Abstain from lying? Misinformed students of gov't funded abstinence programs

[cantdog]

One does have to check: who benefits?

Not that someone always does, nor that someone who does might not have done it adventitiously.

Some of this will, of course, benefit some of the drug giants. Pat Robertson is already OK with some of your kids getting AIDS, he said so. It's God's device to punish gays, he said, and some of your kids will of course be gays. He and people like him, Falwell, Wildmon, and the rest, might well be happy if any sinner gets AIDS. ( I can't tell that from here, but I notice they are against condom distribution and other preventative measures. Even they must realize that not merely gays get the disease. )

But these pillars of organized religion are not directly benefiting from the deaths and misery of your children. So I don't think we can call it corruption. Do pregnant teenagers and HIV sufferers pay Jerry Falwell or join the 700 Club? Do these upright purveyors of the Messaage of Jesus perhaps invest in drug companies a lot or something?

Maybe, but I think it's just random wackiness in the name of Christ. It's destructive, it's heartless, it's bizarre, but I don't see it as corrupt, not for money. Only with regard to power. It may be the simple thrill of watching all those millions do what you direct.

 

[sweetnpetite]

Abstinance- 100% effective???- Maybe not.

Heads I Win; Tails Don't Count:
The actual value of abstinence

by Stephen Hanson

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The following article is from Free Inquiry magazine, Volume 24, Number 2.


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One frequently hears the claim that "Abstinence is the only 100-percent-certain way to avoid pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs)." Proponents of abstinence-only sex education say it, the Bush administration says it, and even advocates of other forms of birth control say it. In many ratings of the effectiveness of birth-control methods, abstinence is listed as being as effective as hysterectomy and more effective than vasectomy: 100 percent. What is remarkable about all this is that this statement is not true in almost any sense. As I will show, the only sense in which it is true is one that provides no particular motivation for someone to choose abstinence over other forms of contraception and disease prevention. Understood in any way other than this trivial one, it is either extremely misleading or false.

First, the sentence is not strictly true: even perfect abstinence does not provide one with 100 percent certainty of avoiding STDs, because most are transmittable in other fashions (e.g., accidental needle sticks, etc.). It is also possible to become pregnant while abstinent under some definitions of the term, because semen can occasionally contact the vagina even without vaginal penetration. But perhaps this misses the desired point: one can be certain of not getting pregnant or getting an STD through sexual contact as long as one defines abstinence as avoiding any action that allows any exchange of bodily fluids, including contact between semen and female genitalia. Then, one can maintain that abstinence provides 100-percent certainty of avoiding pregnancy or sexual transmission of STDs.

The claim is true in this fashion: if one does not perform a given action, then there can be no consequences of performing that action. So we can hold the above claim to mean, "For each case where one could perform a sexual act, not performing one will avoid the consequences of performing sexual acts," which is, of course, true.

But that is not the way that the claim is used. Abstinence is put forth not as a single action, but rather as a method of birth control. To judge the effectiveness of abstinence in this respect, we need to judge not only whether the individual act of abstaining from sexual intercourse provides the stated 100-percent benefits, but also whether choosing to use abstinence as a method of birth control provides such results. The difference between the two is significant, as it points to the fundamental difference between the way abstinence and all other birth-control methods are treated when determining their success rates.

In the context of assessing the effectiveness of a birth-control method, one must differentiate between a method's theoretical effectiveness and its "use-effectiveness" or "typical use-effectiveness." The theoretical effectiveness of a method of birth control is a "perfect world" calculation-no one ever forgets to take a pill, condoms never slip and are always put on before any genital contact, etc. It is therefore of little interest to the average person except as an intellectual exercise. What we want to know, when choosing a method of birth control, is how well it will work in the real world to prevent pregnancy. It is here that abstinence is treated radically differently than any other method of birth control.

The first reason for this is practical and yet still points to the problem in making this comparison. The use-effectiveness of a given form of contraception depends, of course, at least in part, on the rate of sexual intercourse, though this is not always made clear. The chances of becoming pregnant while utilizing a given method of birth control are greater the more frequently one has sexual intercourse. One source notes that "Researchers presume that married women have coitus three times weekly and their statistics assume [this] 'married model.'"1 Thus, unless one averages thrice-weekly intercourse, the actual use-effectiveness of one's birth control will differ from that calculated on the "married model." If one has sex more frequently, the success rate will be lower; if less frequently, the success rate will be higher.

Whether this model is accurate for most marriages, or whether it is used for other lists, it is clearly not used for any abstinence model. For in determining the effectiveness of abstinence, but only of abstinence, no sexual intercourse is presumed. Immediately the comparison is suspect, if only for the reason that we are comparing apples and oranges-the success rate of the pill assumes sex thrice a week, while the success rate of abstinence presumes none. Naturally, both the theoretical and use-effectiveness of various other methods of birth control, including none whatsoever, increase dramatically when one assumes no sexual intercourse.

Since the definition of abstinence is "no sexual intercourse," it is perhaps unfair to criticize someone reporting the success rate of abstinence on grounds that they have not presumed regular sexual intercourse. But this points to the real problem, which is that the "100-percent-success rate" is only theoretical. If we assume one always succeeds in avoiding sex, then we can fairly assume the success rate of abstinence to be 100 percent (with the exceptions noted above).2 But the use-effectiveness-the success rate in the real world-of persons trying to use abstinence as their method of birth control is far less than 100 percent because they do not always succeed in avoiding sexual intercourse.

This is not news, I suspect. People trying to be abstinent can and do fail, and sometimes pregnancy results. What is astonishing is how little attention is paid to this fact. On list after list of effectiveness of birth-control methods, abstinence is ranked at the top, or given special mention because of its 100-percent-success rate. This pride of place is confusing and quite possibly dangerous. Because of the difference in what is being measured, to trumpet the value of abstinence relative to other methods is at best deceptive, at worst irrational. Since nothing of what I have said above is new or surprising, and since the use-effectiveness of abstinence is surely significantly less than its theoretical effectiveness, how does abstinence continue to be labeled as the most effective method of birth control on the grounds of its theoretical effectiveness, even when the use-effectiveness of other methods is reported?

One reason may be that the use-effectiveness rate of abstinence, or exactly how we should calculate it, is unclear. Many sources give no answer at all; and though some recent research has attempted to properly determine abstinence's use-effectiveness, its results have not made their way into the popular understanding.3 While we know a great deal about use-effectiveness rates for other methods of contraception, a recent review of the literature on sex education argued, "We still know very little about abstinence and how often adolescents [or, presumably, any other persons] fail to use abstinence consistently."4 Given this, how can anyone label abstinence as 100-percent effective, even in theory, without a very serious caveat to the effect that we have no clear idea how effective it is in practice?

I suggest that the reason is a "Heads I win, tails don't count" way of thinking. When a couple attempts to avoid having sex as a means of birth control and succeeds, they have properly used abstinence as their method of birth control, and lo and behold, they achieve 100-percent success at preventing pregnancy. If, on the other hand, they attempt to use abstinence as their method of birth control but end up having sexual intercourse, they have not abstained and thus haven't used abstinence. They are then included in the group of people who used no method of birth control. The success rate of abstinence remains 100 percent.

This kind of language game sustains the tenet that "abstinence is the only sure way," but it is intellectually dishonest. The sentence "Abstinence is the only 100-percent-certain way to avoid pregnancy and STDs" is true only in a trivial way that also applies to all other forms of birth control-assuming no sexual activity, there will be no impact from sexual activity, regardless of one's chosen method of protection. And when one tries to find out the number of women who become pregnant while trying to use abstinence as birth control, one encounters at best the misleading language about failing to be abstinent-and therefore not using abstinence. Whether one takes them regularly or not, if one is depending upon a birth-control pill to prevent pregnancy, one is using the pill as one's method of birth control-this is the difference between theoretical and use-effectiveness. The same difference applies to abstinence as a birth-control method, and it's time we discover and properly report those numbers as well. If we are going to talk about slipping condoms, failures to take pills on time, etc. as relevant to how effective these methods of birth control are-and we should-then we had better talk as well about failures of will in avoiding one of the most fundamental drives that humans have.

http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/hanson_24_2.htm

I've tried to explain this before in my own words and then came accross this article. It says it better than I could.

A long time ago I read in the back of a text book a statistic that said that teens who didn't believe in premaritial sex were less likely to use birth control when they did. (Yes, even teens who believe it's wrong still do it! Gasp!!!)

 

[Couture]

Look, it's a matter of control.

A pregnant girl is less likely to go to college or even to complete highschool. Therefore, she is less likely to get all uppity and start asking for equal pay. If she can't support herself, then she's more likely stay with some shithead who thinks its okay to hit a woman. Instead she'll be competing for jobs with the assholes writing all this ignorant ass legislation.

This is a bad thing. So speaketh St. Peter.

 

[sweetnpetite]

One does have to check: who benefits?

Not that someone always does, nor that someone who does might not have done it adventitiously.

Some of this will, of course, benefit some of the drug giants. Pat Robertson is already OK with some of your kids getting AIDS, he said so. It's God's device to punish gays, he said, and some of your kids will of course be gays. He and people like him, Falwell, Wildmon, and the rest, might well be happy if any sinner gets AIDS. ( I can't tell that from here, but I notice they are against condom distribution and other preventative measures. Even they must realize that not merely gays get the disease. )

Non gays getting the disease is the punishment God puts on society for condoning or allowing gays, of course.

But these pillars of organized religion are not directly benefiting from the deaths and misery of your children. So I don't think we can call it corruption. Do pregnant teenagers and HIV sufferers pay Jerry Falwell or join the 700 Club? Do these upright purveyors of the Messaage of Jesus perhaps invest in drug companies a lot or something?

I think they do benifit in that they have someone to point to to show the consequeses of sin or iniquity. Pregnant teens may not join the 700 Club, but those who are disturbed by the 'epidemic' of it will. I think that it becomes a scare tactic to encourage followers, and yes, more money. They can and do raise money in relation to these types of issues.

I'm not really sure if they plan it that way, or if it just works out well for them. But through fear they control hearts and minds as well as wallets. And I think that they are certainly aware of the connection.

 

[sweetnpetite]

I have to disagree slightly. Most of these religous right could care less if you love the one you have sex with, you only have to be married to them. Love and happiness have a very small part in their reasoning.

Oh yeah, I know. That was just a quote I heard somewhere. Couldn't help myself.

I don't know if this is what they really want. Their goal is to make everyone believe exactly what they do, so they really don't want any slutty girls out there turning good boys bad and making other good girls into lesbians.

But I think that you're right that they are happy to have someone to point a finger at for their example.

We'll have to disagree here. Cuz the boys (even the 'good boys') *or course* want the slutty girls out there. They just want to be able to divide the world up into 'good girls' to marry and 'sluts' to sow their oats with. A little lip service to 'oh yeah, it applies to boys too' is given, but I don't believe that it's whole heartedly meant. A man's indescretion can usually be understood, the women are the 'gatekeepers' of virginity and sex. Men are much quickly forgiven, for there consequeses are not quite so obvious.

How many male evangelists get caught in embarassing sex scandals? They don't always practice what they preach.

ALso, it's not so much that they want you to sin, but they do know you will. They want you to face the awful consequenses of your sin, you know.

 

[cantdog]

Okay, I bet they do benefit.

They're not just wacked, they're skunks too.

 

[cheerful_deviant]

We'll have to disagree here. Cuz the boys (even the 'good boys') *or course* want the slutty girls out there. They just want to be able to divide the world up into 'good girls' to marry and 'sluts' to sow their oats with. A little lip service to 'oh yeah, it applies to boys too' is given, but I don't believe that it's whole heartedly meant. A man's indescretion can usually be understood, the women are the 'gatekeepers' of virginity and sex. Men are much quickly forgiven, for there consequeses are not quite so obvious.

You have a point.

A guy who sleeps around is a stud. A girl who sleeps around is a slut. Classic double standard.

 

[sweetnpetite]

I don't know if this has been posted here before- but it seems pertinant. It's from a very biased sourse naturally- Ms. Magazine.

Virgin Territory

Ms. goes to an abstinence conference and learns that it pays to be chaste


by Camille Hahn

Your body is a wrapped lollipop.

When you have sex with a man, he unwraps your lollipop and sucks on it.

It may feel great at the time, but, unfortunately, when he’s done with you, all you have left for your next partner is a poorly wrapped, saliva-fouled sucker.

These words were actually uttered by Darren Washington, an abstinence educator, at the Eighth Annual Abstinence Clearinghouse Conference, an informational three-day trade show for abstinence educators, anti-abortion pregnancy care centers and medical professionals.

Washington was giving examples of how to teach abstinence. He then called up volunteers from the audience and used an actual lollipop to help deliver the metaphor.

The abstinence-only education movement is big business. Its product is the promotion of chastity through speaking engagements and the selling of curricula and promotional materials. There is underwear emblazoned with “No Sex” on the crotch, T-shirts, pens and bookmarks — you name the tchotchke — but the serious money involves large federal and state grants. The movement is growing and gaining influence.

Just this year, President Bush increased funding in his budget for domestic abstinence education to $270 million, in comparison to the $100 million given annually before he took office. The fund includes matching state dollars and must be spent solely for teaching “the social, psychological and health gains to be realized by abstaining from sexual activity.”

That matching fund requirement has meant that state dollars previously used to support comprehensive sex education — which teaches birth control options along with abstinence — have been diverted to abstinence-only programs.

Internationally, the administration regularly advocates an abstinence agenda. This spring, for example, the U.S. delegation was the lone nation to reject the Cairo Consensus — an international agreement to promote women’s sexual and reproductive-health needs. The ultraconservative delegates did so because of references in it to “family planning services,” “reproductive health,” “sexual health” and “condoms.”

The abstinence-only education movement — that is, the movement to teach only chastity when discussing sex with teens in public schools — gained momentum as part of the conservative right’s “family values” movement in the early 1980s. The Adolescent Family Life Act of 1981 was the first to provide federal funding for these educational programs, and it was churches and religious conservatives who applied to receive these funds.

By the time the Supreme Court ruled a dozen years later that these programs must delete direct references to religion, religious groups already had a near-monopoly on abstinence-only education, which as a result is still mostly carried out by religious groups and individuals. In public schools, these educators give reasons such as the prevention of pregnancy and STDs for remaining chaste, but for a large majority, their personal belief in abstinence stems from their religious convictions.

But the money these educators are currently receiving is just not enough. That’s why they’re attending the Eighth Annual Abstinence Clearinghouse Conference, where we witnessed Mr. Washington’s demonstration.

The South Dakota-based Abstinence Clearinghouse, which hosts the event each year, is the central location for the abstinence movement — disseminating information on funding, curricula, speakers and materials. This year’s conference was held in the lush surroundings of the Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center, probably the finest conference center in Nashville.

The hotel, originally a Southern mansion, is itself considered a tourist attraction with four indoor tropical gardens and 20 restaurants. The attendees paid between $395 and $500 to register for the conference, but they got more than their money’s worth with sessions like “Capital Campaigns,” “Fearless Fundraising” and “Moving Your Center Towards Implementing Marriage as Part of Welfare Reform” (read: How To Receive Federal Funds From Welfare Reform Legislation).

The attendees were for the most part Christian, though there was one Muslim woman identifiable by her veil. Roughly one in seven was a man; one in 10 was African American; and two women were Asian — the delegates from Hong Kong. The men wore button-down shirts tucked into slacks; the women’s outfits — even those of the two former beauty queens turned abstinence speakers — were modest, shirts tucked in, pants not too tight.

Leslee Unruh, the president of the Abstinence Clearinghouse, wore cowboy boots, white with giant red hearts, which she called her abstinence boots. To convince resistant schools, the sessions contained useful rhetoric to take before education boards and health educators. Did you know, for instance, that Planned Parenthood is a “pimp”?

“They are the people who are profiting from getting young people to commit sex acts,” said Michael Schwartz of Concerned Women for America.

And the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the U.S. (SIECUS), the nonprofit research and lobbying group that supports comprehensive sex education, “wants young people to have as many orgasms and in as wide a variety as they can have,” according to Robert Rector of The Heritage Foundation.

Even worse, “SIECUS is an archaic, religious sex cult” and “pornography is training all your sex educators,” said the former “Captain Kangaroo” singer-songwriter Judith Reisman, who is called the “mother of the abstinence movement.”

It was quite a week for your intrepid Ms. reporter. But the larger issue is that abstinence doesn’t work to meet the real social needs of teens today. Without comprehensive sex education, students lack the most basic information about their bodies and about birth control methods so that when they do have sex, they don’t have the information necessary to protect themselves and their partners. The abstinence movement even teaches that condoms are not effective in preventing the spread of STDs.

Studies by independent researchers indicate that at best no reliable evidence exists as to whether abstinence-only programs work — meaning that it’s unclear whether they prevent teen pregnancy and lessen cases of STDs.

A study commissioned by the Minnesota state heath department found that sexual activity actually doubled among junior high students who took part in an abstinence-only program. Researchers surveyed 413 kids from three Minnesota counties who were taught an abstinence-only curriculum created by the state’s 5-year-old initiative Education Now and Babies Later (ENABL) — funded by $5 million from the state and federal governments.

Over the course of a year, those who said they were sexually active increased from 5.8 to 12.4 percent, and those who said they would probably have sex before finishing high school rose from 9.5 to 17 percent.

Things aren’t getting better. In Texas — a state with the highest birthrate among teenagers ages 15 to 17 — the state’s education agency recently approved two textbooks that include no strategy except abstinence for preventing pregnancy, STDs and HIV/AIDS, according to the Texas Freedom Network. Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have recommended that programs emphasize both abstinence and contraception, such as the “ABC” program to prevent AIDS in Africa (Abstinence, Be faithful, use Condoms).

Even George W. Bush was quoted in June saying that condoms should be used “when appropriate,” but Clearinghouse president Unruh assured attendees that the president personally told her, “It’s abstinence until marriage — period.”

The Heritage Foundation admits, in its report “What Do Parents Want Taught in Sex Education Programs,” that 75 percent of parents believe that contraception should be taught to their kids, but the foundation refuses to advocate giving parents what they want.

Its report reads: “There is no logical reason why contraceptive information should be presented as part of an abstinence curriculum. …[N]early all abstinence educators assert that it would substantially undermine the effectiveness of the abstinence message.”

So, whatever happened to decent sex and health education? It’s been hijacked by conservatives promoting their ideological religious agenda despite the absence of evidence that abstinence programs benefit those they’re meant to serve. But you have to admit — it’s not a bad way to make a living.

http://www.msmagazine.com/fall2004/virginterritory.asp

http://www.msmagazine.com/blog/archives/2004/10/virgin_territor.html

 

[shereads]

Limited access to birth control + limited access to abortion + reduced funding for day care and after-school programs = ?

More poor people. Willing to work longer hours for lower wages with reduced benefits. And too poorly educated for anything else.

You can't have extreme wealth without extreme poverty and high unemployment. An upper class needs a lower class a lot more than it needs a middle class.

We're seeing payback for the record-low unemployment of the 90's, when corporations had to compete for workers by offering things like on-site childcare and flexible hours. We're also seeing the foundation laid for the new American aristocracy, now that multi-million-dollar estates are no longer subject to an inheritance tax. A generation from now, when the Bush twins are grandmothers, there will be a rich pool of humble nannies and housekeepers, with one waiting in the wings for each one who makes unreasonable demands on her employers.

For anyone who's nostalgic for the era of Oliver Twist, debtors' prisons and convict labor, it'll be the best of times.

Remember when Newt Gingrich wanted to build all those orphanages? He was slightly ahead of his time.

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

Want them to be abstinent?

Sign up all the kids for computer classes, force them to adopt nerdy, freaky, or ultra-shy introspective personalities. Give them bad physiques or health problems (a sadistic biologist with a syringe can be hired to take care of this one). Then give them enough free internet porn that they don't realize that they not only aren't sleeping with any women, but have little hope to do so.

If they still manage to do it, shoot them to lower the average.




In truth, these programs fail, because shock of all shocks students have little respect for the school, but nearly infinite respect for what their peers think of them. Since the male peer respect bar has generally been based on the number of different women they have slept with, abstinence will fail.

I think the best blend that parents would back is the one that's been in place all along. The one that states: "abstinence is the 100% way to avoid these problems, but since we know you too well, here's how to protect yourself when you do go out and do it". At least that's how the villanious program at my school taught it (minus the barely disguised contempt of course).

 

[Amy Sweet]

I think if we told girls: It's *your* decision when to have sex, not your parent's not your teachers, not your friends and not the guy's who says he loves you," more would wait.

we should elimiinate the authority vs. peers vibe, because peers are gonna win. And what's lost in all of this but the girl herself?

No comment about boys and sex. They should probably be getting the same sort of message.