abstinece-only sex education

Well you can't teach much about how to have safe sex when you limit your curriculum to 'just don't do it', can you?Here is a relevant article on the Planned Parenthood site. I liked it.

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Abstinence-only education is one of the religious right's greatest challenges to the nation's sexual health. But it is only one tactic in a broader, longer-term strategy. Since the early 1980s, the "family values" movement has won the collaboration of governments and public institutions, from Congress to local school boards, in abridging students' constitutional rights. Schools now block student access to sexual health information in class, at the school library, and through the public library's Internet portals. They violate students' free speech rights by censoring student publications of articles referring to sexuality. Abstinence-only programs often promote alarmist misinformation about sexual health and force-feed students religious ideology that condemns homosexuality, masturbation, abortion, and contraception. In doing so, they endanger students' sexual health.

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I know I have read some of those recent reports you are mentioning.
I'll see if I can dig one up.

Funny. I was actually told that just nearby my house there used to be one that read, "If your ass is black it better be out of town before sunset."Convergent Americana ?Edited by EZscience, : screwed up formatting

Care to provide some statistical evidence for said increase, along with specifics of their exact nature?
There are new STD's emerging all the time, but I think incidence of the older ones is down a lot and they are more treatable and ameliorated in impact than ever before.
Thanks to science I might add, not any ridiculous abstinence pipe dream.

Sounds like you are doing a great job with your daughter.
I take much the same approach with mine. But you say: ...right after you just said: So how can you say the system is working?
The American public education system is so obviously abysmally bad as you recognize, but you shouldn't be so willing to accept that.

quote:

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The range of diseases spread by sexual activity continues to increase.

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Which reflects the evolution of new diseases that have found that human sexual contact is a useful way for them to get around, not the same as the incidence of established diseases.
They tend to be cyclical.Your article is pretty superficial.
Why not try one with some actual statistics.
You will see that most have a cycle of incidence that peaks and then declines. Note that both gonhorrea and syphilis have recently reached all time lows. Why not? It's the same for all forms of disease, really.
We intervene with science to try and impede transission, ameliorate the health impact for individuals, and diminish the amplitude of the incidence peak in the population, but they still pretty much follow follow a cycle of their own.Did you know many animals have sexually transmitted diseases that often lead to their sterility. Is God punishing the poor dumb beasts as well?You have clearly denied that STDs are a public health issue and insist on making them a moral issue. They then exit the domain of science and epidemiology to become 'god's punishment' for humans who are only following natural behavioral impulses - by YOUR judgement and that of people like you who have an agenda to manipulate public morality. And that is your same approach to trying to restrain sexual activity in young people. Make it a black and white moral issue, with no middle ground for anyone. THAT's why abstinence fails, even among those who pledge to adhere to it. And the data clearly show that abstinence pledgers are less well equipped to protect themselves against STD's when they finally succumb to biology. So your unrealistic preaching of black-and-white morality is actually contributing to the problem, rather than helping.Edited by EZscience, : Added last paragraph

Not at all. I just think you're wasting time and money trying to change sexual behavior to the extent you expect to with abstinence. There is just too much biological force behind its expression. Accepting that, we need to provide young people with useful info on how to protect themselves WHEN they decide to have sex. And that should be,a nd always will be, THEIR decision. And yet we human's do, don't we?

Yes, we are glorified animals - no evidence exists to the contrary.
But no, we are not at the mercy of our biological forces. That doesn’t follow and no one said that. Only that these forces will operate to influence the frequency of behaviors when viewed at the level of the population. Abstinence is too extreme an approach to be an effective strategy for manipulating sexual behavior. Science doesn’t ”know’. It’s simply a *process* for separating fact from fantasy. That’s all. How long are we supposed to ”wait and see’ if abstinence works. Faith? No one is at the mercy of their biological forces as an individual. That doesn’t mean that biological forces won’t shape the frequency of observed behaviors in the population. Once again, you are putting words in my mouth. I never said the decision did not need guidance, only that teaching abstinence is a waste of time and money and actually deprives young people of useful information. It derives from this unnatural, distorted, puritanical christian revulsion of sexuality and the impractical desire to see all manner of useful sex education eliminated from the schools. Don’t talk about how sex works or how to do it safely. Just consider it taboo and off the menu until marriage. You will learn all you need to know then. Right? For the last time Faith, it is not a question of ”science’ itself being right or wrong. Science is completely amoral - without moral implications. It’s just a very effective technique for testing ideas. And abstinence isn't testing very well. Once again, you are putting words in my mouth. You can see it differntly and still count, but you have to make an actual, evidence-based case for the effectiveness of abstinence if you want to convince anyone you’re right about it working. Otherwise its just another pie-in-the-sky, ”this how the world should be’, unrealistic ideal.

Dear me, Faith. So many misconceptions. Where to start . . That’s not tantamount to denying free will. It is considering the ultimate, as opposed to proximate, causes of behavior. But you don’t accept evolution, so I won’t go into it. You mean like during the dark ages or the inquisition? They had much better enforcement of your precious ”moral laws’ back then. And they still had prostitution, homosexuality, and all the supposedly ”immoral’ behaviors we see today. So teaching abstinence is NOT an attempt to manipulate human behavior !? Once again, you are talking about science as an entity which it isn’t. You have to level that accusation at scientists. I said the evidence suggests it isn’t working. You haven’t produced any evidence to suggest it is. Scientific opinion is balanced on a balance of the evidence and you haven’t produced any. You are not only presenting dogma and hoping it will pass for evidence, but you are also dismissing evidence-based conclusions as dogmatic pronouncements when they are no such thing. Let’s not take things out of context. I (*personally* - not in the name of SCIENCE) pronounced the christian phobia of all things sexual as ”unnatural and distorted’, among other things. This is well-recognized - the puritanical fear of sex as something dirty and ”ungodly’ - and that’s the reason your ilk opposes sex education despite the obvious benefits. I submit that science is one of the most civil and honorable of all human enterprises. It never condemns opposition- only challenges it to produce evidence (which, once more, I notice you haven’t - evidence that abstinence works, that is). Not so, I have considered it objectively, but I have yet to see evidence of its effectiveness, although I have certainly seen evidence of its negative consequences. No, I am simply waiting for some evidence that it *is* working. Still don’t see any. Faith, when you are seeking mechanistic solutions to a demographic problem you have to employ mechanistic language and concepts. You only find it depressing because it excludes your preferred ”non-mechanistic’ world view. Where did I say they were ”fixed and immutable’? Come on Faith, you try and twist everything to make it seem unreasonable when it isn’t. All I said is that sexual behavior has evolved as a function of strong biological forces and will not be effectively countered by teaching abstinence. Why don’t you then. Don’t you think some education on the ”mechanics’ of human sexuality would be useful for teens to get while they are still young, insterad of learning by trial and error? Wrong again. Science imposes no moral perspective. That’s what ”ammoral’ means. Now you are trying to equate ”ammorality’ with ”immorality’. Is it? And here I thought it was because of rap music. Sorry Faith. ”Right’ in a moral sense and ”right’ in a scientific sense CANNOT be equated. This is what you are trying to do. Science makes no such judgements and teaches nothing about morality - these ”judgements’ w/r/t to morality only exist within your own inferences. You are extrapolating these moral implications - not science. Science teaches nothing about morality. ”Testing’ in the simple sense of testing the outcome of an abstinence curriculum.
How would you propose it be tested without collecting some quantitative data? You are drawing only selective inferences that fit your predetermined perspective - as usual. Listen to what you are saying, Faith. First off, oh that that were true, but I can’t think of a single country in the world where it is less likely to be true at the moment. Second, you are now blaming science for the failure of the abstinence program? Science predicted it wouldn’t work, and now it is ensuring it was a self-fulfilling prophesy? You can’t believe that.

NWOAR(not worthy of a response)

Yes. And keep in mind that, as Ned has pointed out, we are not saying don't include recommendations regarding abstinence in a sex education program - only that it should not be relied on exclusively and to the exclusion of other information pertaining to the mechanics of human sexuality. Abstinence can still be recommended, but it cannot be relied on to be effective by itself. It's mindless idiocy to think that it can, but then mindless idiocy seems to dominate the policy of our current dictatorship and their fascist supporters on all fronts.

The problem is that Faith is approaching this from an exclusively moral standpoint as the christian right is prone to do, and refusing to recognize the problem as a public health issue.While teen promiscuity certainly has 'moral implications' for the christian doctrine regarding human sexuality, it is very much a public health-and-wellbeing issue for society at large. The negative consequences of teen pregnancy and spread of STD's have ramifications that extend far beyond a threat to a single view of morality.Publicly funded programs have to be held to higher standard than simply appealling to some moral priniciple, even if that might be a prinicple currently espoused by the majority. The have to be shown to produce the desired results to be worthy of public funding. In this case, the desired results are fewer teen pregancies and lower rates of STD transmission, something the abstinence-only program is failing miserably to achieve. It's time to revert to a broader base of sex education in the schools, and begin it in earlier grades.How can continued use of public funds for 'faith-based' abstinence programs be justified without results?
And how can the program be evaluated without resorting to all the scientific, quantitative and mechanistic language that Faith abhors?Sex education is a public health issue that has currently been high-jacked by the christian right at the expense of the rights of all taxpayers in this country.

I understand your desire to deal with it that way, but as you yourself recognize, short of a miracle, the whole country isn't going to adopt strict christian morality. So we need to seek a practical solution for the shorter term. No, it fails because sooner or later, kids are going to have sex, regardless of their religion or what anyone has told them is right or wrong. There you go, lashing out at science again, simply because you don't like how it works, what it tells us, or want to play by its rules.But I fail to see how science has any relevance to whether kids should or should not receive some practical instruction into the mechanics of sexuality as they approach maturity.
It's very much a social and political issue, but it's not an issue that science takes a stand on. You seem to be mounting a very circuitous argument that because people are influenced by scientific reasoning, ergo they lack morality, ergo abstinence isn't working, ergo science is to blame. That dog won't hunt.Edited by EZscience, : No reason given.

While promiscuity is obviously a factor in transmission rates, the mere 'opportunity for transmission' is not sufficient to account for the emergence of new diseases. And what makes you so sure they are so ”new’. Maybe what has increased is our ability to detect what previously passed unnoticed. Chlamydia might fit in this scenario. Furthermore, there is no evidence to suggest ”promiscuity’ only became rampant in the 70’s and 80’s. It has a history as old as humanity itself, as others have pointed out.
(i.e. at least 6,000 years, by your chronology )But I am still trying to absorb the implication of this statement.
Could it possibly be that you have accepted the concept that diseases can "evolve"?
I mean especially the ”new’ diseases you contend have arisen - wouldn’t these qualify as new ”species’?
I just can't believe I actually got you to use the word as a verb in a sentence, quotes notwithstanding. Apparently you found it a useful term, or even necessary to make your point. No, you’re missing the point. All diseases have cycles. They may become epidemic, but inevitably recede to become endemic. Human intervention may affect the magnitude and human impact of the disease cycle, or eventually eliminate some diseases entirely, but these cycles occur WITHOUT human intervention. They can be observed in animal populations. Ever hear of myxamytosis? If you had a better biology education you would know that disease cycles occur because (1) diseases have a tendency to evolve reduced virulence to their hosts, given long periods of association (it is ultimately in their interest to do so), and (2) because the host population gradually evolves immunity and/or tolerance. It’s like a continuing arms race, only there are payoffs for the disease to attenuate its impact and for the host to become more tolerant. Thus, the scale of the conflict is eventually reduced and host and disease co-evolve toward an equilibrium of coexistence. This might not be appropriate for us to wait for in the context of human STD’s, but that was my point - diseases are cyclical. Faith, diseases ARE business as usual in biology. They are a selective force on all animal populations, just like predation and parasitism. They aren’t going away and there will always be new ones emerging. You can view the latter as a punishment from god if you like - I view it simply as adaptive radiation in microorganisms. Really? And here I thought it was merely the entirely natural human desire for sex. Really? Have philosophers initiated any medical breakthroughs that I happened to miss? Or perhaps you believe if we all shared your philosophy, then god would be so pleased with us that all STD’s would just magically disappear? Sorry, but if that’s true, how did this ridiculous “abstinence only’ crap get as far as it has? Firstly, we have established that STD’s have been around as long as humanity itself (we can find them in insects, for crissakes), so they didn’t just take off in the 60’s. Secondly, ”sexual freedom’ is not some sort of philosophy. It is a natural, biological phenomenon and it has been with us, in one form or another, from the beginning of civilization. Don’t you know that women in ancient Egyptian experimented with particular plant extracts to try and both control their fertility and induce abortions?I can tell what is an ”unnatural philosophy’ - the idea that human beings should completely repress their sexual urges precisely at that time in their life when they are learning about how to enjoy them for the first time. THAT’s unnatural and runs counter to everything biological, and that’s why it won’t work.Edited by EZscience, : Sppellling

Actually, I am quite sure this particular term is post-Darwinian. Let me guess. Armageddon ? Edited by EZscience, : No reason given.

Sorry. I'll try and remain that way. But you are right, the various theories of gradual change in species begain 'evolving' around the turn of the 18th century. Darwin cites 38 other authors as influencing his ideas in the preface to his first edition. My goodness Faith, for a Christian, you're such a pessimist.
Who else could bridge from the failure of abstinence-only sex education to the complete demise of western society?