Report: Abstinence programs don't work

[TheOutsider]

Also keep in mind that studies show that the rates of premarital sex haven't gone up significantly since the 1950's.

I'm not exactly sure why, but I love that study so very very very much. I still laugh every time I read about it.

 

[lawtonfogle]

Um, I don't know what is so surprising about that survey. Really, how can abstinence only work when everything else in society works against it?

 

[LouTheWicked]

Kinda makes you want to sneak into schools and teach them sex ed yourself, eh?

From what I've heard all these people are doing is "Don't have sex it's bad, m'kay?" and not really going into any further details.

 

[LouTheWicked]

I was a peer counselor in high school. I talked to a lot of kids about sex and the like. Several girls actually told me, and this is true, that placing a tab from a soda can inside themselves after sex would keep them from getting pregnant. One girl swore up and down that it worked because she did it and said she never got pregnant.

Its truly frightening to hear all the mythos that arises when kids dont have the proper education

Ah, the ol' coca cola technique. What a way to mess up your PH levels and risk a nasty infection.

Yesterday I was looking at a thread on another forum about a girl who was using the pull-out method and rhythm method, she'd only just started wondering if she was pregnant. Unbelievable how people are too damn lazy to purchase proper contraception.

 

[NPH]

There's a quote I like that goes, "Vows of abstinence break more easily than latex condoms." And it's true.

There's a quote I like even better

"Abstinence-only Sex Education is a bit like 'Just hold it' potty training" - Roy Zimmerman

 

[TheManeki]

I always found it funny that in my neck of the woods, sex ed was taught for a few weeks in gym class.

Yeah, take a group of kids who are ready to run around and make noise, and expect them to sit still and pay attention instead. Yeah, that's an environment that is conducive to learning.

 

[LouTheWicked]

I think they'd be listening quite intently once the words "penis" and "vagina" are mentioned.

 

[TheManeki]

I think they'd be listening quite intently once the words "penis" and "vagina" are mentioned.

Maybe if they had talked about things we wanted to hear. Instead, everything was pretty dry and clinical, and taught by two little old ladies. Our reaction was mainly nervous giggles and to poke fun at the class as covertly as possible. I still remember one boy who was called up to the front to point out and recite the different parts of the male genitals. He had us in stitches as he said the right word for each part, but also mispronounced each one as well.

The main points of their teaching (in a public high school) were --
* If a girl has sex, she'll get pregnant.
* If you have sex outside of marriage, you will almost certainly get an STD.
* There is no bone in the penis, so stop calling it a "boner" (this was one of the teachers' pet peeves)

Points 1 and 2 left a lot of false assumptions that took a whike to unlearn. The only useful thing they told us was how to put on a condom (which they demonstrated over a small wooden shaft -- ouch!). Now if they had only told us about latex allergies...

 

[Peach81]

I feel one thing that counters abstinence is the culture of America itself, which promotes sex in all of its music and videos as if it is something that youth should be engaged in.

Oh, it's that darn rock music those kids are listening to these days. No, I don't think so. Hormones push kids to sex, not music and tv. Once puberty happens, the sex button gets turned on, and nothing ever turns it off.

Furthermore, with Americans working some of the longest hours in the world families no longer spend time with their kids and provide education.

Easy to say when you have money. Not so easy to say when you have to constantly work overtime because your base salary can barely support a dog, let alone a family.

 

[Phred]

Sex is like mining and teenagers are like miners... (not minors!)

Basically abstinence-only programs send kids into the mines, surround them with sparkly gold and tell them, "don't mine!" When they do and there's a cave-in is it any wonder? If you're gonna send kids into the mines they need to know how to do it safely just in case they can't stand the temptation of all that sparkly gold in the walls. No parent would ever allow their kids to go into the mine without a hardhat or proper materials to shore up the shaft. (comon, stop giggling)

Now, I don't much care who teaches them. But doesn't it make sense to teach them? Because no matter what you say to them they're surrounded by sparkly gold all day long. Not many are gonna manage not to reach out and touch it.

 

[feral]

I think a pro-abstinence education is great, provided it is delivered packaged with straightforward discussions on birth control methods, a thorough explanation of what STDs are and how they are transmitted, a common sense approach to popular myths and misconceptions, anatomy education and discussion on the effects sex has on emotional well-being, relationships and individuals. An education that only provides the "no" message is incomplete, and I don't see how either parents or educators can feel good about themselves delivering only partial knowledge to teens whom they expect to make educated choices about sex.

Encouraging abstinence is good, but I also think we go about that in the wrong way, by accentuating the cons of sex rather than the pros of abstinence: no emotional burden about it, no guilt (a discussion on guilt, religion and sex would hijack the thread, so I won't), no pregnancy, no stds, no having to wake up the morning after dumped, freedom to make choices for your own life and not for two, etc. Abstinence can be pretty appealling if you are able to recognise benefits from it in your own life, but I don't think sex education does a good job of pointing those benefits out.

The major issue I have with parents who deliver only an abstinence message is that they alienate their children. The teens are left thinking their parents are too naive or sheltered to be of any assistance, or that their parents won't love them any more if they confess to needing birth control, suspecting pregnancy, or are just curious about how far is far enough. Parents have to work hard, I think, to get their expectations and opinions across in a way that still invites their teen to turn to them even if they are choosing to engage in sex.

 

[NeTrips]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071108/ap_on_re_us/teen_sex;_ylt=Ajn.29Dw7XCXRA.LOZTh.mHVJRIF

WASHINGTON - Programs that focus exclusively on abstinence have not been shown to affect teenager sexual behavior, although they are eligible for tens of mil lions of dollars in federal grants, according to a study released by a nonpartisan group that seeks to reduce teen pregnancies.

"At present there does not exist any strong evidence that any abstinence program delays the initiation of sex, hastens the return to abstinence or reduces the number of sexual partners" among teenagers, the study concluded.

The report, which was based on a review of research into teenager sexual behavior, was being released Wednesday by the nonpartisan National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.
The study found that while abstinence-only efforts appear to have little positive impact, more comprehensive sex education programs were having "positive outcomes" including teenagers "delaying the initiation of sex, reducing the frequency of sex, reducing the number of sexual partners and increasing condom or contraceptive use."

"Two-thirds of the 48 comprehensive programs that supported both abstinence and the use of condoms and contraceptives for sexually active teens had positive behavior effect," said the report.

A spending bill before Congress for the Department of Health and Human Services would provide $141 million in assistance for community-based, abstinence-only sex education programs, $4 million more than what President Bush had requested.

The study, conducted by Douglas Kirby, a senior research scientist at ETR Associates, also sought to debunk what the report called "myths propagated by abstinence-only advocates" including: that comprehensive sex education promotes promiscuity, hastens the initiative of sex or increases its frequency, and sends a confusing message to adolescents.
None of these was found to be accurate, Kirby wrote.
Instead, he wrote, such programs improved teens' knowledge about the risks and consequences of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases and gave them greater "confidence in their ability to say 'no' to unwanted sex."

The sponsors of the study praised Kirby for his "thorough research" and for being "fair and evenhanded," but they also acknowledged that ETR Associates developed and markets several of the sex education curricula reviewed in the report. Several of the previous studies that were reviewed also were written by Kirby.
The report noted that there continues to be "too high levels of sexual risk-taking among teens" with 47 percent of all high schools students reporting having sex at least once and 63 percent saying they have engaged in sex by the spring semester of their senior year.
"Many teenagers do not use contraceptives carefully and consistently," said the report. About 40 of every 1,000 girls age 15 to 19 gave birth in 2005, the last year for which data was available, the report said.
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Discuss...

The published results are not all that shocking considering the source. Asking the seller of sex-ed materials to objectively report on the effectiveness of the competition is like asking Ford to objectively evaluate GM. Come on folks, the cyber high fives really aren't merited over this story.

Did anyone even bother to look at the sponsors, the *ahem* "non-partisan" National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy? Let's see, yup, Planned Parenthood, several members of the Brooking's Institute, MTV, Warner Bros, heck, even Whoopi Goldberg. That sounds like sound scientific backing to me. not.

 

[mhager]

The published results are not all that shocking considering the source. Asking the seller of sex-ed materials to objectively report on the effectiveness of the competition is like asking Ford to objectively evaluate GM. Come on folks, the cyber high fives really aren't merited over this story.

Did anyone even bother to look at the sponsors, the *ahem* "non-partisan" National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy? Let's see, yup, Planned Parenthood, several members of the Brooking's Institute, MTV, Warner Bros, heck, even Whoopi Goldberg. That sounds like sound scientific backing to me. not.

Well, here is a succint report of the findings of several studies (properly footnoted so you can go to the original data if you want) indicating that abstinence-only education simply doesn't work.

111.siecus.org/policy/research_says.pdf

(just change the 1's to w's. I'm not allowed to post links yet)

The agencies producing this information inculde the states of Pennsylvania, Texas, Arizona, Kansas, Minnesota, and Maryland. Also included is federally funded study done on behalf of The Dept. of Health and Human Services. All came to the same conclusion, that abstinence only education simply doesn't work at preventing pregnancy and sexual activity. Some of the studies (primarily the federal one) also indicated that abstinence only causes a rise in anal and oral sex and 1/3 less use of contraception.

Also mentioned in the summation I provided is a study of 16,000 students published in the British Medical Journal of July of this year which concluded that the rate of STD's, pregnancy, frequency of sexual activity and the number of partners was unchanged. It also concluded that the reduction in the rate of pregnancy in the US and Great Britain was caused not by abstinence education but by an increase in the use of condoms. (reference to original source in the link above, if you want it).

The bottom line is that research shows that abstinence only education is not effective. One wonders what the goal of it's proponets really is in the face of these facts. Could it be that what they are really concerned with is what they percieve as the proper moral choice being tought rather then what really works?

 

[KomissarSteve]

The published results are not all that shocking considering the source. Asking the seller of sex-ed materials to objectively report on the effectiveness of the competition is like asking Ford to objectively evaluate GM. Come on folks, the cyber high fives really aren't merited over this story.

Did anyone even bother to look at the sponsors, the *ahem* "non-partisan" National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy? Let's see, yup, Planned Parenthood, several members of the Brooking's Institute, MTV, Warner Bros, heck, even Whoopi Goldberg. That sounds like sound scientific backing to me. not.

Fan-tastic - now where's your evidence that abstinence education works?

 

[NeTrips]

Fan-tastic - now where's your evidence that abstinence education works?

Start a thread and I'll join you there after the weekend. Let's not derail this thread.

 

[NeTrips]

Well, here is a succint report of the findings of several studies (properly footnoted so you can go to the original data if you want) indicating that abstinence-only education simply doesn't work.

111.siecus.org/policy/research_says.pdf

(just change the 1's to w's. I'm not allowed to post links yet)

The agencies producing this information inculde the states of Pennsylvania, Texas, Arizona, Kansas, Minnesota, and Maryland. Also included is federally funded study done on behalf of The Dept. of Health and Human Services. All came to the same conclusion, that abstinence only education simply doesn't work at preventing pregnancy and sexual activity. Some of the studies (primarily the federal one) also indicated that abstinence only causes a rise in anal and oral sex and 1/3 less use of contraception.

Also mentioned in the summation I provided is a study of 16,000 students published in the British Medical Journal of July of this year which concluded that the rate of STD's, pregnancy, frequency of sexual activity and the number of partners was unchanged. It also concluded that the reduction in the rate of pregnancy in the US and Great Britain was being reduced not by abstinence education but by an increase in the use of condoms. (reference to original source in the link above, if you want it).

The bottom line is that research shows that abstinence only education is not effective. One wonders what the goal of it's proponets really is in the face of these facts. Could it be that what they are really concerned with is what they percieve as the proper moral choice being tought rather then what really works?

Greetings and welcome, mhager.

I don't want to derail this thread as the OP is on the one report. Start a new thread and i'll join you there after the weekend.

 

[WatersMoon110]

Why make another thread when both topics are incredibly close to this one topic?

 

[KomissarSteve]

Start a thread and I'll join you there after the weekend. Let's not derail this thread.

Yikes...uh, Trips? Perhaps you ought to read the title of this thread and check the OP?

'cause...the efficacy of abstinence-only programs kinda is the topic of this thread!

So yeah, snap to it.

 

[Peach81]

Start a thread and I'll join you there after the weekend. Let's not derail this thread.

I started this thread, and I say that it will not derail this thread and I insist on you bringing any evidence to back up your claims to the table.

 

[NeTrips]

my evidence regarding my claims as to who is on the board: http://www.teenpregnancy.org/about/staff/leader.asp

as to my pointing out the obvious bias by the ones conducting the "study", from the OP:

ETR Associates developed and markets several of the sex education curricula reviewed in the report

those are the only claims I've made.

The title of the OP is "Report: Abstinence programs don't work" and it only presents one article for consideration.

If the efficacy of abstinence programs in general was the intended topic, you may want to edit the OP to reflect such and provide more than one study for consideration. I'll check back after the weekend and see if that's the desired direction. Take care all.