Actually, holding philosophical positions without commitment is morally lax, and leads to informationally transmitted diseases! Okay, that was a cheap snark: really, I just want to point all present to this brilliant article by bradhicks, regarding the difference between the baseline of liberal thought and the baseline of conservative thought. It’s been sticking in my mind for a year now. Excerpt: “There are people who just plain assume that no matter how high or low you set your moral standards, you will occasionally fall short of them. . . . What they can’t imagine is that some other people, like me, were raised by a different rule altogether. . . . a set of moral values are a promise we make to the world. No excuse will be offered, or accepted, for breaking such a promise. No, when I tell you what my moral values are, you can pretty well count on my keeping them.”

I agree with Dianne about the silly correlational study. Correlational studies are cheap, and you can say anything you like with them. It is possible that the young girls were using sex as a means of making themselves a little happier. It is also quite possible that non-sexually-active kids had not hit a point of puberty where brain chemistry changes, making them more prone to depression. About 30% of adults have depression at some point and adolescence is notoriously one of those vulnerable points.

The “Christian model of sex ed”? There are plenty of religions other than Christianity that teach abstinence until marriage.

Lanoire said:

Sorry, try again. My position is backed up by social science, biological science, and common sense. Yours is backed up by your religious beliefs.

I reject the dicotomization that such religious beliefs and social and biological sciences and common sense are not compatible.

If your religious beliefs are not compatible with social science, i.e. the real world, then they have no place becoming law. I don’t care if you fervently believe the world is a better place if everyone abstained until marriage. Everyone who lives in a free country, including teenagers, have the right to receive clear, real-world information, not pseudo-religious babble. You have the right to pull your kids out of public school if you don’t approve of what’s being taught, or you can even create a religious commune like they have in many places, but muddling up the information by creating these kinds of moral laws is more in line with theocracy than democracy.

Why hide from real-world, empirical information? The Heritage Foundation study doesn’t help resolve this. I’m sure you won’t like the source of this, but check the citations at the bottom: http://www.plannedparenthood.org/pp2/portal/files/portal/medicalinfo/teensexualhealth/fact-teen-pregnancy.xml

Science is not a belief system with the moral equivalence of religious beliefs, it is the collected observations of humankind since the beginning of writing and communication. Big difference there. There’s no reason why facts and information should be kept from anyone when it will improve the lives of the majority of people out there. Seat belts, helmets, warning labels, these are the same kinds of things without the moral undertow, and nobody has a problem with those.

I mean, if sex is the mythical joining of the penis and the coochie, under the gently woven canopy of commitment, then I’m downright celibate.

Moreover, given that marriage between two women in the US is only legal in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts at this time, by the logic of abstinence until marriage you should never have sex!

Although, does lesbian sex count by the definition of the proponents of abstinence? Does masturbation? Q grrl, you raise some excellent points in your post.

My situation as a non-op female-to-male transsexual is also interesting. First, marriage to a woman is not a foolproof legal option. For whereas I can produce male id and marry, my spouse or her family could easily challenge the legality, and along with it child custody, inheritance, etc., if they chose to, say, in the case of divorce, death or incapacitation. And as for sex, I’ve always found it amusing to speculate: would homophobes who criticize queers on the basis of “the body parts don’t fit” then approve of me pairing up (as I have before) with a queer guy?

Both Matt and I had sex prior to marriage. We married in our early 30’s. When I say had sex, I mean with people other than each other - multiple people other than each other. Neither of us feel remorse or morally wrong for having done so. We both in fact feel that those experiences are part of the foundations of what made us the people we are today that makes us good mates for one another. As Jake said earlier, it’s different for everyone. What works for you and your spouse may not work for me and mine. That said, this is reality.

So what to do? Again, why must abstinence have a qualifier? Abstinence is simply choosing to not have sex, there is no non-sequedor in not creating an ‘end date’ to the abstinence that is something outside of the persons decision making process. Abstinence should end when a person decides that they are ready and willing to have sex and have a consenting partner that feels the same way.

And Barb was exactly right about the religious notions of marriage and how extremely objectifying and patronizing they are to women over men. Our virginity doesn’t increase or decrease our value as people, and teaching children the Christian model of sex ed says it does.

I see little problem with teachers saying that people who don’t have sex don’t get pregnant.

But what about rape and incest?

My tax dollars shouldn’t go towards teaching kids your religious beliefs.
But it’s entirely legitimate to spend tax dollars on teaching a given concept that is in accord with religious beliefs as long as the concept itself is not a religious one.

But is it entirely legitimate to teach a concept that is not a religious one when it is not in accordance with religious beliefs? I see little problem with teachers saying that people who don’t have sex don’t get pregnant. Similarly, I see no problem with teachers saying that any account of a virgin birth is a myth.

What I would like sex ed to be about more is how to find a good person to have sex with. With good I mean someone respectful, not-sexist, someone who likes you etc etc. And I’d like more discussion about how you know that you want to have sex. Are you aroused? Why? Does that mean you should find someone to have sex with, or should you have sex with yourself. How do you know if you’re hetero, homo, bi? What does love feel like? Attraction? Does he/she respect your consent/withdrawal of consent? How do you think with your head straight if you really, really want to have sex? How do you bring up the issue of condoms? Should you really have sex with someone who doesn’t want to use condoms? Will it really hurt for him if you don’t let him continue? No means no.

And these are things that should be discussed among women and men (girls and boys) all the time.

Schools shouldn’t teach sex ed. They should discuss it. Give kids all the facts about anatomy, reproduction, STDs, the history of and controversies surrounding sexual relationships. Include “Some people believe it’s physically and psychologically healthier to refrain from having sex until marriage, and here’s why they think that way” as well as “Some people believe that sex is an enjoyable and morally-neutral activity that should be available to everyone, and here’s why they think that way.”

Most importantly, let kids themselves talk and ask questions. And direct them to resources like this blog post, where they can get all sorts of information from a variety of different viewpoints. I can’t see how anyone could reasonably oppose such an approach.

I’m happy to say that I’m in a long-term, committed, loving relationship with a woman, and we share many a moment of physical contact which culminate in mutual orgasms. Yet, strangely enough, according to some of the more parochial males around these parts, I’m abstinate too! Whee. No penis = no sex, right? I mean, if sex is the mythical joining of the penis and the coochie, under the gently woven canopy of committment, then I’m downright celibate.

Oh, yeah. That celibate word. Do you suppose when they are teaching young women and young men about abstinence, they’re also telling them of the evils of masturbation? I mean, you’re not really abstaining if your jacking off to your Daddy’s porn, are you? Or is sex *really* all about the comingling of penis and coochie? Or are young boys still tactily encouraged to masturbate? Is the objectification of women taught as an equal evil and expressly a non-committment to the women/girls in men/boy’s lives? Can you ever really consider yourself committed to your wife if you’ve ever, even just once, jacked-off over a nudie photo?

Or is that just plain *silly*?

Can anyone help me out remembering the name of that report on Fed Funded Abstinence ed? Young posters like Anonymous Viewer need to read it, or their young minds will be stunted by articles that claim sex makes young women go crazy.

The statistics on divorce are pretty clear. The likelihood of divorce is closely correlated with age at marriage — the higher age upon first marriage, the less likelihood that one will get divorced. It is also closely correlated with educational attainment — those who have completed college are far less likely to get divorced.

States with the highest rates of divorce are in the South, including Oklahoma and Arkansas and they reflect both of these trends, younger average age at first marriage and lower educational attainment.

Now, there are some potential lurking variables in all of this. I honestly don’t know whether the above controls for income, but I am pretty sure it does, to the extent it can be, anyway. Perhaps those who marry later or have graduated from college don’t have to divorce their first “spouse” because he or she isn’t a spouse at all but a live in (this is almost certainly the case). But it’s also just possible that waiting for marriage until you are more mature and have established a career/life makes your marriage more stable.

I can’t prove that putting so much emphasis on abstinence would cause people to marry earlier, but I do know that those who put marriage off are far more likely to have sexual experience outside of marriage, and not to see it as a big deal. Which is not the same thing as not being responsible or not having any emotional bond vis a vis one’s sexual partners. It’s just a way of saying that there are lots of people (most people) who do not live their lives on the “all or nothing 0%/100%” plan for sex and marriage, with nothing in between, and further, that statistics tend to show that it is these sorts of people who appear to have more stable marriages under current economic and social conditions.

I just don’t think it’s fair to teach teenagers without acknowledging any of this evidence.

Further complicating the problem, women are taught from a young age that they must please others. So saying no when someone so clearly wants you to say yes can be difficult. This can be a problem in non-sexual situations as well: it is hard to say no when someone leans on you for an outrageous favor, for example.

What statistics can you quote about marriage in the Bible Belt vs. marriage in other places in the country to support this?

Also, I am wondering; most of the things you refer to in this are presumably negative, such as fewer years in school, greater likelihood of divorce. I’m going to tread carefully here, but in what context did you think that a likely outcome of more children was worth mentioning?

that abstinence is the “only” way to go “until marriage.” This is a specifically religious precept.

I don’t accept this statement. There’s no dispute that many religious hold this. But others don’t. And there are non-religious reasons that would support that this is a good idea. Just because something is espoused by various religions doesn’t mean that any assertion of that idea is an assertion of religion or religious belief.

Incidently, I have no problem with people choosing abstinence, if it is made as a real choice rather than seen as the only acceptable option. I’ve been abstinent for long periods of my adult life and it didn’t seem to do me any harm. Everyone should probably be abstinent and out of any relationship for at least 6 months at some point in their adult lives just to prove to themselves that they won’t die or be utterly miserable if they don’t have sex and/or a boy/girlfriend. But early, thoughtless marriage just because one wants to have acceptable sex and fancies oneself in love with the first person one is attracted to is utter poison. Much better to have meaningless sex with strangers than to be tied for life to someone that you don’t respect and love.

Sorry, try again. My position is backed up by social science, biological science, and common sense. Yours is backed up by your religious beliefs.

I reject the dicotomization that such religious beliefs and social and biological sciences and common sense are not compatible.

My tax dollars shouldn’t go towards teaching kids your religious beliefs.

But it’s entirely legitimate to spend tax dollars on teaching a given concept that is in accord with religious beliefs as long as the concept itself is not a religious one.

“Sex education is not equivalent to teaching sexual ethics. That’s a specious argument.”

The point of this law was to add a particular ethical viewpoint to the required sex ed curriculum in Wisconsin. It’s that addition that I refer to, not the whole topic of sex ed to begin with. I’m making the presumption that prior to this, Wisconsin’s sex ed curriculum was values-free, more of a “here’s how it works” presentation, and that this is the first time that any content was added regarding when or why to have sex. On that basis, I asked my question - is the objection to this law based on the fact that the schools are now being required to teach sexual ethics overall, or is the objection based on the particular sexual ethics that are being required to be taught?