From my experience, abstinence only education focuses mainly on the dangers of sex. Not just premarital sex. All sex. Contraceptive failure rates, graphic pictures of STDs, stats about teenage pregnancy... And face it, when you get married, that fear doesn't magically disappear. Not everyone wants a kid right away when they are married. Even abstinent people who have only learned about abstinence will still probably need to learn how to use contraceptives when they're married, only they must then learn on their own. But by then, they have been conditioned to be fearful and ashamed of sex, that it can make having ever having sex seem scary and wrong.
Not only does it teach that premarital sex is scary and "wrong," but abstinence only teaches that sex outside of marriage is disgusting and perverse... Those are not psychologically safe associations to place on a perfectly normal (and, might I add, necessary) biological function. As I said before, being married won't make all those feelings disappear overnight. To teach abstinence only is to deny that sexual feelings happen, and that sex will eventually happen in an environment where contraception is still necessary. To say that sexual feelings can be easily smothered, should be repressed... And from what I remember of my psychology classes, repression is not only bad, but potentially dangerous and psychologically scarring.
Personally, I was taught a 50/50 program. 50% focused on effectiveness of abstinence, 50% focused on safe sex and contraception (that is, aside from my middle school class that wanted me to sign an abstinence and anti-drug pact, which I signed , even then consciously aware that I was only agreeing strictly to the no illegal drugs portion).
And I think 50/50 is the way it should be. Teaching abstinence as an option is very critical. But the fact of the matter is, even if 99% of teens didn't have sex, the 1% who did would still need access to safe sex information, and the other 99% would need the information for whenever they do start having sex. I am absolutely against any curriculum that intentionally hides or misrepresents important scientific or medical information.
I just love FRC's arguments. And by love, I mean I love to pick them apart. They're the only articles I've read where I literally cannot stop myself from writing rebuttals in the margins. They harp on the fact that STDs can be dangerous, but they don't want to teach about condoms that prevent most STDs... Sorry, but the mere existence of condoms invalidates most of that argument in a heartbeat. "The truth about sex" is "that it is meant to be saved for marriage"? Seriously? That's not a fact any more than the "fact" that the toaster is only meant to toast bread. Hate to break it to you, but a toaster can safely toast pastries, bagels, English muffins... And I promise, toasting a bagel in a toaster isn't any more perverse than safe sex outside of marriage. Oh, and the 9% jump in students that were scared into believing that teenage sex will "make it harder for them to get a good job or be successful in a career"? Someone really needs to tell those poor kids that no sane employer is going to ask about their virginity before deciding to hire them.
I'm not a person that really believes one has to save themselves until marriage, I even think that for most, its a pretty unrealistic goal to have. But I do think that like you said, most early sexual activity stems from kids not believing there are consequences to your actions. I think that the abstinence message is delivered poorly in some respects, but that kids need to know that some of those consequences are scary as hell. Kids need to know whats available to them, but that contraception isn't foolproof either. My parents always pushed me to think about what could happen in anything I did, and if I couldn't handle the consequences, I shouldn't do it (not that I always listened, but realized afterwards that I should have).
ReplyDeleteI can see the career part though, it would be a lot harder if you had a kid before you got to that point. They do make it sound a lot worse than it needs to in some places though.