IN THE COMMENTS: Why so many comments? There's a lot of discussion of abstinence education, and I'd just like to say that you should not assume from my post that I don't support abstinence education. I do. Here's my old post on the subject from last November:
[A] bill requiring a stronger abstinence message is about to pass the legislature here. (What the governor will do is another matter.)So, there's a distinction between the importance of teaching young people about abstinence and the political posturing that is going on. I don't blame Governor Doyle here though. He didn't start this one. He was set up.
The bill ... would require school districts that offer sex education programs to "present abstinence from sexual activity as the preferred choice of behavior" for unmarried students....
The current state law simply lists more than a dozen topics that districts "may include" in their sex education instruction but does not stress one as more important than others. The word "abstinence" does not appear, although "discouragement of adolescent sexual activity" is one of the topics districts can choose to include.
Should the legislature be requiring all the schools in the state to push abstinence as "the preferred choice of behavior"? The culture varies from place to place around the state, so I don't like a statewide requirement that goes this far, even though I think it's important for young people to hear a strong presentation of the case for abstinence. Shouldn't local school districts decide this one rather than posturing state legislators?
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54 comments:
Abstinence - the only method that pretty much completely eliminates pregnancy and STD's...
Ann -- I had the same reaction you did. He's running for re-election! His position makes Green's look extreme.
Abstinence prohibits STDs in much the same way that virginity pledges preserve virginity.
...as long as you abstain, yes. Similar to a virginity pledge. Pledges that routinely get broken.
Coupled with the state ban on same-sex marriage, this means telling gay teens that they can never have sex.
Maybe the article is incomplete - I don't see anything about pledges or oaths. I see the governor wanting to emphasize that abstinence (real, not technical) is the most effective way to prevent pregnancy and STDs; a statement which is, in fact, true. It may be, as 7M points out, irrelevant to much of this particular audience, and his 10:48 recommendations are good backups for those who can't or won't abstain. But what's the big deal about saying this in class?
I can only repeat what I recently said at concurring opinions:
I continue to be frustrated by the seeming fact that folks on the right are unwilling to supplement abstinence education, and folks on the left are unwilling to teach abstinence. Is it really so weird or unreasonable to want a sensible sex education program that stresses the importance of abstinence while still teaching that if you fail to abstain, here's how to avoid getting pregnant and catching STDs. The dogmatic nature of the debate is highly frustrating to me; this isn't being a squishy moderate, it's being practical. Abstinence is 100% effective, and it should be given primacy, but in the real world, some kids will continue to not abstain, and as someone who regards abortion as a serious problem, every teenage fumble that uses contraception properly is a teenage fumble that cannot lead to pressure to get an abortion, which in turn reduces the number of abortions.
I don't know what's more irritating on this subject, Republican absolutism or the sniggers of cloying cynicism from the left conjoined with the usual liberal moral bankrupcy.
"It's just silly to ask people who are brimming with sexuality -- they are more sexual than they will ever be -- not to have sex."
Only true in the case of boys. In women, statistically, sex drive peaks in the late thirties and early forties, for blindingly obvious biological reasons.
"Because, J, the governor is an authority figure and what he/she says is going to weigh on the minds of the students. Creating guilt like that is unfair."
On the contrary, guilt is an extremely strong mechanism for maintaining social standards and limiting deviationary activities. Fear of the societal opprobrium that will follow a frowned-upon activity is far better as a deterrent than all the laws in christendom.
It's also dumb and unworkable because kids are going to have sex. They are. I bet everyone reading this has probably had 100 percent consensual sex at least once as a teenager/college student under circumstances when they really shouldn't have. It just kind of happened that way.
Then you would be wrong. I didn't have sex until my late 30s, after I had married my lovely wife. It is quite possible to raise a child with the discipline to delay gratification. I will teach my own children this, and only hope they do not listen to cynics like you who only give excuses for being stupid.
"Which group would you say is more sexually charged? Where do you find more sexuality?"
Wow, that sounds like a scientifically sound study. Where do you get one of those sexual charge meters, anyway?
Of course teenagers think sex is the most cool, exciting, fun, awesome thing in the world; they have pop culture continually humping their leg from the time they're old enough to put a dvd in the player.
I think we need to speak truth to horniness: sex is usually overrated and often boring, especially when you're 16.
I think we need to teach the Jocelyn Elders method.
"Why should public policy be to tell teenagers and adults not to do something that's fun and healthy and absolutely critical for the continued existence of society? Moreover, if they are going to do, anyway, why should we tell them not to? Isn't that the height of irresponsibility? Isn't that just sticking our societal head in the sand?"
Public policy should be to discorage promiscuity, because unwanted children and STDs do not benefit society, that they should prefer to do so only within the confines of a relationship generally and ideally marriage, see above. I agree that abstinence isn't the complete solution, and I agree that I would rather a program which teaches kids how to have sex responsibly if they're going to do it, but in general, I think it is far more beneficial to both them and society to keep it buttoned.
A free society depends upon the members of that society exercising self-restraint, and failing that, informal methods of regulating the conduct of members. Norms and guilt on diverging from them are natural and healthy. Societal encouragement of that is far removed from violent physical coercion by the state, as I would have thought was plainly obvious.
"I think we need to speak truth to horniness: sex is usually overrated and often boring, especially when you're 16."
Well, that's largely because when you have two sixteen year olds, neither of them know what they're doing. Perhaps we should pair the 16 year old boys with the late 30s women; call it "education." ;) I wasn't kidding when I said McPhee needs ten years to mature; right now she's not bad to look at, but she isn't sexy, because she's just a kid. Give her a couple of decades to set into her features and get some experience, ahem, under her belt, and she might be sexy to go with it.
(And "sexy" nor "sexuality" is the same thing as "will hump anything that moves").
7M, your bizarre insistance that gays can get married (supported only by defining marriage as something the state has no interest in, which is crap since that is EXACTLY what we call marriage when heterosexuals marry) has been debunked over and over, in at least one other discussion on this forum. Your lame repetitions don't make it any more true.
If an abstinence class tells students not to have sex until they are married, and gays cannot marry, the argument being made is that gays should remain abstinent all their lives. This is very much the religious position that seeks to differentiate identity from behavior.
Republican Sen. Mary Lazich, a bill's sponsor, said sex education teachers can still teach about birth control, but must emphasize that abstinence is the only 100 percent effective method to avoid health risks.
What, exactly, is wrong with this? It's true. It has nothing to do with guilt or religion, it's the simple truth.
However, that doesn't stop NARAL from having a hissy fit:
Kelda Helen Roys, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Wisconsin, called the bill, which takes effect July 1, shortsighted.
"They ignored the overwhelming public testimony, support and expert information about the importance of comprehensive sex education that talks about abstinence as well as contraceptive use," she said. "Abstinence is an important part but it is not the only part."
It sounds to me like NARAL agrees with the governor ("abstinence should be an important part"), but the governor is being interpreted as pushing an abstinence-only program.
Seven Machos:Why should public policy be to tell teenagers and adults not to do something that's fun and healthy and absolutely critical for the continued existence of society?
Because for kids still in high school, it's emphatically not healthy. And teenagers are not the ones we want to be having children to assure the continuation of society. And I submit that for most teenagers, sex isn't even fun, because they're worried about being caught, getting pregnant, and catching STDs. Yes, the culture is steeped in sex, but that doesn't translate to a pleasant experience for most teenagers.
The more I think about, the more I believe that the "sexual revolution" was a huge joke played on women. All it did, really, was give men the ability to have sex whenever they wanted with no strings attached. "If you can't be with the one you love, honey, love the one you're with." Sure, why not! Why bother to respect yourself if no one else is going to respect you, either.
For a lot of people, sex is just something fun to do. For many others, though, sex has more meaning. I frequently remind my children that we are not animals. That extends to the fact that we shouldn't hump like them, either.
Why stop at marriage? If we can just have everyone be celibate for life, then we can eliminate STD's entirely!!!
"College campus? heck, go on myspace.com and see how sexually charged the eigth grader girls are"
Re the "eigth grader girls", you might want to start watching Dateline NBC ( http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11152602/ ).
"If we are going to instruct young people about sex, we should instruct them how to have sex responsibly."
From the linked article:
"sex education teachers can still teach about birth control, but must emphasize that abstinence is the only 100 percent effective method to avoid health risks"
Again, I just don't see what the big deal is here. And we're going to have to agree to disagree on the use of guilt as a motivator - guilt is an exceptionally effective motivator in any number of circumstances, and I see nothing wrong with making use of it.
Seven Machos - You do realize that even if high school girls are taught to go about having sex on a daily basis, you still won't get in on it, right?
There are lots of girls in high school who are not ready to have sex and do not want to have sex, but are convinced that this makes them weird. I see nothing wrong with at least trying to give them the other side of the message.
I don't understand at all the logic behind refusing to include abstinence as a part of sex education.
Palladian - Absolutely exactly right. Why doesn't anyone have the guts to portray teenage sex as awkward, often boring and rather embarrassing? That would not only be effective but quite accurate.
Seven Machos: I'm just opposed to people going around saying that people are incapable of controlling their libido, like we were chimpanzees and not human beings with self control. You may go around saying that children and young adults should be having sex. What you should not be doing is misinforming people that this is somehow out of their control.
This is giving people permission to say to themselves "Well, I guess I have no control over this, I might as well do what my body wants." This is demonstrably not true; you do have a choice to walk away. My children will know that if they have sex, the consequences will because of a choice they made, and not because their hormones told them to do it; and they will have to deal with the consequences.
And if you go around telling children that they can't help having sex; and they believe you and have sex; and ruin their lives through STDs or unwanted pregnancy, well then you should be ashamed of yourself.
Seven, you're right that a gay couple can have a private ceremony and call it a wedding and think of themselves as married afterward. But, the state's not playing and no one's thinking of those ceremonies when they tell high school kids they shouldn't have sex till they're married.
The message being given to gay teens by a combination of lack of legal recognition of gay marriage and abstinence only education is "you're not ever supposed to have sex".
If course, no one's dumb enough to believe and act on that, but when the state takes overwhelmingly stupid official positions in one area, it undermines its authority in other areas as well.
I'm entirely in favor of reality-based sexual instruction and demystification.
Abstinence only instruction (essentially not telling them anything but DON'T!) is not reality-based.
Please show me one, single gay couple in America who has been imprisoned, fined, or otherwised punished in any way, shape, or form for marrying each other.
This twigged something in my memory. Maybe I'm conflating things though. Was the mayor of New Paltz NY (some young mayor) ever fined for marrying gays? This was back a year+ ago. If a gay couple pays for such a union that is then invalidated by the state, and forfeits the fee -- I assume you can't get a paid fee back -- do you consider that monetary loss a punishment?
Experts* have proven that teaching birth control methods as opposed to abstinence quickly leads to widespread orgies among teenagers. Studies* have shown that countries that do not teach abstinence have much higher frequencies of STDs and teen pregnancies.
* Said experts shall remain anonymous and said studies are currently unavailable on the internet
Jennifer said...
"I don't understand at all the logic behind refusing to include abstinence as a part of sex education."
I agree. Seven, I agree to some extent with what you've said as an argument against abstinence-only sex education. But what troubles me is that it is a false (and dumb) choice - imposed by zealots on both sides - to have to choose between abstinence-only sex ed and abstinence-free sex ed. As Jennifer says, it is vitally important to send the message that while sex is normal, healthy and enjoyable, when done right, it is not mandatory, and there are positive effects (for both individuals and society) in waiting.
Perhaps the real difficulty is that conservatives think sex ed pushes youngsters to have sex, while liberals - today's generation thereof being rooted in the hedonostic self-indulgence of the baby boomers - are incapable of grasping the idea of self-denial?
Seven Machos et al... keep talking about how "sexually charged" kids are these days.
Perhaps they wouldn't so charged if Hollywood and society wouldn't keep pumping it up. 8th graders don't get to be little prosti-tots without outside encouragement.
Premarital and non-manogamous sex (and I include oral and anal in that) simply is not safe.
Seven Machos: Sorry for the low blow.
I don't think anyone is claiming that age will improve the learning curve any. Just that teenagers have a really airbrushed and glorified view of sex and sexuality. The reality would inform their decisions.
Perhaps the real difficulty is that conservatives think sex ed pushes youngsters to have sex, while liberals...are incapable of grasping the idea of self-denial?
Interesting point, Simon.
I'm not in favor of teaching sexual abstinence for its own sake (or the psychic comfort of parents in denial).
I am in favor of demystifying sex (hard to do when your big message is DON'T DO IT!) and teaching something about ethics, judgment and maturity.
There are a couple of comments early in this thread about what kids should and shouldn't "have to put up with" and wheather it's fair to treat them like...children.
I think that it'd be helpful to have a discussion sometime about societies expectations for kids. I think we're sending awful mixed messages to them. They're too irresponsible to drink or drive or smoke or vote but fully capable of choosing to have sex and abortions. They can be tried as adults in court, but can't receive adult punishments (death penalty). Seriously, what's the deal.
geoduck2 said...
"'Perhaps the real difficulty is that conservatives think sex ed pushes youngsters to have sex, while liberals...are incapable of grasping the idea of self-denial?' What - am I a imaginary person? That is nonsense."
Presumably you're saying that my explanation for liberal hostility to abstinense is nonsense rather than my explanation of conservative hostility to sex ed. If so, then what is the serious liberal argument against teaching abstinence as part of (the primary aspect, even) of sex ed?
(Speaking of teen-age boys and middle-aged women, does anyone else watch Date My Mom? I love that show!)
"because it is state action on top of state action."
Stop it! That kind of talk is getting me so excited! To Hell with abstinence, I want to have sex with the State!
"Besides, we know who is teaching this stuff anyway: it's gym coaches and frumpy 38-year-olds. Who wants to hear ANYTHING about sex (or about not having sex) from these people, at any age?"
So, the message you seem to be sending is that anyone 8-18 should be having sex, as much as possible, with whoever, but that anyone much over 18 (and God forbid anyone as ancient as 38 or any woman deemed "frumpy") better just dry up and blow away like the unappealing husk that they are.
"Grandma probably was having sex at 17. Great-Grandma DEFINITELY was. Sure, she was married. But she didn't have condoms at the 7-11 and 100-percent-effective little pills to prevent birth."
I don't care to speculate about my grandmothers, but I do know that my great, great, great grandmother was one of my ggg grandfather's 11 wives and gave birth to several of his 59 children. Talk about a need for abstinence!
And I don't know how many gay guys you've ever been around, but I'll wager that I'm not the only one who would love to hear something about sex from a gym coach.
"Elizabeth -- Please show me one, single gay couple in America who has been imprisoned, fined, or otherwised punished in any way, shape, or form for marrying each other.
"
Seven, you demonstrate here why your position rests is bizarre. This is ridiculous criteria. I can show you couples who have gone to their city offices and requested a marriage license and who were turned down. They were unable to marry. It is not necessary to be arrested, fined or punished in order to be prevented from doing something.
Otherwise, you realize, you and I see abstinence-emphasis the same way; it's a useless approach. I think it's a good part of a sex ed program, since teens need some strategies for resisting what they're not ready to do, or resisting someone with whom they don't want to do it, but that's not what these abstinence measures are about. They bleed over into other policies as well. AIDS treatment and education groups are restricted in absurd ways from talking about sex, especially gay sex, because of the CDC's political emphasis on abstinence.
Seven, where do I use the term "illegal"? You're making stuff up. But Wisconsin is considering a constitutional ban on gay marriage, which I referred to. That, coupled with "abstinence till marriage" would put gays in a Catch-22 under the state's official policy. You're narrowly focused on semantics, which you have to be to make your argument that gays are free to marry.
What's all the hubbub? Why are so many afraid or dismissive of including information on abstinence -- alongside all of the other information. Almost every avenue of ou culture encourages or outright celebrates promiscuous behavior or at least easy access. We tell people all the time to abstain from illegal behavior, unhealthy behavior, or unwise behavior (smoking and drinking anyone?) what's the big argument against one or 2 hours of abstinence. They will have plenty of time to talk about blowjobs, going anal and all the other safe forms of sex. And birth control does not do jack for most STDs -- many of which are epidemic.
Seven Machos -- people abstain from things all the time, just because most don't (free will and all that unless you're a strict biological determinist) abstain does not devalue the message. It says more about those who refuse to abstain than it does about those who say it's possible or even wise.
Geoduck: Oh, I guess I need to clarify that some of the wives were concurrent. My great, great, great grandfather was a famous Mormon pioneer. My ancestors lived "Big Love" but in a much more interesting way!
My one memory of sex ed class in rural Pennsylvania was of the teacher, a lesbian (as I later learned) gym teacher, pulling a condom over her head to mock the idea that condoms were too small for some guys.
I liked her.
"Me, I say the more the State stays out of, the better."
I'm sure you're glad that your marriage is unencumbered by interference from the State.
Seven, your view is interesting, but doesn't address reality. When all marriage is out of state participation, then your position will mean something. Until then, to lambast me and others for wanting the right to marry, legally, is simply a little word game for you. You can get all huffy and judgmental about me, and other gay people, wanting what we want:
I'm sorry you wish to volunteer to live under that kind of tyranny.
But then marriage is just a passive thing that happened to you:
Getting married was this thing that I did that the State has gotten itself involved in.
You could choose to marry privately, and keep the state out of it. You didn't, and that gives you little room to judge gay people for our desire to marry. It's too typical of libertarians to throw around the idea that the evil statists are weak-willed and possessed of sheep mentality, while they fantasize about their own self-sufficiency and spirit of resistance. Then comes the deluge and you're looking for the National Guard in a rescue boat like everyone else.
Seven, if that's how you feel about it, what's stopping you from undoing your state-plagued marriage and redoing it privately, hiring a lawyer (and perhaps an accountant) to maximize the benefits? Wouldn't that be of more material benefit in the long run?
Sex Education Class:
Do you like sex, Mr. Lebowski?
Excuse me?
Sex. The physical act of love. Coitus. Do you like it?
I was talking about my rug.
You're not interested in sex?
You mean coitus?
I like it too. It's a male myth about feminists that we hate sex. It can be a natural, zesty enterprise. But unfortunately there are some people--it is called satyriasis in men, nymphomania in women--who engage in it compulsively and without joy.
Oh,no.
Yes Mr. Lebowski, these unfortunate souls cannot love in the true sense of the word. Our mutual acquaintance Bunny is one of these.
Listen, Maude, I'm sorry if your stepmother is a nympho, but I don't see what it has to do with--do you have any kahlua?
If you're old enough, you remember a time when it was the norm not to have sex in high school (I knew of one couple in my class that did) and maybe not even in college. That all changed around 1966. That was the year I turned 20, and that was when I lost my virginity. I did not want to get pregnant (I've thought about it, and I really don't know whether I would have been less careful had abortion been legal), so I went straight to the GYN and got a diaphragm, which was scary because in Boston I think technically, legally, you were supposed to be 21. The GYN made suggestive remarks and I really felt at his mercy.
Were we horny before that? Sure. We practiced the Joycelyn Elders method is all. We kissed and groped a little. That was the norm, in the early '60s. The dark ages?
The Japanese refused to have the gun in their culture for 400 years. Do we have the will to refuse early-teen sex? Or is there too much money in it? Or is the cat just irreversibly out of the bag?
It's not that sex is boring when you're 14 to 16, it's just that sexual drives are sort of unformed and unfocused and the drive for peer approval is much, much more dominant. I think that's what really drives most early- to midteens sexual behavior. And I wonder if having sex at that age has any effect on how much and how richly you can enjoy it later.
sex between two 23-year-old virgins is going to be like Shaft-meets-Sharon Stone, huh?
Seven Machos: We were 20. He was a virgin, i was a near virgin. We got the knack of it on around the 2nd or 3rd try. From then on, it was fantastic. (Unfortunately, out of bed we had nothing to say to each other.)
geoduck: my parents were very liberal, both virgins when married during WWII, my father 24, my mother 18, very romantic.
But "liberal" has meant something different since the '60s. Libertine.
Sorry, but I'm not much of a fan of "sex ed", or at least, I doubt its efficacy either to increase or decrease sexual behavior.
It is a mistake traceable to our generally therapeutic approach to all problems, that which extols "information" as the cure for all disorders. It's quite wrongheaded, of course.
Seven Machos' economic arguments are usually quite astute, I think largely because they recognize quite well that any system that ignores or thwarts real human behavior is bound to fail.
But 7M falls short here, if only in missing that adolescents are really quite irrational. Maybe even insane, at least at times. They're quite mad, such as when discussing some party this evening, arguing it-can't-be-missed-or-the-world-will-end kind of nonsense. They are quite able to handle a debate about avoiding sexual pressures in the morning, and then get drunk and yield all in the evening.
That's why we used to have religion and shame. They worked quite well at curbing behavior like this, despite 7M's argument otherwise. But these tools are now long abandoned, or disallowed, or mocked for being quaint or ancient. The Amish of morals.
More information? Useless, all of it. Social opprobrium? It works. But gone from our world, perhaps for good.
And I don't know how many gay guys you've ever been around, but I'll wager that I'm not the only one who would love to hear something about sex from a gym coach.
That happend to me, and about half of one of the classes was devoted to a discussion of homosexuality and how the (then-recent) discovery of a possible gay gene led to hope for its cure. I imagine that the experience would have scarred me somewhat if I were a whinier man than I am.
I did learn that the gym teacher refused to use public bathrooms at all because he'd once been cruised at a Phillies game and that the most famously studly guy in my grade had regular nightmares about a prostate exam he'd been given as a child. Which are both way more important things to know than how to make a dental dam out of an old balloon, to my mind.
This is a generational discussion in many respects.
Amba is six years younger than I am. She remembers the earlier days, and also remembers exactly how they came to be changed.
When she was 20, I was a single 26 year old who was pretty bewildered (but pretty delighted) by the aggressive younger women who from time to time crossed my path.
I have since raised five daughters who now range in age from 25 to 30. They have, so far as I know, whethered the transition from adolescence to adulthood without serious trauma. From this perspective, I can say that the sexual revolution weighed more heavily on young women than on young men.
They all had the standard sex education classes, three in suburban public schools, two in an Episcopalian parochial school.
The public schools did not make abstinence a part of their curriculum, the parochial school did. My wife, a nurse, was able to communicate with each daughter the concept that having sex in middle school or HS was potentially more damaging to the female person than the male, because of the undeniable gender differences in the emotional attitudinal and physical reactions to sex.
This probably had little effect on the girls' behavior. Although I can not be sure about all of them, I would be shocked if they eschewed sexual activity until marriage.
Most probably did confine such activity to "steady" boyfriends or fiances.
Nonetheless, as a dad, it was pretty clear to me when the emotional "issues" connected with the ending of a daughter's relationship seemed more serious than what I was used to with the dumping of a boyfriend or being dumped by one.
I think one of the best songs that exists to summarize the sexual feelings of teens is "Sixteen Blue" by the Replacements. Chorus: "Your age is the hardest age. Everything drags and drags. You're looking funny, but you aren't laughing are you?"
Full set of lyrics here:
http://www.lyricsdepot.com/the-replacements/sixteen-blue.html
There's no question that girls are under extreme and increasing pressure to have sex younger and younger. It's patently ridiculous to act like including abstinence in sex education is pointless or naive. Girls have a lot more to lose, physically and emotionally. I agree with Jennifer, and I sympathise with monkeyboy when he said about his daughter:
I wish that society at large was not on the side of the horny teenager boys she will be around. She should not think that refusing to have sex at sixteen makes her a freak.
And the current trend that giving boys blowjobs is the "safe," preferred alternative to intercourse is sick.
"the current trend that giving boys blowjobs is the "safe," preferred alternative to intercourse is sick."
Not least because one would think that as good an alternative would be cunnilingus...
Please note my update to this post. I think it's very important to teach young people about abstinence, as I've said before on this blog. I have a problem with the state level politics about it however.
Ann, I totally agree with you that abstinence as a political football is gross. I hate that kind of posturing.
However, those who really push state-taught sex ed are almost always adamantly dismissive of even the *suggestion* to include abstinence. If it takes some dumb politician to get on his soapbox to stop them from limiting the curriculum to: it's open season out there, kids, just use a condom, and everything will be 0-kay! then so be it.
I use the word "limiting" above, intentionally. Those against abstinence want to limit a discussion that they are always telling everyone should be fully informative and demystfying.
To me it's almost nihilistic to reject the simple message "really, the safest and healthiest way to respond to your changing body is to wait as long as you can to start acting on what are new and exciting--BUT VERY VERY VERY VERY RISKY!!!!--impulses."
Again, I'm very in favor of telling high school kids that the high school years are not the optimum time for sex with other people for lots of reasons, not the least being you don't even have your own place for crying out loud, how pathetic is that?
But I think there needs to be some alternatives to cold showers discussed, like having sex alone (the discreet practice of which should be encouraged, as if that were needed).
And issues of protection need to be discussed a long time before they're needed (forewarned is forearmed as it were).
Marriage, I think, is not necessarily a realistic milestone for starting to have sex for most people today. And if abstinence is defined as 'no sex before marriage' then I think you're trying to sweep back the tides. It might work for those for whom their religion is more important than sexual or emotional fulfillment but that's not the majority. If that's a value of the parents, then let the parents try to instill it in their teenage kids.
Joe: "Including abstinence as part of sex ed is not for the majority of kids who will engage in premarital sex, but for that minority who will not, whatever their reasons. They should be made to feel that abstinence is a legitimate choice, that they are not freaks for so abstaining."
I think some info on abstinence is useful even for kids who don't entirely abstain. They may wait longer and they may resist sex on more occasions. There's a great danger that young people will feel that sex is something they ought to do or that they don't know how to say no to. It's important to equip everyone with some powers of resistance, even if most of them will have sex some of the time. It would be doing a lot if you could just get kids to avoid casual or recreational sex and to wait until they have a serious relationship.
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