I'm not expecting to win an argument here. I realize I'll be in the minority, and less intelligent and less-informed than most who respond.
Thanks for helping me muddle through my ideas and thinking.
I would ask people to be respectful, civil, and to ask out-of-the-box questions about this complex issue, rather than only repeating what the media reports.
Personally, my current position is that kids should be taught about sexual biology. Kids (in high school, not earlier) should be delicately taught about things like contraceptives and abortion (just so they hear about these things in schools first rather than their peers first, but they should not be taught how to do these things)--as well as why they are wrong--and oral sex (and other popular degradations); along with more time spent on a positive spiritual teaching about the meaning and goodness of sexual feelings, the goodness of sexual integration, purity and freedom (maturity),;and the goodness of sex within marriage, the importance of good character (as to sexuality) for having true friendships; and the moral wrongness of sexual immorality, like fornication, inappropriate contentography, masturbation, anal sex etc. The program should explain the social, emotional, psychological, and economic consequences, of having sex before marriage.
I would like to know more about how sex ed has been taught in schools, and what are the good and bad effects and ethical issue involved.
If anyone has been taught abstinence-only sex ed in schools I would like to know their experience and what it entailed.
Was anyone taught using the Sex Respect or other of the more reputable abstinence programs, like Sex Can Wait, Friends First, Pure Love Club, PEERS, Choosing the Best, Heritage Keepers, Best Friends, Worth the Wait, For Keeps, or other?
Also, what does "comprehensive sex ed" entail exactly in school, in your experience?
Some of the other related issues for me are:
--what was the rate of teen pregnancy and teen STD before comprehensive sex ed?--say, in 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, 1940, 1950.
--what is the rate of pre-marital sex and teen pregnancy, and abortion, and STDs today in states where comprehensive sex ed is taught?
--in states where abstinence-only is taught.
--how exactly is the efficacy of comprehensive (or abstinence only) measured? how do we know we are dealing with causation rather than correlations?
(btw, my hypothesis as to why abstinence only is reported not to work is that perhaps it is based on a Puritanical model involving too much fear and a failure to affirm the goodness of sexual feelings, and because--perhaps?...--it is being taught in a culture where even family values people have accepted contraception, and are thus not fully integrated or happy themselves)
--how can we control for all the variables?
--even if comprehensive sex ed is more effective at preventing STDs and teen pregnancies--which it may well be, usually--why would that prove that it is a good thing, or that it has more good effects than bad (which may not be getting measured, for cultural reasons)?
--if you are someone who believes in comprehensive sex ed, how do you know that it correlates (or causes) with more good effects than bad effects?
--how do we know that the those who are doing the studies on abstinence only (or comprehensive sex ed) are unbiased?
Thanks for helping me muddle through my ideas and thinking.
I would ask people to be respectful, civil, and to ask out-of-the-box questions about this complex issue, rather than only repeating what the media reports.
Personally, my current position is that kids should be taught about sexual biology. Kids (in high school, not earlier) should be delicately taught about things like contraceptives and abortion (just so they hear about these things in schools first rather than their peers first, but they should not be taught how to do these things)--as well as why they are wrong--and oral sex (and other popular degradations); along with more time spent on a positive spiritual teaching about the meaning and goodness of sexual feelings, the goodness of sexual integration, purity and freedom (maturity),;and the goodness of sex within marriage, the importance of good character (as to sexuality) for having true friendships; and the moral wrongness of sexual immorality, like fornication, inappropriate contentography, masturbation, anal sex etc. The program should explain the social, emotional, psychological, and economic consequences, of having sex before marriage.
I would like to know more about how sex ed has been taught in schools, and what are the good and bad effects and ethical issue involved.
If anyone has been taught abstinence-only sex ed in schools I would like to know their experience and what it entailed.
Was anyone taught using the Sex Respect or other of the more reputable abstinence programs, like Sex Can Wait, Friends First, Pure Love Club, PEERS, Choosing the Best, Heritage Keepers, Best Friends, Worth the Wait, For Keeps, or other?
Also, what does "comprehensive sex ed" entail exactly in school, in your experience?
Some of the other related issues for me are:
--what was the rate of teen pregnancy and teen STD before comprehensive sex ed?--say, in 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, 1940, 1950.
--what is the rate of pre-marital sex and teen pregnancy, and abortion, and STDs today in states where comprehensive sex ed is taught?
--in states where abstinence-only is taught.
--how exactly is the efficacy of comprehensive (or abstinence only) measured? how do we know we are dealing with causation rather than correlations?
(btw, my hypothesis as to why abstinence only is reported not to work is that perhaps it is based on a Puritanical model involving too much fear and a failure to affirm the goodness of sexual feelings, and because--perhaps?...--it is being taught in a culture where even family values people have accepted contraception, and are thus not fully integrated or happy themselves)
--how can we control for all the variables?
--even if comprehensive sex ed is more effective at preventing STDs and teen pregnancies--which it may well be, usually--why would that prove that it is a good thing, or that it has more good effects than bad (which may not be getting measured, for cultural reasons)?
--if you are someone who believes in comprehensive sex ed, how do you know that it correlates (or causes) with more good effects than bad effects?
--how do we know that the those who are doing the studies on abstinence only (or comprehensive sex ed) are unbiased?
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