teaching abstinence vs. sex ed - a poll

In My Humble Opinion
21

This is the silliest argument I’ve ever heard. Firstly, who’s to say that abstinence is unnatural? If you use the argument that animals (apart from humans) have lots and lots of sex and humanity is the only sort of animal that doesn’t, and therefore we are denying our natural drives by having abstinence, what about language? No other animal has language (real language, not squeaks of dolphins, guys), so that might be considered unnatural. So, should we not teach language because it is unnatural? I think not. Or, you could say that abstinence is unnatural for humanity as well. But, who’s to say that? What is natural for a goldfish might not be natural for a flying squirrel. Why should humanity have the same standards as other animals? Perhaps abstinence is more natural for humans, simply because you can look at the facts that more humans than any other species are abstinant (no cite, but I think it’s right). Secondly, why is what is natural automatically right? The animal world can be very destructive. Species eat their young. Female insects regularly eat the male after copulation. The beehive system of government (if you can call it that) is totalitarian. Animals are regularly violent, unclean, and stupid. They are more natural, but they are certainly not better.

On to the main question of the thread. No matter how many good intentions folks have for teaching only abstinence in sex-ed programs, you are sticking your head in the ground if you think that teaching abstinence will make everyone abstinent. The pragmatist knows that no matter how many times abstinence is hammered into some teenager’s head, when push comes to shove, they oftentimes will choose the path of pleasure rather than the path of self-restraint. I say teach them both about abstinence and about other forms of protection. People want options, anyway. However, I draw the line at teaching “pleasure enhancement.” I don’t want my tax dollers wasted on educating that pimply guy who works at the Dairy Queen how to make his woman moan louder. :rolleyes:

I’m a 20 year old abstinent male. Don’t believe anyone who says they can’t help but have sex. They are either lying or have incredibly low restraint.

22

[slight hijack]

As somebody who went through school in Europe (and who has a son who is not in school yet), I always find this topic puzzeling. Everybody here seems to agree that teaching contraception and abstinence makes sense. I would agree.

However, some opinions based on my background

(1) Sex-Ed classes: I had “Biology”. 2-3 hours every year, from 3rd to last grade. Covered everything from flowers to (in the last years) genetics. I heard first about where children come from in 4th grade (~10 years old)- the whole speel. In Biology class. As facts. Nothing about whether sex is fun or not, when you start, etc. Just the facts of life. I am not saying that this is better than talking to your parents (boy, were they puzzled by my questions…), but I always thought that that’s a good start

(2) Given (1), when you know the facts, nobody ever needed to teach us that abstinence was the only way…WE KNEW BECAUSE WE KNEW THE FACTS. Sorry for the yell. I just don’t get how some 18 year old men and women know about condoms, oral sex, and the best way to please the other gender, but not about ovaries, the menstrual cycle, testicles, etc.

(3) We learned about all matters of contraception sometime later in school, don’t remember exactly when. And we could relate how things worked (or prevented something from working), again, because we knew the facts. Oh, and most of us were sexually active when we were 16-17 (with the usual standard deviation around that). But again, no teacher who I remember ever gave an opinion that sex with 16 is good or bad. Somehow we knew that getting pregnant/getting a girl pregnant in school was not a good idea, so we better be careful. And a lot of the girls got that pretty quickly, believe you me.

(4) When I see programs about sex-ed on TV (or read about them in teh paper), I see kids putting condoms on bananas. Kids taking field trips to buy condoms. Now that’s not what I want to see in school. I want schools to teach facts. How things work. No reason to spend school time for a trip to buy condom, or to put a condom on a banana. Not sure whether these programs are representative for what’s going on in sex-ed, and the nature of the local school boards makes it pretty hard to generalize.

Overall, I think that (a) sex-ed should be required, (b) it should start with the basic Biology, and that © it should neither encourage nor discourage sex. I don’t get how that can be so hard. Or is it because our schools ignore basic science and favor sports, astronomy, and car repairs over math, bio, and chemistry?
[/end hijack]

23

Actually, I wasn’t be facetious.
Abstinence never hurt anyone.
No one needs to have sex to live.
I have been abstinant for 10 years now and its great.
That is, if you mean abstinent means no sex til marriage, celibate means no marriage ever.

I think.
Correct me if my definitions are wrong.
Self control is part of growing up.
If someone cannot control themselves from having sex, they are immature.
A couple (20’s) in our church has been engaged for 6 months. They will marry next feb. They are staying absitnent. They are happy.

BTW, by abstinence, i mean no sex with another, not masturbation, that would be a difficult thing for some to never do.
Me, its about 3 times a year.
YMMV.

Condoms should be emphasized much more!

24

If abstinence is “bad” for kids then by all means let’s lock 'em up in bedrooms together as soon as they’re able to get it up.

Wouldn’t want them to be damaged or anything, right?

25

Back in college, there was a bit of grafitti: “Abstinence is the most unnatural of all the sexual perversions.” :wink:

There’s nothing wrong with teaching abstinence as part of sexual education. There are plenty of good reasons not to rush into any sexual relationship, and they don’t all have to do with STDs or pregnancy.

But only a fool would say that teaching abstinence would substitute for good sexual information. After all, abstinence was the only type of sexual education that was allowed for most of the 20th century (at least until the 1960s). Everyone was told to wait until marriage. Yet there were still unwanted pregnancies, abortions (probably at the same rate there are abortions today), STDs, etc. Abstinance education did not work. People merely turned a blind eye to the problem.

So to go back to this as the solution is to use a solution that was proven to have failed in the past, and there’s no reason to believe human nature has changed all that much since then. And with the change in attitudes toward sex, it’s pretty damn naive to think it would suddenly solve the problems of teenage sex.

26

Heh. And how do you propose we perpetuate the species?

27

Article which I will admit comes from a potentially biased source but I don’t have anything indicating that the information within it is incorrect.

I have, on more than one occasion, and I’m none the worse for wear for ir. “It’s all OK if you use a condom” is not sex ed. Anyone claiming that it is, is wrong.

Isn’t it the job of, say, the school nurse to protect the health of the students by having condoms available to those who want them? Out of curiosity, what if your child for whatever reason (embarrassed, didn’t want to disappoint you, whatever) didn’t come to you for condoms? Would you rather that your child be responsible for an unplanned pregancy or get an STD or would you rather that someone other than you give the kid a rubber?

28

Cloning.

Ha.

29

I knew someone would make that comment.
Thanks Caira!

We would prepetuate the species by getting married and having children, those who wished too of course.

Otto, I have not only had sex with an AIDS patient (my former husband) but without a condom.
(also no worse for the wear but No One should EVER do this)

30

A gentle reminder:
This is a poll, not a debate. Unless you change your opinion, stating it once should be enough.

31

Teaching abstenance is good. Promoting abstenance is great.

But teaching abstenance to the exclusion of everything else is nothing but a glorified way of sticking your fingers in your ears and singing “la la la la la”, in a desperate hope that pretending that teenagers don’t have sex will actually make them stop. Learning by omission isn’t.

32

I have no problem with abstinence. I think it’s a good thing to tell kids that failing to lose your virginity before you graduate from high school will not sentence you to a life of living in your mother’s basement. I think, though, that it’s silly to say there’s a single thing anyone can do to keep kids from having sex. Trust me, I was a teenager and there are ways. So arm them with all the info you can on birth control, STD’s, etc. Maybe not sexual pleasure - I think all teens should have to figure that out on their own. That’s half the fun! :slight_smile:

33

Abstinence should be covered as one chapter in the course of many, many other chapters. I am of the mind that people should not only be taught what they have, how it gets used, how it leads to pregnancy and how it can make you sick - they should be truly given as well-rounded a view as possible. Sex is not just about pregnancy and disease, but these are the heftiest chapters of most sex education books. I think it would be a good thing to, over the course of time, teach how it can be done - possibilities, techniques. Not that anyone has to follow suit, but at least they’ll know what’s out there, and can make more informed decisions beyond birth and disease control.

34

I think it would be a good thing to, over the course of time, teach how it can be done - possibilities, techniques.

I disagree. One, people have never had trouble figuring out what to do in the bedroom; if that were the case we wouldn’t be here. Two, I don’t think it’s a school’s place to teach kids actual sexual positions. Stick to the facts, let 'em get creative on their own.

35

I’d teach sex ed a couple of ways. I’d teach biology. I’d teach abstinence and contraception (using biology as the basis to teach both). Abstinence is great, but a few adults telling a teenager not to have sex is generally not adequate for stopping the raging hormones and the other messages they are getting from friends, the media, etc. (Now, a whole lifestyle around abstinence with a support system seems to work better, but that isn’t what WE can dictate to OTHER peoples kids).

Then I’d also teach lifeskills - and I’d have an agenda in lifeskills. My agenda would be to teach people how HARD it is to raise kids, how they - even when you are an adult - are a huge responsibility that keeps you from doing what you want when you want. (Like the eggs or the key babies). To teach them that - in many cases - children drive a wedge between a couple - or at very least CHANGE the relationship (even my soul mate hubby and I spend less time together post children - we still are good, but we are both closer and not as close). And to teach people that delaying children will likely result in more financial stability - and while money doesn’t buy happiness, it sure doesn’t hurt.

36

I favour a rounded sex education program, which should inform people about both the positive and negative aspects of sex. Abstinence is a perfectly valid personal choice, there is nothing wrong with it, but I for one don’t see how its somehow morally superior to consensual sexual activity.

Simply teaching abstinence is likely to backfire. Many young people will simply ignore it.

37

If you’re teaching abstinence only, why bother with a course on sex ed at all? What is there about abstinence that can’t be taught in a couple of hours at a school assembly? Bring in a couple of speakers, scream “Don’t do it!” at the kids for a while, and you’re done!

Abstinence-only isn’t sex education. It’s a way of preventing sex education. It’s a perpetuation of ignorance.

38

I’m in the camp of favouring a well-rounded sexual education program. Back in my day, the 1980s, my experience in sex ed classes was one that I thought did pretty well as an educational class. It focused on the girls (this was a one month component of a segregated phys ed class) as “sexual beings” if you will, and covered things others have discussed such as choices in whether to have sex or not (including abstinence), and birth control methods if you chose to have sex (pitfalls/positives of each method). It was not limited to this, though; the class also discussed different childbirth methods, etc. I suppose you could say it took a long-range view to sex ed, that is, the basics to help a person make better decisions in life. Sadly, I don’t think the grade 9 boys got a similar program.

39

I support including abstinence as part of sex educatio but think that it is best to assume that many of these kids are going to be having sex at some point in the near future and therefore need to know the facts about birth control and the way things work. The problem is that for many, their high school health class is the only place that they can or will find out about safer sex and contraception. There aren’t easy ways to find this out in college or the ‘real’ world unless you make an effort.

As part of sex ed, I would definately include a segment about learning how to say no to sex if you don’t feel comfortable having it and how to firmly make sure your partner is using condoms and/or birth control. That seems to be a big problem with kids these days as they may know the facts but wind up having sex unsafely because of pressure from their partner. The old “can’t get it up with a condom conundrum”. I would also like a part of the curriculum to be devoted to other ways to experience pleasure without penetration including mutual masterbation etc but know there is no way in hell that will be happening any time soon.

As someone who is not so far away from those pressured teenaged days when life was consumed with decisions about sex, I think that abstinence only education is just stupid. I agree that many people can be celibate quite happily and good for them! But how many teenagers are going to wait until possibly their middle twenties to have sex when their hormones are raging out of control and when our culture gives the message that you must have sex to be normal.

40

I know the OP was asking parents their opinions. I’m not a parent, but I’m responding anyway. Just strike my comments from the poll results. :slight_smile:

My general philosophy is that knowing stuff is never bad. To that end, I’m in favor of teaching kids about the basic biology of sex, about contraception, disease, abstinence, and how best to abstain if they choose to do so.

One thing that peeves me is that say abstinence has a 100% success rate at preventing pregnancy and disease, and use that to argue that it’s better to teach abstinence than condom use, etc.

But abstinence’s success rate is only due to semantics: if you have sex, by definition you weren’t abstinent. What would be much more relevant is the success rate of the intention to remain abstinent. I speculate that it’s not so good amongst hormone-addled teenagers.