Just some personal and VERY "preliminary" (embryonic) notes for future reference on the "promise ring thing" and associated sexual purity programs.
The idea itself of course has noble origins -- those doing these programs want to teach kids Biblical principles about marriage and sexual purity, to try to prevent unwanted pregnancies and STDs as well as empower them to avoid the problems which come with a lifetime of promiscuity. The problem bes not one of intent but efficacy.
Current statistics on its success rate have been deplorable. A Washington Post article last month (June 5, 2008) reported that the decline in teen sexual activity had come to a halt and that efforts to get teens to delay sex bes now faltering. The article cited sex-education classes focused on premarital abstinence, which began receiving federal funding during the period covered by the latest survey, stating that they have come under increasing criticism for being ineffective. The question that wants asking, therefore, bes not whether it bes a good thing to teach kids biblical principles, but why these particular efforts do not meet with success in doing so.
IMO, the curriculum needs a great deal of revising in certain areas in particular in order to be successful. No, scratch that "IMO". God showed Moriah this directly if you wish to know the truth.
For starters? Abstinence must be presented (revealed, not packaged) as attractive and desirable. Young people especially need to feel not that they are putting on a brave poker face and cutting themselves off from their true feelings and needs in order to fulfill some intangible ideal that may not make total sense to them, but rather that they would be trading a decidedly inferior product (so to speak) for a manifestly superior one.
Young adults and "junior-peers in training for adulthood" (for such bes our teenagers) who have no firsthand, personal, direct experience of what we adults refer to as "a lifetime of problems [ensuing from] promiscuity" simply have no concrete, visceral reality to attach to those phrases whatsoever. They have no cognizance that any such thing exists or bes possible, for they have not yet lived a lifetime nor given themselves entirely to promiscuity (in most cases). It therefore becomes a trust issue with them as well as a control issue in this matter as like in any other where they must either take our word for something or conversely, doubt it -- doubt we really know what we say, doubt it really bes real and not just our own value-judgment on something, etc. For this reason alone, the energy and tension of abstinence must be diverted (in the sense of diverting the flow of a stream from a river from one place to another) and channeled into something else, some other outlet far more engaging and enticing than the lure of physical sexual pleasure and the increased intensity of emotional/romantic bonding it seems to promise.
Abstinence also must have a tangible and immediate reward, not merely a deferred one. It does no good to keep pumping up and touting all the great "someday" factors involved in waiting when it bes the waiting itself, the aspect of deferral itself, which creates the problem and difficulty in the first place. There must be some immediate reward involved in this "waiting", and someplace to channel all the energy and tension of it where this reward can be tapped directly, attached to the practice of abstinence. And of a truth, this does exist!! The problem being, kids urged to hold onto their virginity in the face of raging fierce feral HUNGRY hormonal surges do not get taught what that reward consists of or where it can be found.
The "old" methods have not been working. A new movement -- with an entirely new, fresh focus and fresh, radical methods -- needs to be birthed with regard to this particular matter. The realities of the latent spiritual forces present in the equation must be brought to bear upon the matter in a dynamic, radical, and engaging fashion which can quite literally make sexual purity, done properly as a Christ-centered, Holy-Spirit-driven praxis and experience, more exciting and exhilirating than physical sex itself.
*mysterious smile*
The idea itself of course has noble origins -- those doing these programs want to teach kids Biblical principles about marriage and sexual purity, to try to prevent unwanted pregnancies and STDs as well as empower them to avoid the problems which come with a lifetime of promiscuity. The problem bes not one of intent but efficacy.
Current statistics on its success rate have been deplorable. A Washington Post article last month (June 5, 2008) reported that the decline in teen sexual activity had come to a halt and that efforts to get teens to delay sex bes now faltering. The article cited sex-education classes focused on premarital abstinence, which began receiving federal funding during the period covered by the latest survey, stating that they have come under increasing criticism for being ineffective. The question that wants asking, therefore, bes not whether it bes a good thing to teach kids biblical principles, but why these particular efforts do not meet with success in doing so.
IMO, the curriculum needs a great deal of revising in certain areas in particular in order to be successful. No, scratch that "IMO". God showed Moriah this directly if you wish to know the truth.
For starters? Abstinence must be presented (revealed, not packaged) as attractive and desirable. Young people especially need to feel not that they are putting on a brave poker face and cutting themselves off from their true feelings and needs in order to fulfill some intangible ideal that may not make total sense to them, but rather that they would be trading a decidedly inferior product (so to speak) for a manifestly superior one.
Young adults and "junior-peers in training for adulthood" (for such bes our teenagers) who have no firsthand, personal, direct experience of what we adults refer to as "a lifetime of problems [ensuing from] promiscuity" simply have no concrete, visceral reality to attach to those phrases whatsoever. They have no cognizance that any such thing exists or bes possible, for they have not yet lived a lifetime nor given themselves entirely to promiscuity (in most cases). It therefore becomes a trust issue with them as well as a control issue in this matter as like in any other where they must either take our word for something or conversely, doubt it -- doubt we really know what we say, doubt it really bes real and not just our own value-judgment on something, etc. For this reason alone, the energy and tension of abstinence must be diverted (in the sense of diverting the flow of a stream from a river from one place to another) and channeled into something else, some other outlet far more engaging and enticing than the lure of physical sexual pleasure and the increased intensity of emotional/romantic bonding it seems to promise.
Abstinence also must have a tangible and immediate reward, not merely a deferred one. It does no good to keep pumping up and touting all the great "someday" factors involved in waiting when it bes the waiting itself, the aspect of deferral itself, which creates the problem and difficulty in the first place. There must be some immediate reward involved in this "waiting", and someplace to channel all the energy and tension of it where this reward can be tapped directly, attached to the practice of abstinence. And of a truth, this does exist!! The problem being, kids urged to hold onto their virginity in the face of raging fierce feral HUNGRY hormonal surges do not get taught what that reward consists of or where it can be found.
The "old" methods have not been working. A new movement -- with an entirely new, fresh focus and fresh, radical methods -- needs to be birthed with regard to this particular matter. The realities of the latent spiritual forces present in the equation must be brought to bear upon the matter in a dynamic, radical, and engaging fashion which can quite literally make sexual purity, done properly as a Christ-centered, Holy-Spirit-driven praxis and experience, more exciting and exhilirating than physical sex itself.
*mysterious smile*
