Ahem.

[apocalypsos]

Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston are arguing in the media whether abstinence works.

Okay, let's try this again.

I'm a 31-year-old virgin and abstinence works for me. I've never had a pregnancy scare and I've never had an STD scare. Woohoo! (Let's just ignore the fact that I'd love not to be practicing it. In fact, I'd love not to be practicing it with nearly all of the actors who've played Winchester men on Supernatural. Sorry, Weechesters.)

Here are your problems, abstinence-only educators:

1. Not everybody will want to practice abstinence.
2. Those who don't shouldn't be subjected to a snotty attitude of, "Oh, well, sucks to be you, you whoring slut, hope you enjoys the teen pregnancy babies and herpes!"
3. Those who do should at least be taught that getting themselves off is not going to secure them an aisle seat on the Satan train and that eventually having sex will not cover them in icky girl cooties or taste like licking a dirty toothbrush or whatever stupid shit you feed these poor kids.
4. All of that is going to require not lying to your students.
5. Oh, and not sticking your fingers in your ears and singing, "LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU," when someone puts forward the question, "Well, what do I do if I don't want to practice abstinence?" Because, hey, refer to #1.

Bristol and Levi might have been practicing abstinence once upon a blue moon. All that practice, and they officially had to drop out of the Abstinence Olympics when all of the sex started.

Comments

[gweneiriol.livejournal.com]

As a 36 year old virgin I just want to say "HELL YEAH!" to this post. :D

[becassine.livejournal.com]

2. Those who don't shouldn't be subjected to a snotty attitude of, "Oh, well, sucks to be you, you whoring slut, hope you enjoys the teen pregnancy babies and herpes!"

This is basically the message our sex education teacher gave us at the age of 16 when she asked how many students had had sex (the legal age is 16 here) and a good third put their hands up.

I think schools should promote safe sex just as much as abstinence. Some teachers really do take the attitude that if you don't abstain you deserve to get STDs and become another statistic in the teenage mum debate.

[the-jackalope.livejournal.com]

The thing about this that kills me is that education never hurt anyone. EVER. In fact, the opposite is true. Education prevents harm and ignorance causes it. And shouldn't it be our duty as, oh I don't know, PEOPLE be to prevent harm?

[broken-klaive.livejournal.com]

I was a product of abstinence only education.
That worked great.
I may hit 100 partners by the time I hit 35. My point.. IT DOESN'T WORK. The first time you fall off the train, you realize it's NOT a speeding train and it's more like jumping off the swing set.
Sex is FUN, and you can have protection, you CAN be clean and you CAN keep your self respect. I've had one girl almost walk out the door on me when I told her how many people I've been with.. ONE. out of MANY. No one cares how many people you've been with if they're secure with themselves, and who wants to sleep with a man or woman who's scared of someone MAYBE knowing more than them in bed? They don't know YOU in bed, it's a new experience every time.
Be safe, Be selective, get tested OFTEN, ALWAYS BE SAFE.. ALWAYS.. and communicate with your partner. If you're going to share a peen or a groove then you can share medical histories. But Abstinence only is a terrible idea because it's founded on a lie.
It's one thing to decide to abstain because it's a choice(I have the highest respect for Virgins and born again virgins.) yet preaching as if it's the only choice is WRONG.

[beanarie.livejournal.com]

To paraphrase the wise Donna Summers, if you know your kids are going to jump in that pool, shouldn't you make sure you teach them how to swim?

[lothlorienbaby.livejournal.com]

I think #4 is my big problem with abstinence programs: they resort to lying. And that really undermines the whole idea. There are plenty of very good reasons to practice abstinence that have nothing to do with the threat of hellfire or cooties. Misinformation just makes the problem worse.

And clearly Bristol went off message a couple of months ago when she said abstinence wasn't realistic. Momma probably threatened to hunt her from a helicopter if she didn't start this abstinence-only campaign. I pity the girl because she obviously doesn't believe a word she is saying and she is about as prepared for this campaign as her mom was for the Katie Couric interview.

[etoilepb.livejournal.com]

The other thing that absolutely kills me about this willful ignorance is that they won't be teenagers forever. And even if they do only practice sex within the confines of a heterosexual marriage, they'll still need to know someday. It's appalling how many college friends / dorm hall-mates I ended up outlining the very basics of reproductive science to. And how many women in particular (because they have more to lose, but men should also be held responsible) get clear through their 20s and even into their 30s without knowing the basics about conception, contraception, and disease transmission.

[foxxydancr.livejournal.com]

I can't believe a teacher asked that. I wouldn't want to be 'outed' at that age...

[titti]

Doesn't a child end that argument before it even starts?

These 2 need to shut up.

[aesvir.livejournal.com]

For this 24-year-old virgin, abstinence probably worked because I had a naturally lower sex drive. You can have one style of teaching that works with kids who aren't all that attracted to their classmates in high school, but you need a totally different approach for teenagers who feel strong desires. Also, women, especially, should learn to give themselves orgasms. If you don't want to engage in premarital sex, knowing how to get yourself off will make you less inclined to seek partners. If you do like sex with other people, understanding your own body and demanding respect from your partner is important. (TMI: it's sort of sad that some of my friends who have sex don't really enjoy it and think that orgasms are mythical / bad sex is the norm.) If you're going to have sex, have good sex.

That said, I do come from a traditional Asian culture, and I believe that people should stay abstinent until they are making decisions as mature adults. It's not an age thing (some 18 year-olds are more mature than the 30-somethings on the Real Housewives TV series, for example). But people should approach sex from a situation of respect for oneself and for the other person involved.

Also: my high school used the TMI approach for sex ed. Everyone took bio, where we learned about eggs, sperm, progesterone, vans deferens, etc. Then we had to watch the Discovery channel video showing a live birth with the camera pointing straight up the lady's vagina. Watching all that blood and fluid come up scared everyone off penetrative sex for years.

[kitarra.livejournal.com]

I came from a very strict background. My parents never touched when I was young. And on top of that I was sexually assaulted when I was 13. Sex was never mentioned or talked about other than to say that one didn't do it until one was married. Hell I had to have my best friend explain masturbation to me when I was 19.

That didn't stop me from losing my virginity to a dildo wielded by another girl. I was 20. My ultra strict parents were two rooms away watching TV.

Of course I didn't have sex with a guy until I was 29 but I had plenty of other kinds of sexual activity between those two events. Just not penetration. In the clearest sense of the word I was practicing abstinence...though not by any definition that any sane person would recognize.

I guess the point that I am trying to make is that even if you manage to convince someone not to stick tab A into slot B there are a whole lot of things that can be done up to that point and unless you educate people properly on how to do it safely you and still spread disease and even get pregnant (not that there is much change of pregnancy with frotage but still).

[scrimschaw.livejournal.com]

We saw that video, too! I closed my eyes and put my hands over my ears and hummed the whole time. I am still scarred by it. D:

Also: Abstinence = Yay! It gives less to worry about, like relationships, pregnancy, STDs, and other fun stuff! :)

[aesvir.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that video was horrifying...truth is better than fiction.

I guess my take is abstinence + porn (er...quality porn), until you're mature enough to treat yourself and the other person right and handle all the consequences. We should all approach each other as human beings with individual personalities, hopes, and dreams, rather than sex objects. It may be naive (which is why I'm still a virgin?).

[scrimschaw.livejournal.com]

Dude, it's so tough to find good porn. It's the search that that never ends!

If you're being naive, then I am, too. So sue me if I don't want to get into a horrible bucket of worms with someone I don't even like that much and likes me only for my vagina. I might just be subconsciously defending my virginity, but I really just don't want to have sex right now. I've got better things to do with my time. Like read (good) porn! :D

[akire-yta.livejournal.com]

i think the thirty-something virgins need to form a support group (I did have a huge post somewhere about sexual standards and no matter what you do as a single woman you are cultural screwed, even if not actually screwed, but i seem to have lost it)

i also second the HELL YEAH!

[akire-yta.livejournal.com]

reminds me of the story of a young married couple who were both from a strict religious background, who after a year of marriage still hadn't managed to conceive. They went to the fertility doctor, who ran the battery of tests - no problems there. So he started asking questions, and it basically turned out they had twin beds and had never done more than kissed. They thought that was where babies come from.

i am wondering if, beyond the religious angle, there is also an element of helicopter parenting here. Newsflash, guys - your kids will ask the local bag lady before they ask you about sex.

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

Could be worse. I once read a book on embarrassing emergency room stories in which one was about an elderly couple who never had children and went to the doctor because the wife was having some sort of problem in or around that area -- can't recall what it was -- and the doctor realized after examining her that the reason they never conceived was because they'd been having anal sex for their entire marriage.

[tieleen.livejournal.com]

I first thought 'well, they could lie', but really, the teacher kind of damned them by making them go with either answer -- and I'd think the only real statistic you'd be likely to get out of that, in a classroom full of teenagers, would be how many of them thought it was cooler/less mortifying to be known as having had sex vs. how many thought the opposite.

[broken-klaive.livejournal.com]

ROFL my parents were cool. The school just got to me first. They growled a bit when I moved in with my boyfriend, but I was 22 at the time. They didn't make to much of a thing over it. They just made sure I was serious about this guy and were more concerned about my financial situation than my Hyman stability.
I do know one girl who went to the same school as I did and her parents WERE copter parents.. she ended up being the Other woman for a guy 20 plus years her senior... when she was 17 (Not legal in NYS)
:\ I've seen no example of Abstinence Only education working long term. Kids eventually become adults and enter the real world.

[akire-yta.livejournal.com]

*mops tea off her screen with a tissue*

hey, they're right next to each other, easy mistake to make, really...*sniggers*

[becassine.livejournal.com]

Me neither although I did tell the truth and put my hand up. I figured that at 16 it didn't matter if I told the truth and our class/year was small (around 30 people) so everybody kind of knew what people had done/hadn't done.

[becassine.livejournal.com]

The teacher we had was kind of a crazy. She was convinced we were all going to hell blah blah blah which was kind of ridiculous considering our private school was in no way religious.

Everyone answered honestly as I recall. As I said in the comment below, 16 is the legal age here and it was a small class/year group (only about 30 of us) so everybody knew what somebody else had or hadn't done.

I think in the end, the teacher should have been lecturing us on how to keep safe rather than telling us we were wrong to have sex. There's something very wrong when teenagers are learning sex education from TV soaps instead of from their teachers/adults.

[foxxydancr.livejournal.com]

I guess my Highschool was a little different. there were only about 30 of us, too, but it was a girls school, and possibly a little more conservative, plus that whole lack of boys thing....but while we definitely gossiped about such things, it was much, much less open.

[becassine.livejournal.com]

I think having a mixed school helped with the openness. When I've spoken to my friends who went to all-girls or all-girls boarding schools, they always seemed to find boys all the more fascinating because they didn't get to interact with them. Whereas we were all 'meh... boys' because we'd been in a class with them from the age of 4.

[vivian-shaw.livejournal.com]

Not a virgin but might as well be, having been celibate by choice for something going on five or six years now, and I have to agree with every single one of these points. People (other than me) are going to bang one another whether or not the republican party approves, and the sooner they get that through their collective head the better.

(I love the fact that she's now an abstinence advocate. "Sure, I didn't practice it, but YOU should!")

[anne-jumps.livejournal.com]

Well, I've decided that it's pretty simple: they KNOW girls (girls are the main focus) will have sex, and they actually WANT them to. They want them to be young married mothers, out of the school and job market. Simple as that. But they have to do a careful dance of both giving lip service (if I may mix my metaphors) to the *idea* of abstinence/purity while also lauding young mothers for being "brave," etc. Once you stop taking them literally and stop expecting them to make sense, and you've read as much about it as I have (and I haven't even plumbed the depths, I'm sure) it becomes clear.

[beanarie.livejournal.com]

I'd get in on that action.

[akire-yta.livejournal.com]

it's the only action we're getting *boom-boom*

Thirty Year Old Virgins - we're much nicer than the crappy movie makes us out to be

or: Thirty Year Old Virgins - we just have high standards (and all the good toys)

*ducks*

[modillian.livejournal.com]

That makes a horrible kind of logic. Sadly, it makes more sense than just thinking they're craaaazy people. :\\\