(no subject)

[dreamer_easy]

Virginity pledgers have just as much sex as anyone else, but are less likely to use condoms and/or other contraception. You can read the abstract of the study at the Pediatrics Web site.

Meanwhile in Australia, a fifth of teens are not getting the birds and the bees talk from their parents, and a quarter of parents didn't know whether their kids were sexually active.

Comments

[th-esaurus.livejournal.com]

The last point doesn't surprise me at all.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

I was a mere tot when a book with lovely felt illustrations explained to me how eggs and chicks occurred.

[antikythera.livejournal.com]

Hee, the chooks and the bees.

I had a book called Where Did I Come From? that had silly cartoony illustrations but got the point across fairly well. It probably showed up in the house around the time my mother was pregnant with my sister, which means I would have been about three. I don't remember not knowing how babies were made.

[arjuna-lj.livejournal.com]

*grin* my goodness - I remember that :) we had a special Parents' Evening at school when I was about six, where everyone brought their kids and sat around terribly seriously discussing the book with A Qualified Teacher. I have vague memories of some kind of film to accompany it, but it can't have been the animated adaption of WDICF - far too early (mid 70s).

Perhaps our teacher made Slides. :)

[nyssa-p.livejournal.com]

Hah! I was conviently "sick" that night. My dad at my school watching images of GIRLY things with me? Gross!

All I can think of when reading things like this is : WOW! And people are surprised at this?

As well as two skits from Monty Python - the sex education and every sperm is sacred (every sperm is good. if a sperm is wasted, god gets quite irate! - and that's why I'm selling you all for medical experiments!).

[arjuna-lj.livejournal.com]

Sex="girly"? :D

I'm sure family culture has a lot to do with it - my lot were always extremely open & encouraged us to Find Out Things (whereas my cousins, for example, were forbidden by their parents to look at the paintings at our house because they were "rude").

As sex ed goes, "Where Did I Come From" is a rather nice intro, I think... and usefully directed at the under-tens. SO much better than the 1980s high-school approach (which essentially comprised a film on the Joy Of Childbirth (blood! screaming! nauseating sentiment!) and a series of jolly little cartoons about Sexually Transmitted Diseases.

oh dear God

[hnpcc]

From the article's discussion:

More than 90% of abstinence funding does not require
that curricula be scientifically accurate, and a
2004 review found incorrect information in 11 of 13
federally funded abstinence programs, primarily about
birth control and condom effectiveness.

It manages to leave me appalled and yet completely unsurprised at the same time. *sigh*

a quarter of parents didn't know whether their kids were sexually active

Which I kind of understand... I think my parents and I worked on a "don't ask, don't tell" model for quite some time. Then again, I had moved 100km away by then.

Re: oh dear God

[purrdence.livejournal.com]

One of my cousins never got the sex talk from her (uberChristian) parents. Not surprisingly, she was married quite quickly once she fell and now has had 2 kids before she turned 20. I kind of feel sorry for her, as she was 'protected' from so many life experiences by my Aunty (reading Harry Potter for instance), now she's been herded into the whole 'wife and mother' role and that's it.

* * *

My parents did not know when I had started having sex. Considering I was 20 and at uni by then, I thought it was None of Their Damn Business.

Re: oh dear God

[ajponder.livejournal.com]

No way! "Being a wife and mother and that's it." Huh, I knew I was doing something wrong if only I should be so lucky with my girl - so long as she is happy! Being a mother is the best (and worst) job on earth. And if you have your children early (and arguably biologically speaking we all should) there's always plenty of time for higher education (and a mid-life crisis!) later. Although the uber-christian thing is beyond me.
:)

Re: oh dear God

[purrdence.livejournal.com]

My cousin was home-schooled because my Aunty 'was lonely all by herself at home' and my cousin has never been encouraged to do want she really wants to do in her life by her mother. She's been indotrinated in that motherhood/wifehood are her ONLY option in life, not one of many.

I do hope one day she goes 'wait a mintue, there are many other things I could be doing as well as the W&M gig' and goes for it, but she'll be fighting against many years of Mummy and Daddy's Dogma.

Re: oh dear God

[ajponder.livejournal.com]

everyone has a dogma - sometimes it's hard to see our own. Most of us are conned into believing that children HAVE to go to school to be balanced human beings although this can be quite destructive to many esp. non-confromists who often thrive in a homeschool -or homeschool-like environment.

Anyway, why should your Auntie have been lonely - she had a child to raise. Why do women have to be superwomen and want to do everything? What makes you think your cousin is unhappy? Really critically evaluate your responses to these questions and more - some of them I believe are as a result of your upbringing and not hers. And if she does need help and encouragement (from you) so that she is no longer -hiding her light under a bushell- then being judgemental (even privately) isn't going to help, however chock-full of mummy/daddy/religous issues she might be.

(BTW I've met some absolutely lovely and very religous homeschooling families and without exception their children have all been encouraged to explore their own interests, be tolerant of other peoples beliefs, lifestyles etc -- and taught the facts of life. (and although Harry Potter was discouraged and even banned in some households, plenty of other books were there to fill the gaping void.)

Sorry you just touched on a - why the heck does everyone have to be so conformist and send their children to school nerve - My boy is still whinging because I can't afford to homeschool him any more and school is rather kicking his innate love of learning in the guts. I see schools as near sure fire routes to drinking problems, insecurities and other mental health problems, because the kids who don't go to school (and who socialise with homeschool groups) are so much more mature, they're more balanced, more able to interact with people outside their peergroup, and academically even the ones who were taken out because of failing to read often quickly outstrip mainstream kids. Don't knock the homeschool. Knock religous isolationism if that is relevant, but never the homeschool because it's such a easy target and nobody actually has any facts worth a damn. (Not even me.)
http://www.fallacydetective.com/articles/read/newspaper-logic-akron-beacon-journal-attack-on-homeschooling/

[ajponder.livejournal.com]

So how do I encourage my girl to find out about sex early and give me grandchildren!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)

[outsdr.livejournal.com]

I wonder if your icon will ever do a "Got milk?" mustache ad. >:)

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

HOW RUDE