of underclass and lower middle-class family life, explaining class-based differences in out-of-wedlock childbearing and pregnancy as a result of lack of access to contraception, which is one of the very few explanations I think I’ve literally never heard from any lower-income woman.

Although Cahn/Carbone clearly want to offer solutions to the multiple and conflicting crises in American family structures, solutions which respect and can be accommodated by a wide variety of different communities and world views, they are ultimately unable to articulate or understand any alternative to what they’ve (somewhat crudely) decided to call the blue family model. ...

In their final and best chapter, Cahn/Carbone also offer a passionate call for a radical restructuring in how our economy accommodates parents and parents-to-be. The unionized factory jobs which stereotypically supported a breadwinner-homemaker family, where the spouses married right after high school, have been replaced by service- and-information-economy jobs which require highly specialized education and licensing: fields like cosmetology and medical-information processing. This volatile economy requires a much more flexible structure in which work, family, and education can interweave.

more

Labels: abortion, abstinence, contraception, culture, divorce, economics, Eve Tushnet, June Carbone, Marriage, Naomi Cahn, out-of-wedlock births, Red Families v. Blue Families

posted by Eve at 4:56 PM VOTE

"Sex Positive" Young Women Reconsider Abstinence: Jessica Grose

at Slate:

...Chen doesn't apologize for her old blog, but she acknowledges that the early posts "reflected a painful desire to be liked" and that she's lost a lot because of it. Her experience echoes that of other female bloggers who have written about their intimate lives. Emily Gould also does not apologize for her former antics in her new book, And the Heart Says Whatever. In a New York Times Magazine article, she wrote about the panic attacks she experienced as a result of the public vitriol she received after an unfortunate appearance on Larry King Live. Chen admits that she didn't understand the potential repercussions when she started blogging.

Now, Chen seems dedicated to making sure no one else goes through what she had to endure. In theory, the Rethinking Virginity conference was supposed to create a utopian space in which no one is judged for any kind of sexual behavior—whether it be Jesse James' mistress Michelle "Bombshell" McGee or someone who chooses to be abstinent. But the conference-goers didn't exhibit much tolerance for unusual or hedonistic behavior. I asked the panel called "The Feminist Response to Slut-Shaming & Sexual Scare Tactics" what they thought of adults having nonmonogamous unprotected sex, and the response was uniformly, well, shaming. "They're doing something damaging, and careless, and it's not a choice I personally approve of," said one panelist.

The final panel of the day, moderated by Chen, was called "Toward a Sex Positive Vision of Abstinence." The panelists all concurred that abstinence should be taught to high schoolers as part of an arsenal of ways to prevent pregnancy and STDs. The only real debate seemed to be about whether the government should continue to push the abstinence message past high school and make sure that adults knew it was an option as well, by, for example, mandating that abstinence be discussed as part of comprehensive sex education programs in colleges across the country.

While the one middle-aged sex educator on the panel seemed horrified by that idea ("I wouldn't presume to teach abstinence to adults," she said), Chen was intrigued. "What if an 18-year-old virgin needs to learn how to talk to his partner about how he's never had sex before?" Chen inquired. It was striking to hear young adults call for a government-mandated safe area to save a hypothetical virgin from the risks—and the joys—of youthful trial and error. That abstinence was even being considered as a solution to the young adult sexual minefield is a surprisingly conservative shift.

more

Labels: abstinence, culture, feminism, hooking up, premarital sex, sex, sex education, virginity

posted by Imapp Staff at 2:50 PM VOTE

CAN LADY GAGA MAKE CHASTITY COOL?: Elizabeth Tenety

in the Washington Post:

What the religious right has tried to achieve for years one pop goddess achieved this week in a single interview: Lady Gaga made chastity cool.

With her racy lyrics and penchant for going pantless, Lady Gaga seems an unlikely spokeswoman for abstinence. But she recently revealed to London's Daily Mail that she is celibate and thinks it's "not really cool anymore to have sex all the time."

And not only did Gaga say she is celibate, but she's encouraging her fans, whom she calls "little monsters," to abstain, too. "I can't believe I'm saying this -- don't have sex." . . . "It's OK to be whomever it is that you want to be," she said. "You don't have to have sex to feel good about yourself, and if you're not ready, don't do it. (And if you are ready," she adds, "there are free condoms given away at my concerts when you're leaving!)"

Abstinence is often associated with Catholic clergy members and religiously-inspired sex-education programming like True Love Waits. Although in the Daily Mail interview Lady Gaga did not make an explicit connection between her spirituality and her sexuality, she reportedly had a "strict Catholic upbringing" and prays before every performance.

more

Labels: abstinence, culture, Marriage, religion

posted by Eve at 3:29 PM VOTE

US BIRTH RATE DROPS 2 PERCENT IN 2008: Washington Post

reports:

After rising to its highest point in two decades, the rate at which women in the United States gave birth declined in 2008 as the economy deteriorated, according to government statistics released Tuesday.

The nation's overall birth rate fell 2 percent from 2007 to 2008, when about 4.2 million babies were born. The dip pushed the fertility rate below 2.1 per woman, meaning Americans were no longer giving birth to enough children to keep the population from declining.

There were 41.5 births per 1,000 teens ages 15 to 19 in 2008, a 2 percent drop from the previous year. After a two-year increase in teen births prompted concern that one of the nation's most successful social and public health efforts was faltering, 2008 marked the return of a decline in which the rate fell 34 percent over many years. ...

The notion of a link between the drop in births and the economy was supported by an analysis of data from 25 states, including Maryland and Virginia, that was released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center to coincide with the new government report.

more

Labels: abstinence, culture, demographics, sex education, teenage pregnancy

posted by Eve at 1:15 PM VOTE

The Truth About Abstinence: Mary S. McLellan

in the South Carolina State:

For all the hand wringing over teens having sex, becoming parents, contracting diseases and other undesirable consequences, the polarization surrounding the sex education debate challenges the sincerity of our collective concern. Most adults would agree that teens are ill-prepared to bear the negative outcomes of early sexual activity. However, ideological and political zealotry has blinded reasonable discussion regarding effective approaches and has, instead, spawned an aggressive effort to disparage and defund abstinence education. These well-orchestrated attacks of misinformation and exaggeration by sexual extremist groups demonstrate a willful disregard about the facts.

A study published in the February Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine showed that when an abstinence-centered education program and contraceptive-based program both were evaluated, only the abstinence program succeeded. The study showed that abstinence education for a high-risk, African-American population of sixth- and seventh-graders reduced the incidence of sexual initiation and the number of sexual partners (an important predictor in acquiring a sexually transmitted disease) and did not deter the use of condoms (a charge commonly touted by anti-abstinence critics). Students were significantly less likely to initiate sex with the abstinence-centered approach than any other sex education strategy.

A peer-reviewed article published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reports that a year after receiving a program developed in South Carolina, Heritage Keepers Abstinence Education, S.C. students initiated sex at a rate half that of similar non-program students across age, race and gender. A Mathematica Policy Report reveals that five years after their core abstinence education program, 72 percent of 16-year-old participants reported never having had sex, compared with 48 percent of 16-year-olds statewide. Even more of the students, 84 percent, reported abstaining the year prior to the survey, implicating a recommitment to abstinence. Heritage Keepers also was found to not decrease condom use among sexually active youth.

Good news, yes? Not for everyone.

more

Labels: abstinence, adolescence, contraception, culture, out-of-wedlock births, premarital sex, sex, sex education, teenage pregnancy

posted by Imapp Staff at 6:37 PM VOTE

$250 MILLION FOR ABSTINENCE EDUCATION NOT EVIDENCE-BASED, GROUPS SAY: CNN

reports:

The health care reform legislation that President Obama signed recently isn't only about insurance coverage -- there's also a renewal of $50 million per year for five years for abstinence-focused education.

Programs that receive this funding must "teach that abstinence from sexual activity is the only certain way to avoid out-of-wedlock pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and other associated health problems," according to the Department of Health and Human Services. To qualify, they must also teach that sex before marriage is "likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects." These are part of the "A-H definition," requirements for programs to receive abstinence funding under Title V of the Social Security Act. ...

Medical professional organizations also criticize abstinence education on ethical grounds, for leaving out potentially lifesaving information. Abstinence-only programs "are inherently coercive by withholding information needed to make informed choices," the American Public Health Association said in a statement.

Phelps' program doesn't teach that sex before marriage is wrong, but that waiting will enable teens to eliminate the risks of sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy. Students are taught that contraception, a "limited part of our conversation," reduces risk, but does not avoid it altogether, he said.

The law sets up a separate funding stream of $75 million for "personal responsibility education," which includes teaching about both abstinence and contraception. It sets aside an additional $25 million for untested but innovative programs. ...

A study published in February in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine found that an abstinence-based program was more effective than other initiatives at keeping sixth- and seventh-graders from having sex within a two-year period.

Rather than asking students to delay intercourse until marriage, however, the program told students to wait until they were ready. It also did not portray sex in a negative light.

For these reasons, it is unclear whether that program would qualify for funding from the $50 million allocated in the health care bill, because it does not fit the A-H definition, said Bill Albert of the nonpartisan National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. Boonstra agreed that it would likely not fit this category, as it differs from the programs that have received funding in the past. Huber said she thought it would qualify, although she has not seen the curriculum.

more

Labels: abstinence, adolescence, contraception, Marriage, out-of-wedlock births, premarital sex, sex, sex education

posted by Eve at 9:10 PM VOTE

OLD IS THE NEW YOUNG: William Higham

in AdWeek:

Planners, account directors and researchers are typically busy people. Under a barrage of internal and client demands, it's hard for us not to fall into shorthand approaches sometimes. For instance, when targeting different age groups. But it's time for a wake-up call. Standard age-related targeting can't be relied on any more, thanks to a new social trend: flip-flop generations. Many adolescents today are acting in ways we might expect middle-age Americans to do, while older consumers are maintaining their "adolescent" interests, outlooks and behaviors into middle age. ...

Teenagers are also proving more cautious in their purchase patterns. They are no longer the unanimously excitable "early adopters" of youth marketing studies. In a global Microsoft survey last year called "Young Adults Revealed," just 10 percent of teens said they "like to be ahead of everybody else and try to buy the latest technology as soon as it becomes available," whereas 40 percent "like to wait and see what other people make of new technology before I buy it." As for their values, there is a growing emphasis on morality and family. Three-quarters of those in the Microsoft survey identified family as the most important thing in their lives -- a far cry from the generation gap of the 1960s and '70s. In the BBDO poll more than half list "living by high moral standards" as their top life expectation, almost half believe it best to remain a virgin as long as possible, and 83 percent expect to get married.

more

Labels: abstinence, adolescence, consumerism, culture, Marriage

posted by Eve at 6:47 PM VOTE

HIGH DIVORCE RATES AND TEEN PREGNANCY ARE HIGHER IN CONSERVATIVE STATES THAN LIBERAL ONES: Naomi Cahn and June Carbone

in the Christian Science Monitor:

...We could have predicted these results. The US family system, which once differed little by class or region, has become a marker of race, culture, and religion. A new “blue” family paradigm has handsomely rewarded those who invest in women’s as well as men’s education and defer childbearing until the couple is better established. These families, concentrated in urban areas and the coasts, have seen their divorce rates fall back to the level of the 1960s, incomes rise, and nonmarital births remain rare. With later marriage has also come greater stability and less divorce. ...

These factors reflect class and cultural differences, but all of our research suggests that the great recession is likely to make things worse. The hallmark of what we have termed the blue family paradigm is training for autonomy.

With a more extended transition to adulthood, better educated youth also need greater flexibility – to navigate their developing sexuality; to switch jobs, cities, and specialties; and to renegotiate family and career responsibilities. In hard times, dual careers provide a cushion, and flexibility about gender and work roles makes it easier to trade off child care and employment.

Hard times, however, also increase calls for a return to more fixed and traditional values. The fact that traditional families are flailing often persuades them that a return to traditional values is that much more critical. In today’s world, however, almost all of the traditional nostrums have proved counterproductive.

Missing from this debate is recognition of the bankruptcy of traditionalist family values as policy for the postindustrial era. We are entirely sympathetic with those inclined to lock up their daughters from puberty until marriage, but we do recognize that the societies abroad most insistent on policing women’s virtue are locked into cycles of poverty. ...

The solution? As we outline in great detail in our book “Red Families v. Blue Families,” there are three critical steps we can take: (1) promote access to contraception – within marriage as well as outside it; (2) develop a greater ability to combine not only work and family, but family and education; and (3) make sure the next generation stays in school, learns the skills to be employed, and cultivates values that can adapt to the future.

more

Labels: abortion, abstinence, conservatism, contraception, culture, divorce, economics, liberalism, Marriage, poverty

posted by Eve at 2:30 PM VOTE

QUICK RESPONSE TO STUDY OF ABSTINENCE EDUCATION: NY Times

reports:

...In Dr. Jemmott’s research, only about a third of the students who participated in a weekend abstinence-only class started having sex within the next 24 months, compared with about half who were randomly assigned instead to general health information classes, or classes teaching only safer sex. Among those assigned to comprehensive sex-education classes, covering both abstinence and safer sex, about 42 percent began having sex.

Dr. Jemmott’s research followed 662 African-American students at urban middle schools, who were paid $20 a session to attend the classes, plus follow-up and evaluation sessions. The abstinence-only classes covered HIV, abstinence and ways to resist the pressure to have sex.

“Because African-Americans tend to have a higher rate of early sexual initiation than others, we thought that within two years, a reasonable number would start having sex,” Dr. Jemmott said. “If we went younger, we couldn’t show that intervention works.”

The research, published in the Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine, appears just as the Obama administration is eliminating federal financing for abstinence-only programs, and starting a pregnancy-prevention initiative that will finance programs that have been shown in scientific studies to be effective. ...

Ms. Brown noted that the abstinence-only classes in the Jemmott study centered on people with an average age of 12 and that unlike the federally supported abstinence programs now in use, did not advocate abstinence until marriage.

The classes also did not portray sex negatively or suggest that condoms are ineffective, and contained only medically accurate information. Dr. Jemmott’s abstinence-only course was designed for the research, and is not in current use in schools.

more

Labels: abstinence, culture, sex

posted by Eve at 9:01 AM VOTE

SEX ED IN WASHINGTON: Ross Douthat

in the NY Times:

Liberals hated almost everything about George W. Bush’s presidency, but they harbored a particular animus toward a minor domestic policy priority: abstinence-based sex education. The abstinence effort accounted for about a hundred million dollars in a trillion-dollar budget, but in the eyes of many critics it was Bushism at its worst — contemptuous of experts, careless about public health and captive to religious conservatism.

So last week’s news that teenage birthrates inched upward late in the Bush era, after 15 years of steady decline, was greeted with a grim sort of satisfaction. Bloggers pounced; activists claimed vindication. On CBS News, Katie Couric used the occasion to lecture viewers about the perils of telling kids only about abstinence, and ignoring contraception. The new numbers, declared the president of Planned Parenthood, make it “crystal clear that abstinence-only sex education for teenagers does not work.”

In reality, the numbers show no such thing. Abstinence financing increased under Bush, but the federal government has been funneling money to pro-chastity initiatives since early in Bill Clinton’s presidency. If you blame abstinence programs for a year’s worth of bad news, you’d also have to give them credit for more than a decade’s worth of progress.

More likely, neither blame nor credit is appropriate. The evidence suggests that many abstinence-only programs have little impact on teenage sexual behavior, just as their critics long insisted. But most sex education programs of any kind have an ambiguous effect, at best, on whether and how teens have sex. The abstinence-based courses that social conservatives champion produce unimpressive results — but so do the contraceptive-oriented programs that liberals tend to favor. ...

None of this renders the abstinence-versus-contraception debate pointless. But we should understand it more as a battle over community values than as an argument about public policy. Luker describes it, aptly, as a conflict between the “naturalist” and “sacralist” approaches to sex — between parents in Berkeley, say, who don’t want their kids being taught that premarital intercourse is something to feel ashamed about and parents in Alabama who don’t want their kids being lectured about the health benefits of masturbation.

more

Labels: abstinence, culture, premarital sex, sex

posted by Eve at 12:07 AM VOTE

ABSTINENCE-ONLY PROGRAMS MIGHT WORK, STUDY SAYS: Washington Post

reports:

Sex education classes that focus on encouraging children to remain abstinent can persuade a significant proportion to delay sexual activity, researchers reported Monday in a landmark study that could have major implications for U.S. efforts to protect young people against unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases.

Only about a third of sixth- and seventh-graders who completed an abstinence-focused program started having sex within the next two years, researchers found. Nearly half of the students who attended other classes, including ones that combined information about abstinence and contraception, became sexually active.

The findings are the first clear evidence that an abstinence program could work.

"I think we've written off abstinence-only education without looking closely at the nature of the evidence," said John B. Jemmott III, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania who led the federally funded study. "Our study shows this could be one approach that could be used."

The research, published in the Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine, comes amid intense debate over how to reduce sexual activity, pregnancies, births and sexually transmitted diseases among children and teenagers. After falling for more than a decade, the numbers of births, pregnancies and STDs among U.S. teens have begun increasing.

The Obama administration eliminated more than $170 million in annual federal funding targeted at abstinence programs after a series of reports concluded that the approach was ineffective. Instead, the White House is launching a $114 million pregnancy prevention initiative that will fund only programs that have been shown scientifically to work -- a program the administration on Monday proposed expanding to $183 million.

more--and there's quite a bit of interest in the rest of the piece

Labels: abstinence, premarital sex

posted by Eve at 12:03 AM VOTE