Fair enough.
Daniel
NEWS FLASH: Teenagers are horny and sometimes lie to their parents! Film at 11!
Well, it would certainly make chartered accountancy a more interesting field . . .
Careful with those films! Make sure they are all over 18!
Unless the price of chastity belts drops.
Seriously, though, good point. All it takes for intercourse is a penis and a vagina, and all teens have one of those readily available at all times. Plus of course there are activities that only include one of those, which don’t cause pregnancy but still carry a risk for STDs.
Unless, of course, they are atheists or homosexuals, in which case they are barred from what should be an excellent organization for teaching boys life skills and self esteem.
(Girl Scouts, btw, don’t have that problem - believe in God or not, lesbian or not - they are inclusive. I’m a GSA leader, my son cannot join the BSA).
It doesn’t refute Left Hand’s explanation, but then again Left Hand offeres a hypothesis of how the pledge ends up causing more harm than good, not if it does.
They speculate in the discussion section. (Perhaps they are biased in abstinence only that birth control is ineffective.)
I suggest that you read the linked actual article in Pediatrics. That is ruled out. They were matched for beliefs and attitudes, for their perceptions of their peers beliefs and attitudes, and their family’s as well. Both groups were consequently equally fairly religious and conservative in their attitudes. And 4/5ths of those who pledged denied having ever done so.
People have joint finances all the time without being married. Even roommates who don’t have sex at all have to work out who’s responsible for what. All I’m saying is that financial responsibility is as important to being a functioning adult as sexual responsibility is. (I’m assuming here that you’re not advocating unfettered promiscuity and abdication of all responsibilities to others just so a teen can do what feels good all day long every day, without regard to any consequences.)
Because smoking is an activity that can be abstained from for life without any adverse consequences, but the same can’t be said for sex. Eventually, everybody’s going to have it–if they don’t have it as an unmarried teen they’re pretty sure to have it as a married older person. Do we really want to continue to resist giving our children ALL the information they require to be fully functional adults? Managing sexuality, just like managing hostility, envy, ambition, anger, enthusiasm, and effort are skills a good citizen needs to have in order to function in society without causing undue hardship to others and as such it’s a valid subject for education.
I’d like to see age appropriate education in sexuality and relationship skills starting at kindergarten and continuing right on up to a couple years into college. While we’re at it, I’d like to see the other life skills that have been mentioned such as personal and family finances, substance abuse, legal information and other everyday skills taught as well. Not just one class in high school–every year, with new information that’s targeted toward developmental changes in the kids as they grow up. It’s not a new concept–I attended a Montessori school for a couple years in the late '60s and we had those learning units every year.
While we’re at it, I’d like to see the same sort of societal disapproval we reserve for smoking used toward modifying social attitudes toward STD’s, poor relationship skills and teen pregnancy as well. Since teens are so peer oriented, knowing that they’re considered to be stupid and loserish for having substandard sexual hygiene and skills would assist mightily in getting our national teen pregnancy/STD statistics into some sort of a reasonable range. Social pressure works–smoking is down to something like 27% of the general population–much lower than it’s been in previous decades.
Here is the peculation catsix.
The embezzlement is where?!
If the anti-smoking campaign led to an increase in smoking, do you think it deserves more money? If there had been something to put over a ciggie which would reduce the chances of getting lung cancer, do you think it would have been right to withhold that information from students in order to scare them more about the dangers of smoking? Regular sex education seems to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies - is this less important than your moral orthodoxy?
Any evidence that the “sex industry” has anything to do with this problem - unless you count most movies, lots of TV shows and ads as part of the sex industry. I don’t know about you, but I grew up in a more restricted environment, and I didn’t need Madonna or rap or R rates movies to think about sex.
If you could, it would open up a popular new professional specialty - certified pubic accountant.
In college? Really? I don’t think I would’ve been too fond of that idea. In fact, I know I wouldn’t. I spent my years in university working my ass off to get an engineering degree. Another two years of relationship skills would not have been helpful in any sort of way.
In fact, once I had the whole birth control thing figured out, the rest was pretty much useless. There was a lot of stuff about getting married and having kids – neither of which are even remotely goals of mine.
Other than the recent media craze with the celebrity teenage mothers, I think you can count on it already being the case that teenagers don’t typically find pregnant teenagers cool. As for STDs, well, if someone in my HS was said to have an STD this was not a compliment of any sort.
I have absolutely no problem with promiscuity as long as everyone is up front about what they’re in it for, and the participants are responsible about practicing safe sex. Just to make sure we’re clear, that also means that if you have an STD, you best be up front about it to anyone who you’re trying to have sex with.
There is, come to think of it. 
The most important thing most people in this thread are forgetting is that 99% of these programs will suck. I personally had both “Health” and “Life Skills” classes, and I can testify that they were some of the most useless classes I’ve ever had (especially the latter). And I go to a (secular) private school. It’s a vicious circle: the classes are crap because no good teachers want to teach them, the teenagers don’t listen because it’s crap, and no good teachers want to teach teenagers who won’t listen to them.
The most important societal change that can happen is for people to actually believe that premarital sex can be reduced. Right now, to even suggest that it’s possible (let alone desirable) will get you laughed at. You’ve got the people on one side saying “boys will be boys, and there’s no stopping it” and the others on the opposite end saying that it’s a “genetic imperative” and cannot possibly be controlled. The problem is that it’s a completely mixed message: “Don’t have sex (but we know you will anyway; here’s a condom).” Now, I support comprehensive sex education, if only to prevent society from having to deal with the children of the ones who aren’t going to listen. And, of course, “virginity pledges” alone are going to be completely ineffective because no one is going to change his worldview because of what some “Life Skills” teacher tells him. There needs to be a consistent message, one that is applicable to boys as well as girls, against premarital sex from within and without the teenagers’ peer groups, but that message is not there. It hasn’t been there for years (and one that doesn’t create a double standard for boys and girls has never been there).
That’s what I think needs to be done to decrease premarital sex (and, by extension, teenage pregnancy). Now, do I think it will happen? Unless society turns around in a way I’m not expecting, unfortunately, no.
Valete,
Vox Imperatoris
and exactly why would you want to decrease premarital sex? why would anyone want to put a stop to premarital sex? what makes this a goal worth even considering let alone pursuing?
<-----isnt married, and likes sex
It’s not a realistic message for most people. If you don’t get married until you’re 30 or 40 years old, waiting until you get married isn’t very realistic. It’s not necessarily true for everyone that they need to attach sex to a relationship, or to love, or what have you. It’s never been the case in the history of the human race that people have waited 20 years after they’re past puberty before they start having sex.
Biology is not on your side with this one.
You take it as a given that everyone agrees about the nobility of your goal to reduce pre-marital sex. This is not the case.
I think that it would be far, far better to set the goal as a reduction in unwanted pregnancies (this includes teenage pregnancy) and STD infections. Those goals are realistic, and potentially attainable. I have no problem with teaching young people that abstinence is one way to prevent both pregnancy and STDs. I don’t have a problem with teaching them that they may choose abstinence for a number of reasons including their own personal feelings about when it’s right for them to have sex.
I have a big problem with setting an unrealistic goal (to stop unmarried people from having sex) and making that the only thing that is ever taught.
Same here, buddy. For the last fourteen years.