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March 11, 2004

That sounds like Rock and/or Roll

Daily News Online - News and Commentary

Part of the problem with the Virginity movement is that it presupposes Virginity as a worthy and important thing. Perhaps I'll feel different about this when I have kids, but I disagree pretty vehemently. Sex is normal, and healthy; human. Encouraging mental and physical health around it should be our number one goal...

What abstinence programs instead promote is a regime which (given that they tell budding adults to deny one of the very things which makes them human) is explicitly unhealthy. Treating sex as though it were inherently sinful is inhumane.

And the fact that they don't even work:


The study found that STD rates for whites who pledged to stay virgins was 2.8% compared with 3.5% among other teenagers. Among African-Americans, the rates were 18.1% and 20.3%. Among Hispanics, they were 6.7% and 8.6%.

No, I don't consider those results to be significant. Average Abstinent program person is only 1.27% less likely to contract an STD than the average non. In the sample size of 12,000 that translates into 153 extra STD...

Given that [...] the study found they [abstinence programmers] start having sex later and have fewer partners than other teenagers. This tells me that the Abstinent ones who have sex are actually more likely to have an infected partner than non-abstinent ones. Especially if the 12% abstinent who stay that way are factored into the overall STD rankings (since they aren't going to get infected, everyone else must be doing so at an even higher apparent rate)...

Really fun was this comment:

Under US law, abstinence programmes risk losing federal funding if they stray into the realm of sex education. Church-based abstinence programmes are openly hostile to condoms and preach that they do not guard against disease.
That sound you hear is me smacking my head against the wall. If condoms are 70% effective (and I think they are closer to 90%...) then teaching students that they are not effective is just a lie. And that lie is putting students at risk. At the very least, the curriculum must be revamped. Perhaps we can scrap it altogether...

Posted by Andrew at March 11, 2004 09:52 AM

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