Abstinence (and Communism)
If my history books are right, the 1960s were a lot like today, except instead of civil liberties violations to protect us from terrorists, it was to protect us from communists. Of course, there’s a whole blog post (that I’m pretty certain I’ve already written) right there. My point isn’t civil liberties. It’s communism.
On of the great intellectual blows to communism — and I very much agree with this critique — is that communism requires too many people to change their natures in order to work. It’s much like asking an electron to behave like a proton so your model of the universe will work. If your physical or economic model doesn’t fit observable behaviours, the model is wrong, not the behaviours.
Communism always ultimately fails because people are selfish and people want power. So you have an entire population of demotivated people and a thin crust of dictators running the show.
Abstinence-only education fails, I think, for the same reason. Teenagers have sex. This is the behaviour history tells us to expect. No matter how spiritual the society, no matter how strict the rule set, teenagers have sex.
This is not to say abstinence is a bad thing. It’s a very good thing. Premarital sex is damaging, out of context, and no matter how it feels at the time, can produce a lot of hurt. Not to mention scripture speaks out against premarital sexual experiences on multiple occasions.
Yet even among those who know better, this is a problem. You can change from courtship to dating and back but it still happens. Perhaps the only way to prevent this is to arrange marriages, but I’m sure even then, teenagers will be having sex.
Should we be distributing condoms and birth control to twelve-year-olds? I don’t know. I don’t think so. That comes too close to condoning that behaviour.
Morality aside, the reality is that abstinence-only sex education as a model fails because it needs too many people to change too radically in order to work. It doesn’t work. It never has. It never will.
The question really becomes… what to do instead?
Tags: communism, education, sex
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September 15th, 2008 at 9:44 pm
You’re exactly right, Dan! Great analogy. Sadly, I don’t have a good answer for your question.
September 16th, 2008 at 12:03 am
[...] Elsewhere in Dreams » Blog Archive » Abstinence (and Communism) "Morality aside, the reality is that abstinence-only sex education as a model fails because it needs too many people to change too radically in order to work. It doesn’t work. It never has. It never will." Dan's point is great. (tags: gfmorris_comment sex_education) [...]
September 16th, 2008 at 10:31 am
Geof, yeah. I don’t know either. It’s a lot like safe injection sites. We know there will be drug addicts, and we know the extravagant cost of managing AIDS. Safe injection sites help lower the incidence of HIV/AIDS and lowers the overall cost to society. But it looks a lot like condoning drug use, so I generally don’t like it.
Maybe that’s my problem, though. I have a strong tendency to believe that drug addicts deserve what they get, even though I know this tendency is wrong. I have the same tendency with teenagers having sex, and I suspect I’m not alone in feeling that if you’re so stupid that you can’t prevent a pregnancy you deserve what you get. Even though this is completely wrong-headed and wholly uncharitable.
Yet I know that it’s better to not have HIV or AIDS, and I know it’s better for young people not to have babies. Of course it’s even better not to use drugs at all, and even better if you abstain from sexuality before marriage, but neither of those ideals address reality.
But I still don’t know.
September 18th, 2008 at 11:51 am
Good point. In my line of work (social services), there is a whole new pragmatic approach called the harm reduction model that promotes things like, needle exchange programs, handing out of condoms, and even programs that serve a “safe” level of alcohol to alcoholics to prevent them from drinking mouthwash and perfume.
Part of me really dislikes this approach because it means we are spending our money and our resources on supplying people with the means to continue with their addiction or unwise choices, which will ultimately be their downfall. Not only does it seem to condone the action, my biggest problem with it is that it removes the natural consequences to negative actions. And since we already know that people will do extremely destructive things to themselves and others when the consequences are removed, I feel like its a big step in the wrong direction.
The flip side however, is that we do need to be realistic in our approach to helping people and to meeting them where they are at. I don’t know where the line balancing these two concepts is yet.
September 19th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Maybe these sites should decrease the dosage at every visit. You might not be able to have scheduled appointments with people who stumble in (literally or figuratively), but perhaps a weaning schedule might help.