Teens and sex is a hot-button issue. The generally accepted wisdom today seems to be that teens are old enough to make their own decisions on the subject, and they can have as much sex as they want as long as they’re taught to be “safe” first. They learn about safety from the valuable things they learn in sex ed… you know, “good sex” talks in middle school and gay porn in high school. Does it work? Probably not, considering girls are getting knocked up on purpose and contracting STDs faster than Obama can make appointments to meet with terrorist leaders. Then you’ve got parents who sit back and do nothing as their girls are sexualized, and BAM! We end up with the results of this survey which caused Tyra Banks to be utterly shocked. (Me, not so much.)
More than 10,000 teenage girls and young women took part in an anonymous survey over the summer on TyraShow.com, the Web site of “The Tyra Banks Show.” Survey questions focused on sexuality, sexually transmitted diseases and teen pregnancy, as well as drinking, drugs and violence among females. Here are some findings from the survey:
On average, girls are losing their virginity at 15 years of age. 14 percent of teens who are having sex say they’re doing it at school. One in three says she fears having a sexually transmitted disease. 24 percent of teens with STDs say they still have unprotected sex. One in five girls says she wants to be a teen mom. About 50 percent acknowledge that they’ve hit someone. One out of three teens has tried drugs. … On “The Tyra Banks Show” airing Friday, eight girls ranging in age from 14 to 17 discuss the survey findings and share their own personal experiences. Seven of the eight say they are sexually active; of those seven, just one says she uses protection when having sex.
… Another girl, a 17-year-old mother of a 7-month-old boy, says she lost her virginity on a school lunch break and deliberately planned her pregnancy by monitoring her menstrual cycle.
“I had helped teach a sex-ed class to a class of freshmen my sophomore year,” she explains. “We taught how … there’s a week [in] the month you are more likely to get pregnant than any other time of the month. I had calculated that out and I decided on two days I was most likely to get pregnant.”
Girls on the show also talk about experimenting with the drugs salvia and Ecstasy and getting into violent fights with other girls.
I’m not trying to be heartless. But what do you really expect? As sad and terrible as results are, they aren’t terribly shocking. We live in a completely sex-obsessed culture, and on top of that, one that is almost completely void of personal responsibility. Who gets hit the hardest? Immature teens with raging hormones and fragile emotions.
So what is it that has caused so many teenage girls to exercize such poor judgement when it comes to sex? Well, let’s see. There’s the fact that, too often, teens are being told they can make up their own mind when it comes to sex and to do it when it “feels right” for them. It doesn’t matter who you sleep with or why, as long as you use protection. That’s the theme. As long as they’re “educated” about sex, teens can do what they want. They’re young, and it’s healthy to experiment, right?
Uh, wrong. Teenagers are going through some of the most unstable emotional years of their lives. And the decision to have sex — something that will be life-changing, no matter what Seventeen tells them — is not a decision to be made lightly, nor one to be encourage. On top of that, more and more often teens are being encouraged not to talk to their parents about it. Exhibit A, teen magazine Seventeen on talking to parents about sex (emphasis mine):
“I come from a family who doesn’t believe in sex before marriage, but I want to have sex. How do I talk to my mom about this?”
–Jenny, 14, Winnipeg, CA
You have probably put a lot of thought into this, but before talking to your mom, think it through one last time. Take into account the “risks and the benefits” of sex — as well as what it might mean to you emotionally — just to make sure you are certain you do want to have sex now. Once you are positive this is what you want to do, be prepared for what your mother’s response might be. Think about the conversation from her point of view. Really listen to her and see what she’s most worried about. You might be surprised by what her concerns are.
It’s great that you want to keep the lines of communication open with your mother, even though you realize how difficult it might be. That says a lot about your relationship. When you talk to your mother, show her that you have really thought this through, and understand the consequences and risks. This will show her that you are prepared to handle the next step maturely, whatever that next step might be.
Nice and non-judgemental. Get what the advice is? Make your own decision before you talk to Mom. Listen to her but it’s ultimately your decision. At 14 you’re mature enough to handle it even if your mom disagrees.
Lots of teen mags have similar attitudes towards sex. CosmoGIRL!, like it’s older sister version, has an entire section devoted just to sex. From “demystifying guys’ bodies” to embarassing sex questions to “understanding your body”, they’ve got you covered. Anal sex? Check! Lesbian sex? Check! Masturbation? Check! CosmoGIRL! also referred me to a lovely website called Teenwire, which is chockful of sex information. One of the rare mentions of abstinence was a goofy cartoon game in which a guy mentions he’s abstinent, causing everyone else to stop and gape at him like he’s some kind of lunatic.
Then there’s TV. When I was growing up, it was all about shows like The Real World and Beverly Hills, 90210. Donna Martin may be the most famous virgin in TV history, and the show certainly didn’t keep her virginity a secret. And while on The Real World cast members have always been pretty people who drank and had sex, there were also a lot of real social issues discussed and handled on the show, from AIDS to racism to homophobia to politics to religion. Sex, while discussed, was never quite so out-in-the-open. No longer on today’s seasons, though. The Real World has now become nothing more than a show in which college students live in a sweet house where the sex is no longer subtle (one season, three roommates were shown hooking up in a hot tub and another season, a gay cast member hooked up on camera in the confessional room) and the season serves as an ongoing orgy and party, while teens who idolize MTV drink it up. Then you’ve got popular teen dramas like The O.C., Laguna Beach, and Gossip Girl, in which teens regularly engage in promiscuous sex.
So teens are being bombarded from every angle about sex. They get it from TV, movies, and magazines. Their schools are telling them they can go whatever they want, and encourage experimentation as “healthy sexuality”, as long as the teens are “safe”. Yet, shockingly, teens are not fully digesting that information, are they? No, no they are not. Perhaps it is because there is something missing from the sex education we are giving our children. Whether you believe in waiting until marriage or not, treating sex as something casual is a lie, and one that teens are hearing over and over and over again. When they’re constantly being shown that casual sex is OK, and they’re getting bombarded with the pressure to just do it and no one is there to tell them to slow down, what else are we to expect? Too many parents are absent, and schools are too busy pushing an agenda to really care. I’ve never been one to preach about abstinence-only education, but I don’t for a second believe the current “USE CONDOMS! EXPERIMENT FREELY!” education is any better. Obviously, judging from what we’re seeing, something isn’t working.
The question is, when are parents going to step it up to try to stop the hyper-sexualization of their children? What will it take?
Today, John Hawkins put up a post at Right Wing News about Feministing Executive Editor Jessica Valenti’s new book, The Purity Myth.
Last night on instant messenger, a female friend of mine sent me a link to a new book that Jessica Valenti over at Feministing is coming out with. Yes, believe it or not, this apparently isn’t some sort of off-the-wall parody — it’s a real book[.]
After sending me the link, my friend’s comment was, “What is it with feminists and wanting to turn America’s teenagers into raging whores?”
Good question.
Yeah, that would be me. Here’s what the book cover looks like:
Sigh. Where to even begin.
For what its worth, Jessica seems to have an obsession with sluttiness. She has some kind of particular aversion to girls practicing abstinence, or at the very least, not wallowing in the hook-up culture that dominates high schools and colleges today. According to Jessica, shirts that say things like “Future Wife” and “Virgins are Hot” are SEXIST!! (how shocking). She also hates purity balls. She hated this article from Time Magazine. Here’s an excerpt Jessica featured and called “creepy”:
Kylie Miraldi has come from California to celebrate her 18th birthday tonight. She’ll be going to San Jose State on a volleyball scholarship next year. Her father, who looks a little like Superman, is on the dance floor with one of her sisters; he turns out to be Dean Miraldi, a former offensive lineman with the Philadelphia Eagles. When Kylie was 13, her parents took her on a hike in Lake Tahoe, Calif. “We discussed what it means to be a teenager in today’s world,” she says. They gave her a charm for her bracelet–a lock in the shape of a heart. Her father has the key. “On my wedding day, he’ll give it to my husband,” she explains. “It’s a symbol of my father giving up the covering of my heart, protecting me, since it means my husband is now the protector. He becomes like the shield to my heart, to love me as I’m supposed to be loved.”
Creepy? I thought it was sweet. Jessica’s response?
Are families who don’t expect their daughters to promise their virginity to their dads promoting sex for 12 year-olds? Can’t dads be engaged in the lives of their daughters without worrying about the state of their hymen? And is telling women that their moral compass lays in between their legs really setting the bar high?
She didn’t mind an article from Salon.com bragging about how awesome casual hook-ups are. The writer gleefully recounts the many one-night stands “several night stands” she’s had as if it’s a positive thing:
I’m a 24-year-old member of the hookup generation — I’ve had roughly three times as many hookups as relationships — and, like innumerable 20-somethings before me, I’ve found that casual sex can be healthy and normal and lead to better adult relationships. I don’t exactly advocate picking up guys at frat parties and screwing atop the keg as the path to marital bliss. It’s just that hookup culture is not the radical extreme it is so frequently mischaracterized as in the media. There is sloppy stranger sex among people my age, sure, but sometimes hooking up is regular sex with a casual acquaintance; sometimes it’s innocent making out or casually dating or cuddling, and, oftentimes, it involves just one person at a time. In a sense it’s all very old-fashioned — there’s just a lot more unattached sex involved.
That, my friends, is Jessica Valenti’s example of “healthy” sexuality, remarking:
Some of you may already know that I’m working on a book about this culture of purity and chastity, and how it’s America’s obsession with virginity, not Girls Gone Wild and hooking up, that’s fucking young women up.
So, I’ll say it again.
Why is it so many feminists are so obsessed with turning teenage girls into raging whores? How is that something you tell girls they should aspire to? Sleeping around is not a good thing. Even if you take the emotional aspect out, it’s not physically healthy. There’s a reason that 1 in 4 teenage girls has an STD. I guess that doesn’t matter to Jessica, because hey, obviously as long as you practice “safe sex” you’ll NEVER get an STD! Condoms are absolutely foolproof, so hey, screw whoever you want. There won’t be any consequences. Right?
Oh, wait, apparently that’s not working out too good for teenage girls.
You would think, if for no other reason, you’d want to tell girls to rein it in if for no other reason than to safeguard their health. But hey, telling girls to be pure is really the problem. Girls Gone Wild culture is healthy, telling girls to keep their legs together is not.
Yeah, that’s the advice of a sane, rational person with girls’ well-being at heart.
See, for feminists like Jessica it’s not good enough to say it’s your choice when it comes to sex. Modern feminism isn’t about choice though, is it? No, Jessica and her ilk have to make everyone else act the exact same way they do. Is it to validate their own choices? I’d wager a bet on that, although if that is the truth, it would be the strongest argument against the point that Jessica is making.
Look, I’m not about to say that anyone who has premarital sex is a slut, or that if you have had a lot of sex it means you’re a terrible person. I am saying that spreading your shit like you’re Samantha on Sex and the City is not healthy and it’s not something you should be telling teenage girls they should be emulating.
And yes, fathers should be talking to their daughters about sex. While Jessica seems to think that the implication is that talking to their daughters about sex is the only way fathers can be involved in their daughters’ lives, that’s not the point at all. Fathers — and mothers — are supposed to be helping their children to grow, to learn, prepare them to make good choices. That includes sex. And telling your twelve-year-old, “You know what? You’re a smart kid. Do whatever is right for YOU!” is ludicrous. A girl that young simply does not have the maturity to make that kind of decision on her own! Her parents are supposed to guide her, and I personally find purity balls great ways to do that. To me, a purity ball is not teaching a girl that sex is something dirty or cheap (although telling her that she should hook up with whoever she wants certainly does). It tells her that sex is something sacred and special, and that it’s not something that she should give away to just anyone. Even if she has sex before she gets married, it’s a lesson she’ll likely carry on throughout her life. And how can you possibly argue that a girl who has limited partners is worse off than a girl who screws any guy who’ll buy her a few at a bar or flirt with her in class at college? And if respect and empowerment for herself is not a good enough reason to teach a girl to abstain, then the willpower required should be. Doing whatever you feel like whenever you feel like it makes for a very weak person, indeed. It doesn’t take strength or character to just do “whatever makes you feel good”.
I honestly think that what most of this is about when it comes to feminists like Jessica is self-loathing… you know, misery loves company and all. I can’t help but see someone extremely misguided, bitter, and angry in Jessica and the feminists like her. What’s truly pathetic is that they aren’t content with screwing up their own lives. No… they’ve got to ruin the lives of American teenage girls as well.
Maybe I should just write a book called “The Feminism Myth: How Feminists’ Obsession with Slutting Around is Hurting Young Women”. See, feminism did not come around as a vehicle for women to be able to have on-demand birth control and abortions, or sleep around like horndog men. And to have the values that the mothers of feminism stood for perverted by women who claim to be fighting for women’s rights is a myth, indeed.
I wonder if he realizes the wonderful irony of this statement:
Bill Clinton made a plea yesterday for a new emphasis on monogamy as a key element in the battle against Aids.
The former US president, not noted for his ability to keep his own marriage vows, said it was very important to change people’s attitudes to sex.
In an interview with the BBC recorded in Africa, Mr Clinton said that increasing support for monogamy was not just a problem for the continent worst hit by Aids but for the world.
“To pretend we can ever get hold of this without dealing with that – the idea of unprotected sexual relations with unlimited numbers of partners – I think would be naïve,” he said.
Experts believe that the nature of Africans’ relationships may help explain the continent’s high rate of Aids. Research suggests a higher frequency of overlapping sexual partnerships.
Well, that’s rich. I never thought I’d hear Bill Clinton, of all people, advising monogamy. It isn’t like he’s a fan.
Aside from the obvious dig at Bill Clinton, there’s more fun we can have with this article. It’s somehow shocking news that if you don’t want to get AIDS, it’d probably be a good idea to not sleep around. This, of course, goes against all that is held sacred in the hearts of liberals and modern-day feminists. We’re told today to embrace casual sex, that there will never be any consequences as long as you take birth control and remember to slap on a condom. Then there’s no risk whatsoever. It’s all fun and games, it isn’t the least bit harmful to anyone (physically or emotionally, of course), and as long as you’re both consenting adults, then it doesn’t matter. The obvious possible repercussions are brushed off or ignored.
It’s always seemed somehow contradictory to me how modern feminists so often advocate women slutting around. “Men do it!”, they shriek. “If men can sleep around, so can women!” They seem to ignore the fact that sleeping around is not a positive. Sure, men may be more promiscuous than women. That doesn’t mean women should jump right on that bandwagon. But jump on, women have. Feminists are leading us to the promised land, you see, of sex without consequences. You’ll never feel used or abandoned or cheap. As long as you use a condom, you won’t get an STD and if you get pregnant, well, you can just have an abortion. Sex is fun fun fun, all the time, and screw the consequences!
The thing is, abandoning morals and values does not necessarily only mean that, well, you’ve abandoned your morals and values. When doing so means you’re having countless casual sexual relationships with someone you’ve known for approximately 87 minutes at a bar, you can have a lot bigger issues. Condoms are not exactly foolproof. You can wear a condom and still get an STD. This “promised land” modern-day feminists and liberals have been preaching about does not exist. Nothing good comes from sleeping around. Cheapening sex can have a lot of repercussions, including some emotional doozies, and it isn’t a good idea to do so if for no other reason than to keep yourself healthy and safe.
Bill Clinton may not be practicing what he preaches, but it’s still good advice. Keep it in your pants, folks, unless it’s someone you’re in an exclusive relationship with. Sleeping around recklessly may feel good in the moment, but instant gratification usually comes with a price. And sleeping with strangers is the ultimate in instant gratification. Is that hour of fun really worth the lifetime of pain from AIDS? Not likely. Sex is great. It isn’t something to be feared and diminished. But it is something to be shared with one person, and one person only, no matter what Bill Clinton does or Eve Ensler & Co. try to tell you.
Hat Tip: My colleague Bill Jempty at Wizbang
For what it’s worth:
Do you believe there wasn’t a pregnancy pact? I don’t know that I do, but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change the utter foolishness of getting pregnant on purpose as a teenager.
Usually, teen pregnancy is seen as something negative. Sexually active girls dread getting pregnant. Parents worry about their daughters ruining their lives. Boyfriends fear being tied down forever.
But for a group of sixteen-year-old girls in Massachusetts, that’s not the case. They made a pregnancy pact and now, a whopping seventeen girls are happily expecting a baby.
There’s a stunning twist to the sudden rise in teen pregnancies at Gloucester High School. Seventeen students there are expecting and many of them became that way on purpose.
Time Magazine first reported that nearly half of the girls confessed to making a pact to get pregnant and raise their babies together. None of them is older than 16.
Schools Superintendent Christopher Farmer told WBZ’s Bill Shields Thursday the girls had “an agreement to get pregnant.”
Farmer said these are generally “girls who lack self-esteem and have a lack of love in their life.”
“The common threat is the lack of self-esteem and purpose in life, and a lack of a sense of direction,” said Farmer. “Young women wanting and needing affection.”
Principal Joseph Sullivan has not returned calls from WBZ for comment.
Sullivan told the magazine that the pact wasn’t the only shocking incident.
“We found out one of the fathers is a 24-year-old homeless guy,” he told Time.
Last month, two top officials at the high school’s health center resigned in a fight over contraceptives distribution.
Medical Director Dr. Brian Orr and chief nurse practitioner Kim Daly support confidentially giving contraceptives to students. They were outraged about resistance from Addison Gilbert Hospital, which administers the state public health grant that funds the school clinic.
Normally, the school has about four pregnancies per school year.
According to Time, school officials started looking into the spike in pregnancies after an unusual number of girls came to the school clinic for pregnancy tests. Some came by several times.
“Some girls seemed more upset when they weren’t pregnant than when they were,” Sullivan told the magazine.
The pregnant girls and their parents turned down requests to be interviewed.
A recent graduate who had a baby during her freshman year told Time she knows why the girls wanted to get pregnant.
“They’re so excited to finally have someone to love them unconditionally,” Amanda Ireland, 18, said. “I try to explain it’s hard to feel loved when an infant is screaming to be fed at 3 a.m.”
The students are lacking love, so they decide they want to have a baby? I call B.S.
This is simply a bunch of girls who have no idea what they’re getting into. They see movies like “Knocked Up” and “Juno”. They see celebrities like Angelina Jolie, Jessica Alba, Ashlee Simpson, and Jamie Lynn Spears having babies out of wedlock. They’re constantly being bombarded with sex from every direction and told by adults that it isn’t a big deal, as long as they’re “safe”. Their parents are likely never there, absentee parents who don’t pay enough attention to their daughters’ lives and won’t put their foot down, yet will always be their safety net.
All of these things combine, and what do we find? A group of sixteen-year-old girls with no comprehension of what they’re doing to their lives or what the real world is like, who are so desperate to be adults that they’re getting pregnant on purpose, one of them by a homeless man.
The school pretends to be shocked, but they condone this behavior.
The high school has done perhaps too good a job of embracing young mothers. Sex-ed classes end freshman year at Gloucester, where teen parents are encouraged to take their children to a free on-site day-care center. Strollers mingle seamlessly in school hallways among cheerleaders and junior ROTC. “We’re proud to help the mothers stay in school,” says Sue Todd, CEO of Pathways for Children, which runs the day-care center.
It’s good that teen mothers are able to stay in school and still graduate; it means that they have more of a chance of leading a successful and productive life. However, what kind of message does this send? That there are no consequences, that nothing will change, and that having a baby won’t have any kind of negative effect on their lives or futures.
They’re letting these girls live in a bubble, protected from the realities of life. It’s a cruel failure by the adults in their lives who are supposed to be preparing these children for the real world. A sixteen-year-old girl cannot understand the consequences of these actions; she has no idea what she is getting into. This is where her parents and her teachers have let her down. The fact that this happened in one of the most liberal states in the country does not surprise me, either.
It’s sad, seeing how this has happened to a bunch of children. It’s sad to see that this is where our country is headed. But these are the consequences when parents become absent, moral foundations are eroded, and sex is seen as inconsequential and trivial. And it’s our failure.
Hat Tip: Dr. Melissa Clouthier
A new video called “Blue Balled” has come out, sponsored by Truth Through Action. It’s a great video, with a great message: as long as you’re a Democrat, you can land a decent-looking, snobby, shallow, and superficial girl who will put out approximately five minutes after meeting you, and she’ll also make sure to call you by the wrong name. You won’t even have to do any work! All you have to do is be there and bleed blue. She’ll strip off all her clothes on her own, jump into bed, and even get the condom and put it on for you. You won’t need to worry about impressing her, wooing her, having a personality or doing anything whatsoever to win her over. Just have a penis and a picture of Barack Obama on your nightstand.
Isn’t that exactly the kind of girl you want to land? Vote Democrat, baby, and that’s what you’ll get, all the time. (That, and a blistering case of herpes.)
Welcome to the land of milk and honey, where as long as you wear hipster sunglasses, keep your hair long and greasy, and keep a donkey pinned to your lapel, sluts will flock to you, my fortunate lefty.
Now, as a Republican, you might scare off the sluts. But then again, it could leave you with girls who are actually intelligent and principled, and maybe possess some morals, class, and dignity. And I guess that would be just awful, wouldn’t it?
Some lefties will read this and say I’m a hypocrite because I don’t typically date liberals. It isn’t. First of all, I don’t run away screaming and dejected if I find out the guy is a liberal; I’ll give him a chance. It is true, though, that I don’t typically have lasting relationships with liberals. But, as Allah points out, there is a difference between saying you won’t have a one-night stand with a liberal and saying you won’t date a liberal:
Both sides wrestle with variations of this sentiment (although I suspect men wrestle with it less than women), but on the right it’s usually formulated as, “I don’t date liberals.” I think that’s silly, but it’s defensible insofar as sharp political differences might make the relationship unworkable. The sentiment here, do note, is “I don’t sleep with Republicans,” almost as if there’s some physical taint, like VD, that one might contract by touching them. I don’t want to overstate the point since this dopey ad is designed to be cheeky and lighthearted, but once you’ve demonized a group to the extent of regarding them as unclean, you’re on a whole other plane of demagoguery.
Well said.
Hat Tip: Michelle Malkin
Wow, things have sure changed since I went to school.
Middle-schoolers at Fort Herriman Middle School in Utah had a, well, interesting lesson plan waiting for them which made their parents furious. They were taught all about sex! Europe, here we come…
A middle school health teacher is under investigation, accused of teaching too much about sex.
Parents say the teacher is saying crude and explicit things that don’t belong in the classroom. Dewayne Smith says, “These are our children, and we’re not going to breach the firewall of innocence.”
Parents say sex education went too far inside the classroom full of 8th-graders at Fort Herriman Middle School. Suzanne Johnson told us, “She explained how the teacher talked about masturbation. Girl masturbation, boys, the wrong ways … the right ways to have sex, the wrong ways to have sex. How long to make it last. I mean, disgusting.”
“What bothered me is that, not only did we get into discussions of masturbatory activity, but we got into explicit descriptions of homosexual acts,” Smith said.
Parents say the teacher also showed students fliers with explicit cartoon images.
Seventh-grader Marissa Poloei had a friend in the class. She told us, “He thought it was gross and stuff, and she showed a lot of pictures of stuff.”
A spokesperson for the Jordan School District would not comment on the allegations but said there is an investigation. The teacher has been put on administrative leave, but parents don’t think that’s enough.
Johnson says, “We want her fired. We want her never to teach ever again.”
Some of the parents plan to meet with administrators at the school tomorrow. They’ve invited Rep. Carl Wimmer to attend.
Again, the district said it cannot comment on personnel issues. We were not able to contact the teacher for her side of the story.
Kinda reminds me of this ad I used to remember seeing for Sex and the City, except it was the four women when they were middle-schoolers. I couldn’t find it on YouTube, but it was basically Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha as adolescent girls, already gossiping together and already in their cliched roles.
Is that what this teacher was trying to do? Is that what this class was supposed to be? I can just see this being the newest show on MTV: Sex and the Cafeteria. How to have good sex when you’ve just hit puberty and can barely get it up or really understand what it is you’re doing.
The parents have every right to be outraged, and that teacher — if everything the parents are saying is accurate, and I don’t doubt that it is — should be fired. And let me just say this: unlike a lot of conservatives, I actually don’t have a problem with some sexual education. In my high school, we were required to take it (I had it around my junior year). But it was absolutely nothing like what this teacher is teaching. If anything, sex ed was really a huge scare tactic. We were taught in terrifying detail about what different kinds of STDs there are, and what exactly they would do to you. We were taught about what different kinds of birth control were out there, how they worked, what the potential risks to your body were, and how effective they were. Always the teacher stressed that the best way to keep yourself free from STDs and to not get pregnant was to remain abstinent, because even using a condom and birth control was not always foolproof. Best of all, we were told about the emotional and psychological effect having sex when you aren’t ready (read: TOO YOUNG) could be, and how devastating it can be. Like I said, that class scared the bejesus out of me. I lived in fear that if I had sex, I would get pregnant, contract syphillis, and be depressed all at the same time. That class never once said that abstinence was the best answer — it stressed personal choice — but it covered every possible base that there was when it came to possible consequences. The attitude was that if you’re going to do it, you need to be prepared for the risk you’re taking.
And you know, I don’t really have a problem with a program like that — for high-schoolers. I thought it was age-appropriate and made perfect sense. In fifth grade, my sex-ed class consisted of splitting the boys and girls into two different classes. I have no idea what the boys were taught, but we were basically told what would be happening soon, and mainly centered around what our monthly visits from Aunt Flo would be like. Again, no arguments from me here.
But this? Explaining to children how to have sex well, how to make it last longer, how to masturbate, what different kinds of homosexual acts you can practice… that’s just outrageous. The fact that children are being taught these kinds of things says a lot about where we are as a society today. Children are no longer allowed to be children. They’re being asked to grow up and handle adult decisions at earlier and earlier ages, while their parents and teachers either look the other way or encourage them. These are children. Let them enjoy their childhood and innocence and naivete and idealism while they can. They don’t need to be informed about the many different kinds of sexuality that exist and then encouraged to go out and practice. That’ll lead them down a dark, lonely road which will inevitably lead to a lot of anger, cynicism, and bitterness.
I seriously wonder why it is that so many adults seem to want to rush children into adulthood. I really just don’t understand it. Yesterday I asked if they were just living vicariously. I really do think that excuse is grasping at some pretty frail straws, but this entire debacle about teaching kids to have sex boggles my mind, just like dressing your sixteen-or-under little girl like a porn star boggles my mind.
Really, with this case, one of the parents summed it up best:
These are our children, and we’re not going to breach the firewall of innocence.
Glad to see that there are still some parents out there that understand that.
Hat Tip: Michelle Malkin
When you sleep around a lot, and don’t think twice about giving yourself to someone, usually something bad happens. You start to look at it like Margaret Cho does. (Caution for language and… disturbing content.)
Having sex with a man you live with is prostitution. How lovely. This video is just disturbing on so many levels!
The prostitution schtick we hear from so many feminists is tiring, to say the absolute least. For me, it’s more revolting and disturbing. The thing is, the women who are most likely to look at consensual sex as prostitution are the ones who probably don’t look at it as something sacred. They’re the ones who idolize Sex and the City, who think that women should sleep around like men do, who have dozens of notches on their belts and don’t think they should be ashamed. They’re the ones who don’t realize that sex is something that brings you closer to someone, that is beautiful and emotional and so much more than a physical act. And the more they have sex, the more they hate themselves for doing it, and the more they hate sex.
This video brought to mind a post that my friend Melissa Clouthier wrote about sex:
Sex is not just to make babies. Sex is not just for physical pleasure. Sex is a sacred gift between two people.
Here’s an irony that I’ve noticed: the women who put out the most seem to like sex the least. You read that right. Because sex matters so little to them, they use sex as a tool to get a man to like them or they use sex to have physical touch or they use sex for attention. The point is, they use sex. And then, when there is no more use for sex, they stop giving it up. That’s right. They don’t like it or value it that much anyway. They give it to anyone and everyone. And, imagine their eventual husband’s shock when it stops being given. “But we had so much sex before we got married!” Uh huh. I have a newsflash. She didn’t like it then, either. She was using sex to use you. And, it worked.
No one values anything that comes cheap. Why do men and women give away the gift of their body and soul as if it is worth nothing?
Sexual intercourse is more than a physical coupling. It is a powerful union, a special gift. DNA is exchanged during sex. Both people are literally changed by the experience. And this is awesome. When someone has multiple partners, gives the gift too soon and to a stranger even, a barrier goes up emotionally. How can it not? A person has to divest himself of emotional vulnerability in an act that succeeds based on making oneself vulnerable. Long term, I believe that this behavior is incredibly damaging to the heart and spirit of a person. The emotional distance becomes a habit. This is not so easy to turn off once in a loving, committed relationship.
This is what I thought of when I watched Margaret Cho do her bit about sex with her ex-boyfriend. I felt like there was such desperation there… such sadness and fear and anger and vulnerability. Her bit seemed to show me that she was absolutely desperate to find some way to connect to this man, and when she couldn’t, she lashed out. She shut herself down, she pushed him away, and she was angry at him for making her have to do that. To her, men are the enemy.
There was one good bit in that video. When she spoke about the ability of women to give birth, to give life, I thought she was spot-on. I don’t have any children, but I’ve seen a child being born — my sister. I was in the delivery room with my parents. I watched my sister take her first breath. And it was incredible. I wasn’t even the woman delivering her, but it was just such an incredible, moving, emotional moment. Margaret was hitting the nail on the head… and then she went and ruined it with her crass comedy.
I saw this video at Feministing, and the response was saddening. Of course, all of these “feminists” were lauding Margaret and agreeing with her point of view. A few of them said they wanted to make out with her, because she’s so “amazing”.
Really? I didn’t crack a smile once during that video. It wasn’t even that I didn’t like what she was saying, but she just wasn’t funny. Not even a little bit. And she just seems to come across as someone who is very bitter, angry, and desperate for emotional intimacy. But, like I said, when you cheapen sex, there is no emotional intimacy.
It’s sad when you see people who use sex as a means of getting what they want, of manipulation, rather than appreciating it for what it is. And it seems like that’s exactly the kind of person Margaret is - hell, she spelled it out for us. She calls it prostitution “for very low wages” and talks about how bad the sex is. How can you possibly enjoy it, though, if you can’t surrender yourself fully to it?
