“Abstinence-only education doesn't work” - that's a fair headline. It may seem socially liberal, but it is true. Note that I'm keeping that moniker for those programs even if some aren't 100% abstinence-only programs. They choose to refer to themselves in that manner; I give some views about why that might be below. But whatever the reasons, both sides of the political sex-ed debate refer to such programs as abstinence-only. Anyway, here's my reasoning for why such a headline is accurate:

1. Right now, most programs in the US are not abstinence-only programs (but that doesn't suggest that all other sex-ed programs are solid, comprehensive, adequate programs or that all areas even have sex ed). 30% are abstinence-only, according to, “Letter to a Christian Nation”, by Sam Harris.

2. Under our current “system” (for lack of a better word), we have a certain level of teen sexual activity and a certain level of associated problems, problems which are greater than what all of our First World friends experience

3. The study found here mentioned in this recent UK article shows that abstinence-only education programs fare no better than our current “system”

In other words, if the premise is that what we have now is flawed because too many teens have sex, and abstinence-only is pushed as a solution to this problem, this study shows that abstinence-only programs do not work because they fare no better. I'd say that such headlines are rather fair, especially given that abstinence-only as an ideology itself is flawed. Indeed, there's evidence that abstinence-only programs are actually harmful.

The recent article on the issue which I've already referred to above attempted to single out just this set of studies and avoided the unavoidable greater discussion involving religion, the culture war, politics, and so forth. The discussion extended to the forum, where the "rabbit like" screwing of teens was blamed on liberals. This is good evidence that a greater discussion of the underlying philosophies involved from each side are in order, despite protests to the contrary. While it might seem like a watering down of the issue, the current climate is what it is and such issues are intricately connected. Indeed, the author of that article used this issue primarily to make a case for media bias, further evidence of the greater discussion.

A quick diversion here is in order to address the liberal's “fault” for the “rabbit screwing” that's going on. We can't single out those aspects of our culture which are seen as negative in terms of sex and profanity and such and associate them just with liberals. While the sexual revolution was part and parcel of the liberal movement, it was also inevitable and has happened in most modern nations. How nations respond should be what we measure.

But even if we keep it simple and sort of ignore that for now, and say that liberals allowed our current sexual freedoms, can we still blame liberals for what's seen as the negative outcome of this process? In a liberal democratic society with freedom of speech (a society like ours, in other words, doing away with the conservative re-branding of the term “liberal” for the moment), but more so in a libertarian society, in the context of a free market, products are made that appeal to people. Liberals want this market regulated or adjusted or amended by, for example, funding PBS and NPR, and by requiring TV stations and such to air ads about smoking and other human safety concerns, as well as some control in a more nanny like direction, labeling products and such as inappropriate for minors. Note that none of these arguably good ideas do their work by violating the constitution. Conservatives want to adjust this free market by censoring based on their own dogma, by restricting, to the degree which they now can (but trying to tamper ever more), nipples, full frontal nudity and a handful of choice combinations of letters to give just a few examples. A very silly attempt this is, as that infamous Super Bowl demonstrated: directly before Janet's breast was exposed, "sexual" music with sexual dance went along its merry way for all to see.

In any case, I challenge the morals of the Right. I challenge someone to explain the morality of the “you are healed, send me your money, Jesus will reward you” fraud shows which ensnare too many. I would much rather ban such shows if I were to ban any. I'd also have allowed, for example, sex on the Rosanne show. Real, uncut, sex, with John Goodman. Comparing those two kinds of shows, we can see that one is a lie, the other, reality. One is something that hopefully won't mislead too many, the other is a natural activity that the majority of human kind will engage in anyway. If I were king and had a wish to ban material, using morality as my ideal, eroticism and sexuality would be at the bottom of my list, behind wrestling and other violence which has documented links to real-world violence, along with shows that purport to be non-fiction, yet have people talking to animals via telepathy or to those who have “crossed over”. I'd ban cartoons which mock education and homework long before I'd consider axing the Spice and Playboy channels, or MTV, and so on.

Would Howard Stern's use of phrases such as “pussy cat” or “pussy willow” to get around the censors have nearly the same appeal if certain letter-combinations weren't singled out? Of course not. His show does for many today what James Bond did for many in the 60's. Both push the boundaries. If we lower these artificial boundaries, and “grow up” as a society, if we let our kids drink responsibly at home, if we allowed women to show their breasts (or even breast-feed!) without feigning disgust or outrage, we could singlehandedly stamp out shock-jock smut, college binge contests and high school booze parties, and nice chunk of the American porn industry, the highest in the world per capita (a direct inverse relation to our outward, pretend, prudishness!) We know this works because other comparable countries experiment with these ideas in various ways. Conservatives ought to just allow us to grow up. Indeed, many of their cliches are compatible with this view, personal responsibility and how to handle what our society throws at you, like alcohol, for example. We shouldn't desire, as a nation, to have the tribal sexual views of an ancient belief system made the pretend standard of the land, and alas, this is the issue with the social conservative movement.

And now back to the issue at hand. There aren't any comprehensive programs which are the polar opposites of abstinence-only. What would they be called, “Mandatory teen sex and how to go about it” programs? All comprehensive programs mention that, for example, condoms can fail and that refraining from all sexual activity is the only 100% sure fire way to remain free of STDs. In that sense, all programs include talk of abstinence.

This is somewhat analogous to the abortion debate in that one side advocates choice, meaning, one can choose to have an abortion according to one's own values and beliefs, while the other side forces a particular option. Choice is a moderate position as it doesn't require abortion, and comprehensive sex ed is the moderate view as it doesn't require teen sex. Social conservatives, via religious zealots, fuel both non-moderate views. As I mentioned briefly above, the article attempted to show that media is simply biased liberally towards comprehensive sex ed, and perhaps they are, as this is in that realm of science-backed progressive/modern ethics focusing on the alleviation of suffering rather than the propagation of ancient dogma, but those headlines alone do not betray this. Such liberal social “bias” is a good thing, IMO. The media generally also do not apply non-scientific dogma when referring to homosexuals. They don't call gays diseased or immoral individuals, for example – I give a detailed view of this here, read it for context.

What this is really about is religion; more on that below.

Here are the facts about sex education. While a pure apples to apples is indeed hard, there do exist statistical meta-analysis methods that are used to accurately merge various studies with differing numbers of criteria and persons involved, etc. I don't know if the conclusions in that study mentioned above used such a system, but some of the following stats are constructed in that way. We can get a better idea of abstinence sex programs from some of the following, by sampling other working models of sex education, for example.

From Wikipedia:

Scientific study of sex education

The debate over teenage pregnancy and STDs has spurred some research into the effectiveness of different approaches to sex education. In a meta-analysis, DiCenso et al. have compared comprehensive sex education programs with abstinence-only programs.[13] Their review of several studies shows that abstinence-only programs did not reduce the likelihood of pregnancy of women who participated in the programs, but rather increased it. Four abstinence programs and one school program were associated with a pooled increase of 54% in the partners of men and 46% in women (confidence interval 95% 0.95 to 2.25 and 0.98 to 2.26 respectively). The researchers conclude:

"There is some evidence that prevention programs may need to begin much earlier than they do. In a recent systematic review of eight trials of day care for disadvantaged children under 5 years of age, long term follow up showed lower pregnancy rates among adolescents. We need to investigate the social determinants of unintended pregnancy in adolescents through large longitudinal studies beginning early in life and use the results of the multivariate analyses to guide the design of prevention interventions. We should carefully examine countries with low pregnancy rates among adolescents. For example, the Netherlands has one of the lowest rates in the world (8.1 per 1000 young women aged 15 to 19 years), and Ketting & Visser have published an analysis of associated factors.[14] In contrast, the rates are:

• 93.0 per 1000 in the United States (85.8/1000 in 1996)
• 62.6 per 1000 in England and Wales, and
• 42.7 per 1000 in Canada
• 15.1 per 1000 in Belgium (1996)[15]

We should examine effective programs designed to prevent other high risk behaviors in adolescents. For example, Botvin et al. found that school based programs to prevent drug abuse during junior high school (ages 12–14 years) resulted in important and durable reductions in use of tobacco, alcohol, and cannabis if they taught a combination of social resistance skills and general life skills, were properly implemented, and included at least two years of booster sessions.

Few sexual health interventions are designed with input from adolescents. Adolescents have suggested that sex education should be more positive with less emphasis on anatomy and scare tactics; it should focus on negotiation skills in sexual relationships and communication; and details of sexual health clinics should be advertised in areas that adolescents frequent (for example, school toilets, shopping centres).

Isn't it amazing how countries which have used different strategies to deal with their sexual revolutions, strategies based on damage control and the alleviation of suffering, using pragmatic, dogma-free, responses, countries which by and large have legal prostitution and which allow women's breasts to be displayed publicly, seem to fare better than us, in part because of their more sophisticated sex-ed programs?

As a final note, I have skimmed the rather long worded study, the study that I linked to above and that was mentioned in regard to liberal media bias. It contains a few troubling items, items which help illustrate the true reason behind these abstinence-only programs. Here is the definition given for abstinence education programs:

A. Have as its exclusive purpose teaching the social, psychological, and health gains to be realized from obtaining from sexual activity

B. Teach abstinence from sexual activity outside marriage as the expected standard for all school-aged children

C. Teach that abstinence from sexual activity is the only certain way to avoid out-of-wedlock pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and other associated health problems

D. Teach that a mutually faithful, monogamous relationship in the context of marriage is the expected standard of sexual activity

E. Teach that sexual activity outside the context of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects

F. Teach that bearing children out of wedlock is likely to have harmful consequences for the child, the child's parents, and society

G. Teach young people how to reject sexual advances and how alcohol and drug use increases vulnerability to sexual advances

H. Teach the importance of gaining self-sufficiency before engaging in sexual activity

My comparison with ancient Egypt in this article wasn't fancied at the forum, being criticized as using mere semantics, that Egyptian monogamy is merely their version of marriage. But in order to make that case, one would have get past notions of virginity, one spouse for life except in the case of death, and other specific aspects of the dogmas at play in our current society. Going by that list above, we can't easily say that the Egyptians were “married” or had an American sense of the associated morality just because they frowned on cheating. Humanity hasn't always adopted the views which we pretend are normal in America. The government of Egypt during the time period I speak of didn't care about the marital status of its citizens. There seemed to be no taboos against premarital sex, and virginity wasn't prized in the way that we pretend to prize it today. Indeed, that list is clear evidence that those who champion the views of the social conservatives, whether they know it or not, are influenced by the religious masters of this greater discussion.

The Christian Right is obsessed with premarital sex, and, why shouldn't they be? Such activity, although patently normal even though we pretend otherwise, is frowned upon Biblically and the Biblical-literalist sects primarily make up that political movement. This movement is expressed as Right-wing lobby influence, such as the Christian Coalition, which has become among the five most powerful in DC, and as middle-America deceit in the form of front-end groups such as, “Focus on the Family” and other similar propaganda, the "Left Behind" series and such. Indeed, it seems that Republicans are unable to win major elections without the specific help of this segment. This clearly explains 180's by such otherwise more moderate politicians like McCain, who formerly called these types loons but now endorses them and some of their views. While it used to be much more common (Barry Goldwater is a good example), it is very difficult these days to find a public and vocal conservative figure who doesn't mix religion into to his rhetoric.

I think it is acceptable for well educated teens to have safe monogamous sex before marriage and the facts seem to agree. Why should physical experimentations at such a young age define the rest of someone's life? We know societies can compensate for these natural human tendencies using our working European and other First World nation models. What about gay teens? They aren't able to get married – should they alone refrain from sexual experimentation? Some of the more moderate conservatives at useless-knowledge have agreed with me that all marriage should be as it is in some parts of Europe: civil unions. If a religion wants to bless this legal union, they are free to do so, or, to refrain, without affecting the legal status of the couple. A very liberal idea, which, unfortunately, doesn't exist in the USA and probably won't for some time. Indeed, had America the mindset to begin with for such pragmatic, science-supported views, we wouldn't be having a discussion about abstinence-only education at all and that is of course precisely the overall point I'm attempting to make in this article.

In days past, the same idea could be applied to interracial couples. Marriage was a point at which conservative ideology, which often meant discriminatory, non-progressive narrow views, could clamp down and enforce its ancient will on society. The caste system in India is perpetuated in a similar way, as are the revenge killings and burnings and such in some Muslim societies, and the tribal “owning-the-women” issues in parts of Africa.

I also think that folks should be able to experience sex without ever getting married if they choose to do so. On a purely personal note, I, like the libertarians, feel that it is quite frankly not the government's role to fund programs meant to urge people to get married, and not just for the reasons stated above. Conservatives will usually argue at this point that the family is a key unit at the base of our society and such, but other First World models already have solutions to this “problem”. A progressive system where education is pushed and at least partially subsidized, and where a social safety net helps those who may falter, not only binds a nation together into a more homogeneous mix (something that I claim American needs and something which is explained in the interview that I discuss here), but also prevents forcing people into an ancient marriage situation if they choose otherwise.

Indeed, I would argue that the rest of the First World has, in part, moved on. They've dealt with the some of problems which resulted from their various sexual revolutions. They've changed their paradigm and adjusted. They've progressed. Virtually all of our social problems, be it inner city crime, or teen abortions, can be traced back to, at least in part, the social conservative push (usually powered by specific religious views) to prevent this inevitable change.

	Web useless-knowledge.com