Sexual Abstinence

@ebrown p,

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Nature favors an orderly, civilized type of promiscuity within a functioning society.

That cracked me up eb. It's a masterpiece of compression. I won't say what it compresses.

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@CalamityJane,

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Well, apparently I have to talk to you like I do to my child otherwise it won't sink in.

Oooooooooww, love it Cal, when you talk to me like that.

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I said, abstinence was not meant to be a form of birth control.
Of course it is, unfortunately not a good alternative!

It is the only form of birth control that makes any sense if you assume the intromitted male member ejaculating into the natural vagina is what is to be abstained from. Which I do assume.

One needn't abstain from ejaculating on the bed-sheets or the polished parquet floor or into an ashtray or indeed anywhere else other than into a pristine pooter-pie which, if all has gone well, has taken leave of its senses and is placing its confidence in the steadiness and cool-headedness of a loving partner in preventing any chance of events occuring which are not in its best interests at the time.

Other methods of birth control, whether mechanical contrivances or pharmaceutical substances, absolve the loving partner from the responsibilities mentioned, for his convenience, and fail to test his willingness to sacrifice himself for his beloved. Germaine Greer tells that Italian men consider such things unmanly irrespective of whether they are un-natural.

What won't sink in is the idea that mechanical contrivances or pharmaceutical substances have no negative aspects on the female in question and the relationship of the lovers. Not considering any of those is something of a cop-out.

I was a teenager myself, I have given lessons and lectures for teenagers and I see them in the pub. I hear about them as well. If the ones today unable to adhere to the simple and obvious method I have suggested are in the majority so much the worse for them.

I do acknowledge that puberty comes earlier than it used to but are you suggesting that the age of consent be lowered to 13 so that those between 13 and 18 need not be abstinent or that they should all be kitted out with the gizmos and potions and if those fail the embarrassing little life produced be transformed into just shapes and colours in a clinic with expert skill.

With the provisos I have stated I think males also should also be abstinent until marriage or at least until they are committed to marriage formally and after marriage as well until such time as they feel ready to accept the burden of bringing another human being into this weary world of woe. That burden might be a suitable subject for parental guidance and classroom instruction.

And if the alternative I have offered ceases to be mentioned to the point of it being forgotten then your alternative is all we have and romance would be dead no matter how exhorbitantly faked.

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@spendius,

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Other methods of birth control, whether mechanical contrivances or pharmaceutical substances, absolve the loving partner from the responsibilities mentioned, for his convenience, and fail to test his willingness to sacrifice himself for his beloved. Germaine Greer tells that Italian men consider such things unmanly irrespective of whether they are un-natural.

If I understand what you are saying here (and I am not sure if I do)... and I will set aside (with a brief mention) my distaste for any antiquated suggestion that men are "loving partners" and women are "beloveds" (if you were indeed making this characterization). Do beloveds ever sacrifice themselves?

But let me make the point...

It is ridiculous to suggest that in modern Western society men are absolved of anything. Men are are routinely held legally responsible for their offspring.. whether wanted or not. Until the recent advances in DNA men were often held responsible for other men's offspring because of untruthful women with multiple partners.

It is easier for women to shirk their responsibility when they conceive a life then for a man.

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@spendius,

spendius wrote:

I was a teenager myself, I have given lessons and lectures for teenagers and I see them in the pub. I hear about them as well. If the ones today unable to adhere to the simple and obvious method I have suggested are in the majority so much the worse for them.

Why? What's worse for them?

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I do acknowledge that puberty comes earlier than it used to but are you suggesting that the age of consent be lowered to 13 ......

Never! I am not talking about underage girls/boys here. We're talking about
teenagers who have reached the age of consent and that would be 16 at
the earliest (for my taste). I know that teens younger than 16 do engage in sexual activities, however, in my experience it has shown that teens under
16 don't have the emotional maturity and I would hope that my daughter
will wait until she reaches the maturity level to handle a sexual relationship.
I don't preach abstinence though and with the theoretical knowledge she
has already, she probably will make the right decision for herself, once
the situation arises.

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With the provisos I have stated I think males also should also be abstinent until marriage or at least until they are committed to marriage formally and after marriage as well until such time as they feel ready to accept the burden of bringing another human being into this weary world of woe.

Why again? What's so special about marriage that one has to save one's
virginity for her/him? Marriage asks for other commitments that are far more important, in my book at least.

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@CalamityJane,

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Never! I am not talking about underage girls/boys here. We're talking about
teenagers who have reached the age of consent and that would be 16 at
the earliest (for my taste).

Why not? What does your taste have to do with it? People can marry at 16 but very few do so. Doesn't setting an age of consent tend to encourage sexual activity at an earlier age. Who is to say that having no age of consent would lead to more sexual activity. It provides something to aim at. It might well lead to less sexual activity. It raises consciousness levels. More discussion. More professional discussers who end up creating more of the problem they are discussing and becoming more famous.

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What's so special about marriage that one has to save one's
virginity for her/him? Marriage asks for other commitments that are far more important, in my book at least.

It just seems a nicer way to start to me. I think it's important to keep the idea alive as an ideal just as the non-virgin white wedding dress does. I wouldn't recommend scrapping speed limits because they were constantly broken. It's the same sort of thing. Adultery isn't condemned by the major religions because God said it was wrong. It is condemned because of its negative effects of society. God has to stand in because the law is in difficulties with it.

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@spendius,

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People can marry at 16 but very few do so. Doesn't setting an age of consent tend to encourage sexual activity at an earlier age. Who is to say that having no age of consent would lead to more sexual activity. It provides something to aim at. It might well lead to less sexual activity. It raises consciousness levels. More discussion. More professional discussers who end up creating more of the problem they are discussing and becoming more famous.

does criminalizing swatches of sexuality change behaviour? I don't think we know. Last week there was a lot of back slapping over a study that shows that reports of child abuse are down. It was assumed that this means that child abuse IS down, and it was further claimed that the new more harsh treatment of abusers is the reason for the decline in abuse. However, it is just as likely that the reports of abuse are down because those who suffer abuse look around and see all of the draconian responses to abuse, how families and lives are ruined upon reporting, and decide the best course of action is to stay quiet.

All criminal sex is considered abuse, we don't know how closely reporting matches reality, so how can we know the effect of criminalizing sex?

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@spendius,

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It is condemned because of its negative effects of society

What do you mean by "negative effects" of adultery to society? Can you prove any?

Many American political leaders that have committed adultery. Several of these, LBJ and JFK included were successful politicians (i.e. they had a respected place and accomplished their goals).

When there is a problem, the problem isn't the adultery. The problem is the puritanical attitudes towards adultery. Bill Clinton had a fine presidency (in spite of his relationships with women he wasn't married to) until Kenn Starr started after him.

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@ebrown p,

How can you say that those guys were successful politicians and had a fine presidency when you have nothing to compare them with. Who knows what their losing opponents would have done? Who knows what you would have done? Or me even?

Let adultery not be a problem then. Not even the Romans went too far with that silly idea.

We might all be tempted, and succumb, but defending it is another matter altogether.

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What do you mean by "negative effects" of adultery to society? Can you prove any?

The greatest in the land being as weak-willed as a night-club bouncer. Authority a laughing stock. President Pantsdown. Give over eb. There is supposed to be dignity in the office which sends brave men to death and maiming. Not sniggering, sneering jests.

If adultery isn't shaming why the cover ups and the morbid interest of the public. Both of those are an admission of the shame as is us talking about it.

Adultery strikes at the root of property.

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@spendius,

The problem with President Clinton was not his adultery. It was the way that the press (reacting to the prudish American public) responded to it. This was combined with Clinton's own inability to deal with the issue. If he had just said, "This is a private matter I will not discuss" instead of waving his finger on national TV to defiantly state he did not have sex with "that woman" the scandal would have gone away. The problem wasn't the adultery....

JFK committed adultery. LBJ committed adultery. Martin Luther King committed adultery.

In countries that don't have the puritanical obsession that Americans (and I gather some Europeans) have with sex, adultery isn't an issue.

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@spendius,

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Let adultery not be a problem then. Not even the Romans went too far with that silly idea.

Just to correct you on this point. In Roman Law it was illegal to have sex with another man's wife. The law was to protect the husband (since he merited exclusive use of his wife).

It was completely legal, and acceptable for a married man to have sex with unmarried women, prostitutes or slaves. In this case, no husband was harmed. The married man would not be viewed as having wronged his wife by sleeping with another woman, or of having harmed society. I don't think the Latin word for "adultery" was even used for married men having sex with unmarried women.

I don't think this was the point you were trying to make.

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@ebrown p,

What is sex eb. I don't think making crazy patterns on intern's frocks is sex nor adultery. It is bad manners. I defined sex for you earlier. All the rest is like acrobats performing with a safety net. That might be skillful but it isn't daring.

What's your definition of sex? You can't talk about something you can't define.

The England football captain has just been sacked ignominiously for adultery in World Cup year amid a media feeding frenzy and scenes of general humiliation as we saw the lady in the case simpering her way to a £250, 000 gobstopper. For now I mean. She has changed her mind once and there is no guarantee that she won't again.

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@ebrown p,

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I don't think the Latin word for "adultery" was even used for married men having sex with unmarried women.

Possibly not but their wives had a way with revenge which we frown upon.

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@spendius,

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Life is not long, and too much of it must not pass in idle deliberation how it shall be spent; deliberation, which those who begin it by prudence and continue it with subtlety, must, after long expense of thought, conclude by chance. To prefer one future mode of life to another, upon just reasons, requires faculties which it has not pleased our Creator to give us.

Letter from Samuel Johnson to James Boswell.

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February 12, 2010 4:00 A.M.
Abstinence and the Left

Why does the New York Times hate teen abstinence?

Alarmed by a recent well-publicized study showing that abstinence education succeeded while “safe sex” and “comprehensive” sex-ed programs failed, the Left has abandoned its “abstinence doesn’t work” claim and drawn up a new line of defense.

Consider what the New York Times had to say. According to its editorialists, the newly evaluated abstinence program succeeded because it was “freed from the moralistic overtones and ideological restrictions” of prior abstinence education.

You can bet that anyone who pontificates about “moralistic overtones” in abstinence education has never held an actual abstinence curriculum in his hands, let alone read one.

Why does abstinence education come under unending, if completely uninformed, attack? In part, because abstinence was strongly associated with the Bush administration " and anything tied to Bush has always been fair game to liberals.

In addition, real abstinence curricula teach three things that are anathema to the sex-education lobby running things in Washington, D.C.

First, abstinence programs teach that teens should abstain from sex until they have at least finished high school. Ninety-one percent of parents agree. But the “comprehensive” sex-ed programs promoted by House Speaker Pelosi and President Obama teach that it’s okay for teens to have sex as long as they use a condom. Only 9 percent of parents agree.

Second, abstinence curricula teach that sex should be linked to “love, intimacy, and commitment” and that these qualities are most likely to be found in marriage. Again, 90 percent of parents support this message. But the Left is appalled at “privileging” marriage over casual relationships, cohabitation, or “hooking up.” The “ideological” message of abstinence has to go!

Finally, abstinence education teaches (with special emphasis for poor, at-risk youth) that marriage can be beneficial to children, adults, and society. The black out-of-wedlock birth rate in the U.S. now hovers at 70 percent; the overall out-of-wedlock birth rate is nearly 40 percent. Non-marital births overwhelmingly occur to the least-educated parents, and out-of-wedlock childbearing is the strongest cause of child poverty in the United States. Therefore, one might think that mentioning the benefits of marriage to at-risk youth would be good idea.

Wrong! Nothing outrages the Left’s sex-ed advocacy industry more than telling at-risk youth that healthy marriage might be a good thing for them. (Safe bet: No sex-ed curriculum funded by the current Congress will say anything positive about marriage.)

Now, to return to the Times editorial, it’s true that the recently evaluated abstinence program urged abstinence but apparently did not contain the three themes outlined above. However, there is no reason to assert, as the Times does, that this abstinence program succeeded precisely because it lacked these themes. There had been eleven prior evaluations documenting the success of traditional abstinence programs, which the Times neglected to mention to its readers.

The bottom line: The sex-ed industry’s successful effort to kill federally funded abstinence education was about liberating teens from “ideological” and “moralistic” messages. The dilemma for the Left is that parents overwhelmingly approve these messages and condemn the core values of the “comprehensive” sex-ed programs currently pushed by Congress. Teaching teens that “hooking up” is a fine idea so long as you use a condom just doesn’t fly.

Hawking a product no one wants, most left-wing sex-education advocates conceal their agenda with smoke and mirrors. Since most liberal pundits have never read the actual curricula they condemn or applaud, it’s no surprise the pundit class sometimes ends up deceiving itself.

" Robert Rector is a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

Why does the New York Times hate teen abstinence?

Well, of all the bullshit defenses of abstinence only "education" programs, this has got to be the bullshittiest. Little wonder, then, that Finn was taken in by it.

Robert Rector, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, wrote:

Alarmed by a recent well-publicized study showing that abstinence education succeeded while “safe sex” and “comprehensive” sex-ed programs failed, the Left has abandoned its “abstinence doesn’t work” claim and drawn up a new line of defense.

The "Left" hasn't abandoned its "abstinence doesn't work" claim, primarily because it never made that claim in the first place. Of course abstinence prevents unintended pregnancies and STDs, and no one would argue otherwise. What Rector's opponents object to isn't discussing abstinence as part of a general sex education program, it's abstinence-only programs -- you know, the kind that Rector is actually supporting but doesn't have the balls to admit explicitly. No, he'd rather talk about "abstinence education," as if abstinence is simply one part of the curriculum. But abstinence isn't one part of the curriculum, it's the only part of the curriculum. That's the problem. Abstinence education is fine, abstinence-only "education" is a disaster.

Robert Rector, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, wrote:

First, abstinence programs teach that teens should abstain from sex until they have at least finished high school.

What complete, unmitigated horseshit. Abstinence-only programs (note how Rector studiously avoids the "only" part of that) teach that teens should abstain from sex until marriage. It's not like these abstinence-only advocates are telling kids: "as soon as you take off the cap and gown, there will be an orgy in the football stadium parking lot sponsored by the Key Club."

Robert Rector, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, wrote:

Non-marital births overwhelmingly occur to the least-educated parents, and out-of-wedlock childbearing is the strongest cause of child poverty in the United States.

Correlation does not equal causation.

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@joefromchicago,

joefromchicago wrote:

"as soon as you take off the cap and gown, there will be an orgy in the football stadium parking lot sponsored by the Key Club."

Ours was sponsored by the Knights of Columbus.

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@chai2,

chai2 wrote:

Ours was sponsored by the Knights of Columbus.

Kinky!

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

conceal their agenda with smoke and mirrors. .

" Robert Rector is a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation.

concealing agendas - a particular talent of Mr. Rector

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@Finn dAbuzz,

In Finn's cut and paste job, Robert Rector wrote:

Now, to return to the Times editorial, it’s true that the recently evaluated abstinence program urged abstinence but apparently did not contain the three themes outlined above. However, there is no reason to assert, as the Times does, that this abstinence program succeeded precisely because it lacked these themes. There had been eleven prior evaluations documenting the success of traditional abstinence programs, which the Times neglected to mention to its readers.

Earlier in Finn's CP job, though, Rector wrote:

In addition, real abstinence curricula teach three things that are anathema to the sex-education lobby running things in Washington, D.C.

So, the three things that Rector lists--what he describes as real abstinence curricula--weren't part of the recently evaluated abstinence program that the Times editorial referred to? What then, were the themes that the program did contain, which one can infer, Rector would regard as unreal, or false, abstinence curricula? Can Rector be any more convoluted in his rationalizations as he pushes his Heritage Foundation agenda?

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@joefromchicago,

Chicago Joe

Take a deep breath and grab your knee caps so they'll stop jerking.

Do you realize that the study that the NYT cited was of an abstinence only program?

The study would not have made news if it showed that including abstinence in a general sex ed course was effective.

If the study is valid, and thus far no one is seriously suggesting it is not, then there remains only one rational reason for opposing abstinence only education and it is centered on a belief that there should be very few, if any, social mores that attempt to govern sexual behavior.

If that's what you or anyone else believes that's fine. I love sex and with the exception of practices that involve minors, animals and the unwilling or incompetent, I almost always will oppose legal restrictions on it. I use "almost" not because I can think of any exception to my rule, but because I know the nature of debate in this forum.

If, however, you believe in some notion of Free Love, be honest (as some posters have been) and admit it. If that belief is driving your opposition to abstinence only sex ed, then why do you feel compelled to throw in the red herrings of ineffectiveness and (worse) increased risk of pregnancy and STD?

It is utterly ridiculous to argue that the reason so many kids do not use birth control methods is because they do not receive formal education on the subject.

The ludicrous argument we hear amounts to

"Yes, the abstinence message is well and good but what about those poor sub-humans in our inner cities who can't resist their natural urges? Should we leave them to rutting in the streets, unprotected?!"

Kids have known about birth control, at least, for decades. Today's kids actually see birth control ads on TV and in magazines. Survey 100,000 American HS kids and I bet you'll find the majority associate "Trojan" with condoms rather than Priam, Hector, and Paris or even USC football.

Abstinence only education is not going to flood the nation with sexually driven youths who have no notion of the consequences of intercourse or the means to prevent them.

Remove this specious argument from the equation and we are left with:

"Sex is good and marriage and fidelity ain't all they're cracked up to be, so let's not tell kids there is any reason why they should refrain from sex or limit themselves to one partner."

To hell with all of the statistics and studies about the personal and social price of teen sex, individual desires should never be governed in any way and those who attempt to do so are clearly reactionary, frustrated, Puritans.

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Sexual Abstinence

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