Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Abstinence Only Sex Education

(Sorry for the break - I was in Illinois/Missouri for a week)

As I logged out of Hotmail today, I saw a news feed on MSN about whether abstinence only sex education is the way to go or not. Well, in case you are from a civilized place and have never heard of that, abstinence only sex education is the kind of sex ed in which kids are told sex is bad, condoms never work, and if you have sex you'll get pregnant and AIDS. Going to school in Lake City, Florida, that is the kind of sex ed I received. Now, I'd like to think I'm an intelligent person, so I was able to dismiss all that as stupid. However, I don't really know if I would call most of Columbia High's students intelligent. Kids are going to have sex. That's all there is to it. So if you're being told that condoms never work (specifically, I was told they fail 80% of the time), why would you bother wearing one? Which might be why so many girls in my graduating class were pregnant or got pregnant soon after high school. Anyway, it never hurts to tell people the truth, vaguely Christian based government. Take it from me, an expert on teaching because I was a teacher.

RATING: 4%

9 comments:

LoCo said...

Someone Lauren worked with "showed up" pregnant and Lauren's supervisor commented, "I don't even think she knows how it happened." The woman is 24. Whoopsies! That'll be one smart kid.

Anonymous said...

It's spoiled by sex liberation...

Anonymous said...

I never use a condom, not because I think that they're ineffective and therefore pointless, but because I can't find any that are big enough to fit me. ;)

laurie said...

Okay I think we're going to have to get some of the other Lake City kids to weigh in here, but I was in that school system for every bit of my pre-college education and I did not receive abstinence-only sex ed. Did some sane person come in during the one year between your sex ed and mine? I dunno, but I definitely learned to use condoms and spermicide and junk and I sure as hell didn't learn it from my clueless parents. Other L.C. kids, what did you learn?

DCP said...

Well, I was definitely never shown anything about contraceptives except that they didn't work. Also, don't you remember those abstinence assemblies we had like every three months? Like that one where the Christian group came in and broke cinder blocks and then said don't do drugs or sex?

Anonymous said...

Have you seen the push-back on abstinence-only education; it's Abstinence... the condom.

www.abstinencethecondom.com

Spread the word, not STDs!

laurie said...

WTF? I don't remember any abstinence assemblies. Cinderblocks? Huh? I do remember this one lady coming and giving this really graphic talk about stds. It gave me an overwhelming fear of herpes that has not faded one bit since. But she definitely pushed condoms, too. Maybe we got a new superintendent when I was in 9th grade or something.

Anonymous said...

I always buy my own condoms, because guys are always buying ones about ten sizes too big for their puny little pecks.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I think I missed the boat on this post, but I am also from Lake City and I remember it like Glenn: "There are these things called condoms, but they don't really work. They actually don't prevent HIV at all, either." That's how it went.