A new study in the British Medical Journal confirms prior research indicating that abstinence-only education has no effect, positive or negative, on sexual behavior. As critics have long maintained, this review of available empirical research indicates that abstinence-only education does not prevent teenagers from having sex or reduce the incidence of sexually transmitted diseases. At the same time, and contrary to the claims of some critics, abstinence-only education does not appear to increase the rate of unprotected sexual activity. In other words, whether or not children receive abstinence-only education or more comprehensive sex education appears to make no difference at all.
If the BMJ analysis is correct, it would suggest that the raging political fights over the form and content of sex education in schools are purely ideological, not scientific. Both proponents and opponents of abstinence-only education claim that "science" supports their preferred approach, when the available scientific research suggests there really is not much difference.
Here is some BBC coverage of the study, and here is an informative episode of Justice Talking on abstinence education from several weeks back.
UPDATE/CORRECTION: As some commenters observed, it is an overstatement to say that this research suggests that no form of sex education can affect sexual behavior.
In short, possessing more accurate information about sex does not seem to lead to a difference in behavior. Similar things have been demonstrated or implied by research into other school-based programs intended to alter behavior through education, such as DARE.
But what this study, and the prior study, found was that abstinence-only education is neither worse nor better than (a) none at all or (b) the normal sex education. That's getting spun as "abstinence-only education doesn't work". The more honest summary would be "nothing works". We might as well drop sex education classes entirely and save the money, because they aren't accomplishing anything.
And no, I'm not a social conservative and am not bothered by teens having sex. I'm just a taxpayer. :)
Do you have a source for that? Maybe I'm just having a bad reading day, but I couldn't find anything in the links that indicated that.
When I was a teen, if a girl got pregnant, we called it "getting in trouble." Today, it's a call for celebration.
Something has changed over the past 70 years. One thing (I know that there are many things contributing) is the way we educate our children about sex. Giving our condoms is a recent phenomenom. They would never do it at the public high school I graduated from.
I think the way we are teaching our children now is a mistake and is producing bad results.
Lively is right. But the problem is not with what public schools are saying. The problems start at home -- with what parent(s) are saying. And what friends' parents are saying to their kids. I have no statistics to back that up. Only personal experience, common sense (which is no guarantee of anything), and the fact that sex-ed in HS is a joke.
One other point. As for abstinence-only education, at least it was an excuse for spending federal, state, and local tax dollars and keeping up a talking point for the righteous right.
In the various studies, the control group is typically receives an alternative form of sex education rather than no sex education at all.
JHA
I'm referring, of course, to heroin use. No one I know wants students to receive instruction on how to shoot up safely, how to prevent an overdose, how to recognize and treat an overdose, etc. They want students told that they should never do heroin, period.
Is there research showing that heroin-abstinence education doesn't work? Is there research explaining why one kind of abstinence education works and another kind doesn't? Is any of this research worth anything at all? I suspect that people who are anti-X want X-abstinence education and claim it works, and people who are not anti-X will claim that X-abstinence education doesn't work and furthermore will do "research" do prove it.
The argument: "kids will do X whether we tell them to or not, so let's tell them how to do it safely" is obviously false, in the sense that the amount of sex kids (of a given age) do changes over time; these changes are due not only to the availability of birth control and disease, but also to fashion. These fashions can be influenced to a small extent (at least) by the culture of a school. I think that having displays of needles and condoms affects that culture, as does the absence of such displays. All this would be very hard to measure in a study, since this education is related to the larger high school culture, and to the larger community culture, in subtle ways. What kind of research can show that none of this has any effect? At best, a carefully controlled study can show that certain particular lectures have no effect, but that's all.
In other words, of all the studies, only one definitely used a safer-sex program as its control group. So this meta-study does not provide sufficient grounds to claim that safer-sex education has no effect.
You mean all that locker room talk?
"They want students told that they should never do heroin, period."
Apples and oranges. No one has a biological need to shoot herion, so it is much more easily avoided. Plus you have to pay for it.
Sex is entirely different, and it's very difficult to ignore hormones. Plus it can be had easily and cheaply, as any high school student can tell you. Plus, you don't have to worry about driving a car after sex like you do after you drink or do drugs.
We still need to educate kids on safe sex, if only to counter all the falsehoods and distortions of the religious right regarding sex.
Lively: "Something has changed over the past 70 years." That something is likely birth control.
And if you look over the last 150 years, you will find that men are having a lot less sex with prostitutes than they did in the Victorian era. In the 18th century, adultery was quite common and almost expected, especially in Europe. No man, certainly, 'saved' himself for marriage.
Sexual history is fascinating, but it is a mistake to think that the entire past was filled with virtuous people, and that things only got bad in the 60s.
2. Teenage pregnancy has a strong correlation with economic status, both within a country and between countries.
3. During the 'golden ages' others like to talk about- well, there were more teen pregnancies. There were just fewer unmarried teen pregnancies. And some of those marriages happened less than 9 months before the child was born.
You may draw your own conclusions.
Something has changed over the past 70 years. One thing (I know that there are many things contributing) is the way we educate our children about sex. Giving our condoms is a recent phenomenom. They would never do it at the public high school I graduated from.
I don't know of anyone who would consider a teenage girl getting pregnant a call for celebration. More to the point, one thing that has changed dramatically over the past 70 years is that more teenagers have cars (and laxer curfews) today than 70 years ago. After all, it is not as if teens did not have raging hormones 70 years ago.
Where do yo get that conclusion? It is different from the abstract's conclusion of the study, which apparently only deals with abstinence-only programs.
Given Dan Glick's comment, you should retract this statement.
Thass whut I'm talkin' 'bout. In the '60's/70's, the number one reason for abstinence was opportunity, as in complex arrangements had to be made on the spur of the moment. Maybe it was just me? ;)
Family Planning Perspectives is a good source for finding these studies.
2. Giving abstinence-only talks to teenagers will be fully as successful as giving the talks to jackrabbits. If Department of Defense movie DD-240 didn't keep young troops away from cathouses, nothing lesser will have any chance.
LTEC, that's the most nonsensical comparison you could use.
Consider that all the teens parents are having regular sex and all the teens will be expected to some day have regular sex. Heroin is something that almost no one will ever be doing. More apt comparisons would be to driving a car or drinking alcohol.
If not, why not?
There are plenty of guys out there who have sex (broadly defined) with other guys but who can pass a lie detector test because in their mind it was NOT sex.
If guys can justify gay sex, they can certainly justify any other type of sex.
Pregnant girls often drop out of school. Kids can and do catch STD's while in high school. Ignoring sex education will not help with either of those circumstances.
As has been pointed out drug use is not analogous to sex. Sex is part of a healthy relationship. However, as with sex ed, honest information about the true issues and dangers of drug use is also a good thing. Dishonest information taught by uniformed police officers in high schools (D.A.R.E) actually has the opposite effect. Kids who take D.A.R.E. are more likely to use drugs than control groups. Kids know when they are being lied to about drugs, especially when cops over state the dangers of fairly benign drugs like marijuana (no recorded fatal overdose, ever.)
While it is certainly possible that people may have misinterpreted the totality of your position, asking if you have a personal reason for your position doesn't really count as an ad hominem attack. Granted, such a question by itself does not deal with the substance of your argument but I do think that our experience colors our opinions and can be a legitimate area of inquiry in a debate about an issue. For instance, the fact that Dick Cheney's daughter/campaign manager is a lesbian in a committed relationship makes his lack of support for gay marriage a legitimate area of inquiry. He and his wife disagree, of course, because such inquiry makes them look bad.
I wouldn't want to ignore the legitimate issues of teen pregnancy, STDs and the question of how young is too young but I do think you have a point. The people who promote abstinence-only are on an anti-sex morality crusade. The promote it too teens because they can piggyback on the legitimate issue of teen sexuality. They'd have a much harder time promoting abstinence to an older, less captive audience.
Because, dang it, if we couldn't have sex when we were kids, why should the young 'uns have a such a party today? They don't even walk six miles to school in the snow any more.
Like circumcision. If we got mutilated when we were born, then dang it the young 'uns ought to be mutilated too, even if there's no reason, now that people take daily showers instead of wander in the desert with no water to wash their crotches for months.
It is easy to understand why people who don't believe in evolution are not inclined to acknowledge that teens are sexual beings, and have sexual needs, no less than adults. But disgust with the notion of teen sexuality goes far beyond the religious right. To even speak of teens as sexual beings is pretty close to being taboo in this society.
My guess is that most people either don't need the law to tell them murder is wrong or don't take the law into account when they do it. There are probably very few people whom this type of criminal law actually deters.
Is there a problem with society making an "ideological statement" about such matters? What's the problem?
Isn't that what public education is supposed to be about, rather than a venue for propaganda and social manipulation?
"And some of those marriages happened less than 9 months before the child was born.
You may draw your own conclusions."
Premature births?
(Damn comma moved over and turned itself upside down, making me look illiterate. Sorry about that.)
First off, I reject the pre-marital sex / murder equivocation.
Clearly, the law against murder has a limited effect on murder rates. However, putting murder's in jail to keep them off the street and to punish them, regardless of the preventative value, seems like a good idea anyway. How this relates to teen sex, though, is rather tentative.
Of course, incarceration alone doesn't solve America's murder rate. The US has the highest per-captia incarceration rate in the world and one of the highest murder rates. Seems like we probalby shoud try and effective program to help with our crime rate rather than just the feel good program of throwing people in jail. In that regard, the murder problem and teen pregnancy can be compared: Abstinence-only doesn't work. People support it because they think it supports their values. But if their values are to reduce teen sex then they should support an effective program that actually gives the results they want not just the falsely-justified feel good / moral superiority value.
In this instance, people are pushing their religious anti-sex values on the public though government-sponsored religious, non-scientific, useless and oppressive programs on children at large. These programs are pushed by religious hypocrites who claim they think teen sex is bad. They are modern day Victorians who aren't interested in facts, including the fact that their abstinence-only programs are really no more than religious proselytizing since they don't even achieve the allegedly desired result of reducing teen sex.
If abstenance-only supporters were really interested in reducing teen sex, they would support whatever program reduced teen sex the most, even if that meant honest and comprehensive sex education. They don't. And they don't because they are more interested in moral superiority than effective outcomes.
I don't know any high school teachers who think this is an intersting question. Teenagers are not adults. One might even say, children. We tend to think of sex as an adult behavior, and children having sex is gross. Not only that, but when it comes to sex kids often make mistakes they are _not_ (even potentially) emotionally equipped to handle. (which ties into their being "not adults"...)
If nature gave humans the ability to have sex at 16 or 13, the question is why our particular society thinks it is gross. Other societies think eating shrimp is gross or not kneeling 5 times a day to pray is necessary. I guess each human society has its own stupid habits.
I wouldn't say the entire of society. The part of it over the age of 14 or 17, as the case may be, thinks that it is gross. The part of it that is under those ages has a different opinion.
These days, anyway. Back in my time at 13 we still thought of girls as strange and dangerous people. Only later did we understand they weren't strange.
Just where and when did this business of staying a virgin until married start? Is there someplace in the Bible that says people should be virgins until marriage? It seems to me that prior to the Victorian age, virginity wasn't something that really mattered for marriage, excepting women who wanted to marry a prince.
Certainly, none of Shakespeare's plays indicate that virginity at marriage was some sort of standard for society, and his plays reflected his age quite accurately.
And let us not forget that Juliet was all of 14. Romeo was just slightly older, but I can't remember by how much.
True. It's called 'growing up.'
And if you think that you can prevent kids from making mistakes in relationships, you are running a fool's errand. Getting hurt is part of becoming an adult.
Speaking as a proponent of reason I have a hard time supporting the idea that ignorance about sex should be the default position for schools, and that is literally what you are proposing.
Schools should not be used to promote ignorance at the behest of religious sects who object to reality. Sex education isn't a promotion of sex it is education about sex, including the consequences and responsibilities of having sex. Better educated people and kids with higher grades have sex at a later age. The bible-belt--ground zero for abstinence-only "education"--has the highest teen pregnancy rate.
I'm interested, Daniel, in what your goal is in avoiding sex education? If the goal is to reduce teen sex and pregnancy, would you support what works best, as proven by controlled comparative studies, or are you only interested in the avoidance of any discussion of sex, even if that avoidance actually leads to bad outcomes?
Of course, standard sex ed programs provide information about abstinence. Many, of not most, promote abstinence as the only way to prevent STDs. What abstinence-only programs do is decline to inform students about options outside of abstinence for STD and pregnancy prevention. So, contraty to what Dan B says
Nothing seems to decrease the amount of sex that's going on. However, Abstinence-Only classes do produce more teens who know nothing or worse have misinformation about preventing STDs and pregnancy.
In the end, this is either a public health question, in which we are trying to stop the spread of STD epidemics and teen pregnancy and should go with prevention-education, or it's a morality question, in which case the towns with the most churches can decide to lock chastity belts on the teens, because that's the only effective way of stopping teen sex.
If anyone wants real studies about the availability of condoms and education changing STD and pregnancy rates among teens, those studies have been around for decades. Education and access to condoms works. They've been published in peer reviewed medical journals. Abstinence only advocates would not know an actual peer reviewed medical journal if it hit them in the face. The only 'peer reviewed' journals they can publish in are ones they create from the whole cloth and stack with members who's loyalty to dogma will always trump science.
2) I suspect that the notion that "sex education" works is just wishful thinking, or alternatively depends on a rather recondite meaning of "works".
3) So many schools do such a poor job of real education that it is madness to assume that they'll suddenly do a good job of "sex education".
There are a lot of different kids. It may well be that some teenagers respond well to abstinence-only education. From what I have read, it tends to delay sex--and even a year or so would be worthwile.
For some teenagers, it probably doesn't do any good at all. They need to be educated about the risks, and the ways of mitigating risks.
The bigger problem is a culture that sexualizes kids too early. But I don't suppose that there's much we can do about that.
Since we live in a country where liberals control education, and access to condoms is nearly universal, why is there still a big problem with unwed teens and STDs? Perhaps education isn't solving very much.
There are liberals who believe that encouraging kids to wait is some form of terrible oppression. See Randy R.'s comments above. I can remember seeing the N.Y.C. Superintendent of Public Instruction (a former heroin addict) being interviewed about this some years ago, and he made a point of saying that by junior high, kids were so completely out of control of themselves that they were going to have sex, and it was pointless to discourage it. (Talk about projection.) These attitudes doubtless influence how they teach sex education.
Where I lived in Sonoma County, for reasons that I don't understand (it was a very liberal community), they used a program that they called "abstinence-best." By this, they meant that the focus was on the advantages of waiting until you were a legal adult--but they also taught a traditional liberal sex education program. I'm sure Randy R. would be just horrified.
The other is that young enough, and sex really is bad for them. Not physically maybe (depending of STDs and pregnancy), and not as much for the guys. But definitely emotionally for the girls, esp. the younger ones.
What must be remembered is that, yes, there was a lot of sex in previous eras. Indeed, the average age of marriage was in the mid teen years. But note that one of the emotional problems young girls face with having sex is that the boys don't reciprocate emotionally. Rather, they take it and run. Back then, they didn't take it and run, because in order to have the sex, they were married, or if the girl got pregnant, they got married. So, if a teen aged boy was going to have sex with a girl back then, there was a very good chance that he was already married to her, or would be the minute she got knocked up by it.
Which brings us to the next problem - the negative correlation between age of first sex for girls and lifetime income. Admittedly, there is some mere correlation here, since part of it is socioeconomic or cultural. But, still, the reality is that the girls not having sex in high school are more likely to get graduate degrees, and those having sex in middle school are far less likely to graduate from high school. What we need in this country is more females getting graduate degrees and fewer failing to graduate from high school.
As I noted, some of this is mere correlation. But I can also tell you from personal experience with teen aged girls, that those least interested in boys (or girls) and sex at that time are the ones who tend to do the best in school.
So, I would suggest that delaying teen aged girls having sex for a year or two, through for example, abstinence being pushed, is good for them and their prospects in life. On the average, of course.
But I too am uncomfortable with abstinence only programs. Yes, teen agers will ultimately have sex. I think that they should be taught reasons to delay it. But I also think that the reality is that they will ultimately become sexually active, and thus need to know about safe sex.
Sounds about right
Watcher:
And what celebrities are doing in our all about Hollywood news. The murphey Brown syndrome writ large.
The obsession of our society that no one should ever judge anyone else is a large part of it. Celebrity idiots have a right to be celebrity idiots, it’s true, but other have every right to shun them and their bad examples of no control. I think it is clear that we should be able to point out the Lindsey Lohan experience to our kids as a bad path without some &**(^ criticizing us for being right wing religious fascists.
Someone disparaged LTEC for his non-romantic view of poor impulse control in teens being affected by his teenage daughters. Well it is amazing what experience of reality and being concerned about the long term happiness and success of young women does as opposed to merely searching for some easy ‘tang.
Peter has it right
Let's focus on trying to improve other weaknesses, like math, science, and critical thinking.
Let’s spend precious classroom hours on things that will improve the long term economic status of the teenagers. Let’s spend time teaching on trades if they are not college material. Or let’s spend time on practical math and the effects of long-term savings. Encourage long-term perspectives and optimism; they help people make better decisions today.
I sometime wonder why the obeserved correlation holding two viewpoints, that of thinking sex is the greatest.mosty important freedom and that of generally statist views. THe best I can come up with is vapid sheep-like populaces with no concerns beyond the belly and the phallos are easily ruled.
Likely the same holds true for learning whole person human sexuality when kids reach that developmental stage, at pre-puberty and at puberty.
Sexual repression is likely to stunt their whole person human sexuality growth.
The liberal media has had a field day ripping into the idiocy of Lindsey Lohan and Paris Hilton, just like they insisted on publicizing the most salacious details of Bill Clinton's affairs. This "non-judgementalism" is a bogeyman more than anything else. If you want another data point, I live in San Francisco and the overwhelming viewpoint I have encountered is one of extremely harsh judgement of both Lohan and Hilton and applause at the jail sentences handed to both women.
Never judging anyone for their stupid or irresponsible behavior is one extreme. Castigating others for every slip-up, no matter how understandable or innocuous, with no understanding for the fact that we are all deeply flawed creatures (including the one doing the castigating) with a shared humanity is another. There is a happy medium between these two extremes.
I sometime wonder why the obeserved correlation holding two viewpoints, that of thinking sex is the greatest.mosty important freedom and that of generally statist views. THe best I can come up with is vapid sheep-like populaces with no concerns beyond the belly and the phallos are easily ruled.
In my experience, those with genuinely authoritarian tendencies don't care much for any freedom, sexual or otherwise.
1. It seems to me that everyone here has some idea of an age at which sex with a peer is a very "bad" thing, reagrdless of whether "bad" is derived from Leviticus, or some natural-law morality denontological belief, or social science about emotional development, or just STDs and pregnancy.
And if you draw that line at 13 rather than 18, then it seems that you ought to be able to debate your line with another's line without attacking the latter as repressed Bible-belt whackos etc., even if some or most fit that category. If your line is based on "gut" sense, then how do you defend 13 rather than 18 without being argumentatively defenseless against those who are OK with 9-11? And if your line is based on social science, be prepared to deal with those who can make a good case for the social costs of teen sex, in terms of pregnancy etc. Maybe the answer so far is that nothing works to stop it, but that does not mean it is a good thing. Maybe it means we need to keep looking.
2. One particular difficulty in setting a line at which sex is socially acceptable is the question of which is age is socially and/or legally acceptable to have sex with peers, and/or to have sex with adults.
If one sets a global line at 16 as age of consent, you can tell 15ers that it is wrong to have sex with anyone. And 16ers can then find peers or 30-year-olds or 55-year-old Senators, of whatever gender, and so on.
That line may not hold, but it offers simplicity.
But if we say that we accept sex among 14ers, and we send that message in school (and we do send such a message when we say, "gee, don't, sort of, but here's the instruction manual and the accessory kit") -- then we have an extra decision to make about adult-teen sex. Do we say "everyone on the sex-is-OK line is fair game?" I think not. So then we say, "you are all old enough to have sex with each other in the 14-to-16 room, but don't you date meet the 17-year-olds, let alone the 30-ish."
The most realistic setup, as recognized by most States' "Romeo and Juliet" laws, is a multi-tiered scheme. So those 14-to-16 should NOT do it with the 18ers, but if they do, it's not as bad as with the 30ers, and so on.
But that scheme, though realistic in one sense, is hard to enforce, and may just be a cover for admitting that anything goes, as long as a condom is involved. But I don't think one has to be a "repressed Bible-Belt sexophobe" to be worried that we have normalized teen/adult relations in some sectors of society way too much.
So for those who wish a greater degree of acceptance of "teens as sexual beings," how do you best tell them that "it's OK to do it with each other as sophomores, but not with that 25-year-old calling you," or do you extend your acceptance of 15-year-old sex to include 15-with-30?
And I want to clarify that I'm not accusing everyone of being a NAMBLA apologist or anything, only saying that I am concerned with how to hold the line.
And no, I don't have teenage daughters.
Because along with Ronald Reagan, came issued in the canard that "LIMITED GOVERNMENT" meant getting government out of the boardrooms and into the bedrooms. And because your question posits the dialectic:
BTW, as an aside I adore Britney Spears and Paris Hilton and I might add that Lindsay Lohan TOPPED Maxim's Hot 100 List.
As someone who was once a teenage, American male, and who still retains more or less the same brain I had then, I am wholeheartedly opposed to abstinence-only sex education. Nonetheless, I remain amused by the vociferous effort made to discredit it. Like all dilettante athletes know, increasing your force and effort often results in a loss of control. (If you don't believe me, trying bowling a game with all your might in every roll and see just how well you do.)
Despite the interpretation offered by Mlle Underhill and Mssrs Montgomery and Operario ("Programmes that exclusively encourage abstinence from sex do not seem to affect the risk of HIV infection in high income countries"), what the study really shows is 1) normativity is a complex business and 2) study results often reflect the reviewers' apparent hopes more than the underlying data.
First, this study does not compel the conclusion regarding abstinence-only programs as much as the study's authors and suchs programs opponents might like. The authors repeatedly note limitations, e.g., "the programmes' definitions of "sex" are variable and often unclear," "[w]e also excluded trials of abstinence only programmes that did not list HIV prevention as a goal [because] [i]ncluding these trials might have increased statistical heterogeneity or obscured the effects of HIV focused interventions," "[t]rials that did not report a biological or behavioural outcome were excluded," "[a]s a result of data unavailability, lack of intention to treat analyses, and heterogeneity in programme and trial designs, we determined that a statistical meta-analysis would be inappropriate," "[w]e were unable to test for publication bias owing to limitations on data, "[m]issing information made the assessment of methodological quality difficult."
Further, this is not a new collection of data, nor is it (as noted supra) a meta-analysis of new data. Instead, if I am reading correctly, the authors have more or less presented a literature review of about 15 somewhat similar studies. Accordingly, the usual bevy of questions apply to this study as apply to each of the underlying study, most of which are derived from the impossibility of neutrally selecting comparators and effective measurements.
The authors' claim to present "an apolitical, up to date systematic review," but unless "apolitical" means only something like "not directly connected to a political organization," their claim cannot be true -- all of the underlying decisions necessary to such a study are inescapably informed by the authors' perspectives. The claim to objectivity invites great skepticism. Moreover, summary conclusions presented in a literature review are not cleansed of political perspectives from the underlying works merely by being summarized.
Second, the real nut of the matter is norm-setting. Examining the efficacy of a norm-setting effort may be difficult or impossible. However, failing to acknowledge what is truly at stake renders the study far less relevant to the issue, and these authors do appear to have begged off of the real questions. They write: "although knowledge, intentions, and attitudes are important mediators of effects, these outcomes may not necessarily correspond to sexual behaviour or actual risk of HIV infection." While this may be true, failing to realize that the programs are designed primarily to affect norms invites systematic reporting errors. E.g., the effort to inculcate norms regarding sexual behavior will likely also affect other behaviors -- like the willingness to seek medical care or, more interestingly perhaps, the judgments of others in the same community, such as medical professionals.
Moreover, failing to see that everything is primarily about norm-setting (and only secondarily, if that, about a calculated public health mechanism) renders the authors blind to what they should be measuring and what matters. What are the short-term and long-term effects at issue? Merely HIV infection or sexual activity? What about the higher stakes? For most of us, the onset of the brunt of the sexual drive is highly correlated to the period of our peers' greatest influence on us, and that period is followed often by a later period where we move back towards the norms our parents exposed us to. Do students exposed to abstinence-only sex education make any decisions differently in raising their own children later in life* that they would not have made but for the abstinence-only program? Does exposure to abstinence-only sex education (which, arguably, is an education in strictness) affect the students' views on other matters (including matters ostensibly unrelated to sex at all). In other words, can students translate the lesson that morality is at stake from their sex education class into the other areas of their lives? Similarly, looking only at the students might be missing the battle. It could be that waging this fight has a self-sustaining effect for the proponents of abstinence-only education, and it could be that waging this fight is part of a broader line-drawing effort. If I recall correctly, Prof. Volokh has previously offered criticism of the "slippery slope" argument, and, again, if I recall correctly, I found his comments forceful. However, if the "slippery slope" argument is really a flow-chart analysis of social considerations (e.g., if we decide X, then we will next address Y, whereas if we fail to resolve X, we can avoid discussing Y), then the "slippery slope" gains great traction as a manner of discussing rhetorical strategy. All of these aims, regardless of whether they may be publicly acknowledged, likely comprise the constantly remixing motivations for abstinence-only sex education, not "short-term" and "long-term" anecdotal reports of potentially comparable infection rates.
Also, failing to see that norm-setting is the heart of the matter blinds the authors to the true difficulties these studies face in building a valid data set. Implicit in any such statistical study, from the most basic regression analysis of the first stats class, is the hope that the factors that matter have been addressed by the study. But in the arena of norm-setting, what can it mean to have a robust data set? These students are each receiving messages of all kinds 16 hours a day, seven days a week, whether school's in session or not. I would be shocked if nine months of one 50-minute lesson once a week had the sort of impact on "short-term" and "long-term" behavior that these authors are considering. Moreover, these classes do not occur in a vacuum. Maybe it is the presence of abstinence-plus programs in neighboring regions that hampers these programs? Lightly extrapolating from "these particular programs in these particular settings" to "abstinence-only programs" is misinformed.
Of course, this isn't to say that the effects the authors discuss aren't important or that either the underlying studies or these authors' reviews thereof are not interesting. I just wanted to note that those effects and studies are all the messy details, not the true issue at debate.
* I am aware of the witty rejoinder I am inviting, and the invitation remains open.
"statism |ˈstātˌizəm| noun a political system in which the state has substantial centralized control over social and economic affairs : the rise of authoritarian statism."
I suppose you could argue that statism can be implemented without being authoritarian, but even if that is so your statement, "Statist != Authoritarian," is false since statism can equal authoritarianism. The best you can say is statism does not necessarily equal authoritarianism.
Also, the expenditure of resources usually requires affirmative evidence, not just the critique of negative evidence. The resources required for abstinence education are non-trivial, in terms of direct cost and school time. Where is the affirmative evidence of success for abstinence programs.
His norm-setting point is the key one. But I don't think that teachers are likely powerful norm-setters. Given the rebellious nature of adolescents, the programs probably have some counteracting effect.
Who are you talking to? And what about?
If you don't quote the text you are responding to, or at least mention the person, it is difficult to ascertain your point.
It sounds like what's really going on is that you disagree not with the methods, but with th public policy itself. If you agreed with the public policy that X is wrong, you would have no problem with the idea that an ideological statement should be made against it even if its deterrant effect was limited, and hence you would have no problem using this method. You have no problem with the method, you would use it for policies you agree with. The only problem is that you disagree with the policy.
The invocation of "science" is not appropriate in this context, it is a rhetorical association used to add an appearance of gravitas to your position. Murder, at least in the presence of certain stressors, is as natural to humans as sex; there's no more a scientific basis for regarding the one as wrong than the other.
Nor is there a scientific basis for regarding organized killings as justifiable when done by entities known as "states" or "countries", but not by entites known as clans or gangs. There's no scientific basis for requiring loyalty to one kind of authority, but the other, to include obeying orders to kill. Yet society has every right to make, and demand, that citizens make such distinctions and have first loyalty to its preferred authorities and forms, even though other societies may choose completely different ones and the difference between them may, from a scientific point of view, be arbitrary.
But the abstinence only classes seem to fail to teach that sex is in fact pleasurable. At the least, it is something that human beings really want to do. And for some reason, we are hard wired to do it at a fairly early age. Afterall, God gave us hormones at our early teenaged years, so therefore He must have meant for us to have sex, right?
I asked earlier if there is any basis in the Bible for saying that unmarried people shouldn't have sex, and no one has responded. So I assume there is none. So this whole stuff about being celibate until marriage is something that is just made up by people, and made up fairly recently.
Now, unlike Cramer's characterization, I'm not insisting that people have sex in their teen years. I'm just saying that it is going to happend regardless of what you teach or don't teach. It's been that way since the dawn of man (and the dawn of man was in Africa about 200,000 years ago, despite what all the creationists like to say).
Perhaps it IS better for people to refrain from sex. Then you have to explain why. But there will always be people who don't refrain, and you hear it in the locker room, and you get peer pressure, and other reasons to have sex.
So at the least, let's make sure the kids get the message of safe sex, since their very lives depend upon it.
Actually, most humans have fairly strong in-built aversion to murder, so much so that one of the primary functions of military indoctrination is to override the natural disinclination to murder. From an evolutionary perspective, the incentive for sex is stronger than the incentive for murder.
Our morals derive from the social instincts that allow humans to efficiently live in packs. There is a scientific basis for encouraging education about sex and its consequences.
Abstinence-only is the sex equivalent of "Just say no to drugs." I think we can all agree that "Just say no to drugs" was an utter failure, just as Abstinence-only is.
Tired and heading to bed right now, so I can't find the cites for you, but, off the top of my head, here goes:
*Women who are not virgins on their wedding nights bring shame to their father's household and may be stoned;
*Rev. 21-8 talks about the punishment for sexual immorality; you must look elsewhere for a Biblical understanding of sexual immorality.
*A lot of the rules surrounding rape indicate that sex and marriage are inextricably intertwined. If a man has sex with a woman (either with her consent or against her will) he must immediately marry her.
*Paul suggests (quite strongly) that one may only have sex within marriage.
*I'm not sure what the Biblical defintion of "adultery" is (I think it's between a man and a married woman); such is strongly condemned, but it does not address the issue of unmarried women. "Sexual immorality" and "fornication" are often found in enumerated lists in conjunction with adultery, which indicates that they are different from adultery.
It's really piecemeal throughout, so you have to add up all of the prohibitions to figure out what is left. Basically, marital sex is the only thing that doesn't get you in trouble. ;)
Disclaimer: I'm an atheist. Will let actual Christians give a better answer.
I submit that being able to handle birth control and even discuss it without (too much) embarrassment is crucial, not just because of the practical effects of the stuff but also because it demonstrates some of the maturity that real relationships require. Someone who can say "we need to use this to prevent pregnancy" can probably also say "please don't do that, it hurts me." Whether partners listen in either case is another question, so the ability to listen and cooperate is also important.
Can schools teach this? It isn't factual information or indoctrination, so I'm not sure.
I suspect both premises are wrong. The law does have a deterrent effect on murder, probably substantial, and murder is not nearly so natural as sex.
In animal husbandry, it is common to prevent, say, heifers from breeding that first time they can to prevent long term damage. Current mideical reports from Africa suggest that similar results apply to human females up to, say, age 16.
The most important organ for humans is the brain. The most important trait for the brain is malleability. The most important effect of sex on the brain is to flood the brain cells with hormones, inducing all sorts of feedback loops, including imprinting. This is why sexual experiences can modify ones eroticism to a fascination with a particular color of hair, or with a particular style of clothes, or even on giving or receiving violence.
It is hubris to imagine that one can dodge any number of these bullets, even in a disease free world.
You are making a false assumption about sex education programs, that they are all anatomical. Good sex education programs do talk about relationships, maturity and when people are ready and under what circumstances. Heck, even abstinence-only programs talk about maturity, albeit on a truncated basis: you'll be ready when you're married--end of subject. (Oh, you're gay and can never be married? No sex for you...)
Do good programs in schools have any effect? Does it matter about the kind of school? How does this interact with family background and peer group norms? It's a fascinating topic
Not so sure. Reread Paul. He basically hates everything, including marriage.
Thanks for the yeoman's work.
What's funny, of course, is that there is nothing in the Bible about men having to be virgins on their wedding night. Gee, I wonder why....
So if this is such a clearcut rule, then why didn't God say it clearly -- no sex before marriage? In a book as thick as the Bible, why pussyfoot around with cryptic messages? Probably because this is all BS made up by sexphobic people.
You're welcome. Will work on that more tonight.
The Bible is not unlike, say, the Federal Code of Crim Pro. You have to cross-reference each part to get through it. I'm pretty sure that once you put all the prohibitions together, it's only acceptable for men to have pre-marital sex with widows. If they do have sex with a woman, they are supposed to marry her immediately afterwards.
Yeah, Paul hates on everything. He also assumed that the Second Coming was imminent, which is why he emphasised devotion to God and ignored those pesky things like procreation and marriage. ;) Nevertheless, the implicit assumption in his words about marriage is that a couple must marry if they want to have sex.
Now you know why I always hated Sunday school!
If you disprove the null hypothesis, then you really have something. You've demonstrated that the differences between the groups are probably due to something more than random noise. But if you fail to disprove the null hypothesis, then you've failed to prove anything. It's really, really easy to fail to disprove the null hypothesis: Just run a lousy experiment. If you have a lousy design or a lousy method, then you're almost guaranteed to fail to reject the null hypothesis.
I saw this firsthand in that Experimental Design class, because it required us to design and conduct our own experiment. Well over half the class could not disprove the null hypothesis, and it usually wasn't because there was no difference between the groups. It was because they allowed too much random noise to seep into their results.
Suppose that you want to determine whether noise A is different from noise B. So you line up some subjects and have them listen to the noises. And none of the subjects can tell a difference. Does that prove that there's no difference between A and B? No! There are plenty of alternative explanations: 1) Your subjects are deaf. 2) You conducted your experiment outside in a windstorm. 3) You unconsciously pressured your subjects not to notice the difference because that's the result you wanted.
To summarize, as my Psych prof loved to repeat: Failing to disprove the null hypothesis does not prove the null hypothesis.