While watching CNN this morning, I found it hard not to spit out my cereal - sadly, not in surprise but in disgust. According to CNN, the Board of Education in Texas has passed a decision to change their health textbooks in these ways:

1. Marriage will be defined solely as between a man and a woman.

2. There will be no mention of condom usage, safe sex practices, etc. This will be replaced wholly by abstinence teachings.

I cannot believe that so many states passed anti-same-sex marriage bans. This is horrid. It's prejudiced and nasty and despicable, in my mind, but that's simply my opinion. CNN also showed people in Texas very much opposed to these changes... I guess I'm just angered at the fact this went through in the first place. I should be shocked, but seeing so many people opposed to same-sex marriage, I can only be disgusted.

And getting rid of everything but abstinence is simply ridiculous. Some people believe that abstinence is the only way to go... good for them. However, what people don't seem to realize is not everyone is going to follow abstinence, or more simply, many, many people will have sex before they are married. It is dangerous to preach abstinence and not talk about safe alternatives.

Thanks Texas Board of Education for ruining my Sunday morning.

Guess we can be looking for a higher rate of unwanted teen pregnancy . . .
that's really ridiculous. Anyone who thinks that telling teens not to have sex is going to make them refrain is completley naive.

Wow...just...no.
I had a similar health class. didn't mention the specifics behind marriage, but it did only mention abstinance. I think when an assistant teacher came in, she mentioned something about condom usage, but it was a co-ed health class (And i was busy paying attention to a cute young boy in the back...heh) so i can't really recall them mentioning far beyond that...i remember each day a different student would have to wear the 'empathy belly' - one of those suits that pushes down on your bladder and weighs a ton...
They mostly tried to scare you out of not having sex, though.
there was this project with these plastic babies where you had to turn and push down a key whenever it cried, and it counted how many times it was jolted...i lost the key, and it never stopped crying...put that evil child-thing in the spare bedroom's closet.
...
I'd make a horrid mother.

I live in Texas. Parents here can be morons. Their argument tends to be that they're going to teach their kids this stuff. All well and good but they don't.

I think sex ed in general is a joke. I think it would be more effective to have classes on 'safe credit card usage' or 'your car has blinkers, use them you moron'.

If parents don't know enough to teach basic sex education, they don't need to be having sex and then they won't have anyone to teach. Problem solved.

Actually, i think it is just fine. As we all should know, not all people deserve to have basic rights, and that is anyone diffirent than us. And besides, you are talking about the state in our glorious home-of-the-free that produced the Master Genius, Gerorge Dubya Bush. I really hope to meet him someday. It is admirable in how much he can mix personal values, his religion, and politics as he does. And the Iraqi war! how great is that! Now, with the help of our current Overlord and thousands of deceased soldiers, the Iraqi people no longer have to be oppressed. They no longer must live in fear. They will not need to live another day without McDonalds!
It really saddens me when people show the kind of ignorance and rebellion as you do. Why must people voice their opinions? Opinions that do not agree with mine offend me. There is no need for a personal voice, only the need to stifle those pesky individual voices in favor of one large, widely accepted wrong one! Don't you see??

I label you: Un-American

You're kidding right?

I believe that mono' was being sarcastic, read his sig!

I do have trouble recognizing sarcasm over the internet.

Indeed, MSG. How dare we question authority. THe Government always knows what's best for us.

Anyhow, in high school, we had a crappy health class that was humbled by my middle school's in the north (even though I knew more about sex in middle school than was taught; I'm sure many of us did). In both, we learned about STDs and what-not, but in the north, it seemed more informative and less sensational. Here, they taught us about how STDs will sneak up on us when we have sex with our girlfriend who, if she's had sex, has probably had sex with the dirtiest, sluttiest people around who had sex with other dirty, slutty people and whose STDs will kill us while we sleep (because apparently all of the sexually active people in the world have sex with several hundred partners). They even brought in this group that goes to schools promoting abstinence who told us that, though sex is wonderful and the greatest thing God has ever bestowed upon us (that much is true), we shouldn't have sex or even think about it or else we'll become sex-crazed maniacs. They also told us that oral and anal sex are unhealthy, which I though was just damn funny. My teacher and the group were all good ole America-loving Christians, too.

I love it when they use pregnancy and as a scare tactic, as though having a child will condemn you to a miserable existance. They told us to not have sex or we will, without question, have a pregnancy. They didn't even acknowledge the existance of birth control or condoms, as though they're urban legends or something.

The funny thing is, there were few STDs at our school, but a lot of girls got knocked up. I blame the school not teaching what a condom is or that there is such a thing as safe sex.

What will it take to convince legislators that this is a bad idea? Doubling of the teenage pregnancy rate? AIDS infections to double? Hurrah for HIV-positive Texan teenage mothers!

Talk about shooting yourselves in the foot....

Assumably, J-man, if that were to happen, they would just want to funnel more money into the abstainence programs. That's how you fix problems in the States; you throw money at them.

I don't disagree with the teaching of absitnace. However I do disagree with people not being informed about what contraception is, and how they can access it. It leads to mis-information flying around left, right and centre and causing far more damage like what Jonman has said above.

I'm thinking it'll cost the state a fair amount to reprint the text books, to pay for the all the STD drugs that people will be requiring, abortions, child allowance. -Oh yeah, I forgot, individuals have to cough up for that sort of thing in America, there is no National Health Service, or am I wrong.

Nah, you see, that's the beauty of the plan. Abortions won't need funding, because they'll be constitutionally illegal! Genius, isn't it?

STD medicine won't need funding. STD's are to be renamed 'Divine Retribution for Immorality'. No more need for medicines - I mean, what's the point in curing a punishment from God? It'll just piss him off more.

D'oh me for not seeing it that way.

In a way I guess it's a form of birth control that the state wont have to pay for. That is higher teen pregnancy rate plus no legal and safe way of aborting equals more women paying for more illigal, filfthy, backstreet 'doctor's and thier cooking utensils to screw up thier wombs. Thus ensuring that these misinformed women cannot procreate.

It all makes perfect sense.

Exactly.

"If tha AIDS dun get'em, them there backstreet abortionisms will! Yeeeee-haaaaawwww!"

And who will be blamed for the AID's increase I wonder?

Terrorists.

And the Gay Agenda That Infects The Highest Levels Of Federal Government. Don't forget that.

You kidding?? this is the most sarcastic I've been in a year!
(and I'm not a he! )

Ridiculous. Congratulations must go to the Texas Board of Education for condemning unknown thousands of adolescents to pregnancy at 15, numerous STDs, and ruined lives.

Schools should stress that there is no great imperative to have sex, it's really not that vital, and that abstinence is the only way to remove any chance of pregnancy or STDS - no other method is completely reliable. But promoting abstinence and taking away condoms is like teaching hygiene and removing hospitals.

What invisible monster do these people think they are protecting their children from this time? When their children get into the real world, they will be forced to make uninformed decisions. Ahhhh.....stupid people should be sterilized (quote from bumper sticker I saw).

Yup, that's why I made sure it said it's only dangerous to preach abstinence if you don't preach safe alternatives.

Not saying abstinence shouldn't be taught, but merely that safe sex practices should as well.

And if Roe v. Wade is chucked due to another Supreme Court decision or amendment, I will curl into a fetal position and be afraid to come out to the world and what it became..

I definitely think that schools should teach abstinence. That is a very good way to not have babies or to contract a STD. To leave out other alternatives such as barrier methods (condoms, cervix caps, ect.) is extremely insane. And if those God loving Texans must not teach those methods, at least, at LEAST teach the rhythm method which is okay by the 'great all powerful church'.

Another thought. Almost everyone in this planet is going to have sex at some point in their lives. To not educate everyone in school about it (the point of education is to educate right?) is a rape of society. As people we all have the right to obtain unbiased information about anything, especially ourselves. To give children biased information is wrong and it is not learning. It is creating a blind society to lead their generation. What next? Are we not going to let kids know that babies come from having sex?

I really really think that telling teenagers 'don't have sex' particularly coming from a school or with an addendum along the lines of 'or god will be cross with you' is going to have all the effectivness of a chocolate fireguard.

As for a soution to the problem, well the scaremongering of sex=death-from-aids isn't something I think highly of either.

I'd go for the route of infomation on all aspects of sex, sexuality and relationships, and particulalry examine and educate on the resons for having sex.
This is how I was taught, and I grew up secure in the knowledge that sex was not something you should ever feel pressured into, that without birth control pregnancy was a risk, and without barrier contraception (thats condoms) STD's were a risk.
Safe, sensible and compasionate teaching is needed teens are on a rollercoster of emotions and hormones and changes, the last thing they need is some big morality lecture telling them half the feelings they are going through are evil or dirty.

I know people are going to roll their eyes at the by now cliche "Why Canada is Better Than America" post but I'm really glad I grew up in Canada. Starting in grade 3 (though I hear they start in kindergarten now) they started teaching sex ed in health class which taught proper hygeine, getting along with people and the dangers of illegal drugs.

Abstinence was always presented as the one method of birth control that was 100% effective but they also taught us about how to use condoms, spermicide, sponges etc etc etc. They gave us alot of information on various birth control methods and STDs. We were able to ask questions anonymously if we felt too weird asking them in front of the class. There were never any religious or moral judgements that went along with the lessons. If you had sex they wanted you to protect yourself so you wouldn't get sick or pregnant. The best way to prevent STDs and pregnancy was abstinence but they were realistic and knew kids were going to have sex anyways so they gave us the information.

This is why the Americans should actually practice the seperation of church and state instead of just talking about it.

Sounds very sensible Jaq.

I was just wondering who here thinks that they were given enought information/ education by their parents with regards to sex, contraception, and the emotional side of sexual/ romantic relationships?

I'm thinking this because I found a brilliant pop-up book yesturday from when I was about four that showed it all, which my mum would read with me. I knew about contraception, and I vaugly remeber a few sessions at school being shown how to put on a condom. But I guess looking back it was all focused on hetrosexuals.



Dagnammit, how could I have?

I guess that I have had a good amount of sex ed from my parents. I don't believe I had any sex ed in grade school, with the exception of high school health class. It wasn't like I was blocked against finding out for myself from my own text research that I found out what I ddin't know. I do find it odd that I am willing to talk about sex openly with the right people. Although, I would like to wait to find the right person and marry them.

Argh!

The thought of sex education from my mum horrifies me, even at the grand old age of 27. We just didn't have an open enough relationship. No chance of getting any sex ed from me dad, as he died when I was a nipper. However, got decent sex ed at school, although not as good as it could have been.

Best sex ed of course was from my older brother. Good work fella.

As far as I'm concerned, abstinence ed is like drug ed. Telling people (teenagers and young, impressionable 4th graders no less) not to doing something like have sex or experiment with drugs is ridiculous and doesn't even make sense.

Obviously, you're going to get a lot of kids that f*** anything with a heart beat, or take whatever their friends put in their hands. The real way to handle all this is to encourage abstinence and not taking drugs, but the other half of the class should be about what to do if those situations ever occur. I swear to who ever the hell is in charge, this country just never stops with this s*** does it? When am I going to get a break? I can't wait 4 more years!!!

As far as where I learned, for some reason, I don't know how or why, but around 4-5ish I knew all about sex. Man goes in woman, sperm, egg, baby. As far as me having sex, the only real rules I was ever taught were to use protection and ask to get on the pill as soon as I started. My mother's always been open to abortions, too, but I don't think that's likely. Because my mother taught me about contraception and didn't force abstinence down a throat (instead giving me a choice) I've learned the real value of contraception, and I'm not out f***ing everything that moves. I'm willing to wait till I have to deal with things like that.

Real quick on the topic of abortion, the fundimentalist government of Florida recently passed a law that says that if a girl wants to get an abortion, the parents have a "right" to know, which is similar to saying that at my age I have a "right" to have my mom clean my room.

Isn't it funny how much people throw around the word "right" to convince people that their enforced morality is the right one?

As for sex ed, each cirriculum will only "work" on a certain number of kids. That's why I'm a big fan of sex ed being done by parents be it verbal or a book (they make several these days) or something. You can also go deeper into things that the kid wants/needs to know about, like waiting, safe sex, STDs, whatever. I would suggest that you cover the technical end of it before you involve ethics.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately since my folks probably won't teach my little sister about this stuff and it'll be up to her big brothers. I don't want to know what kind of sex ed (if any) she'll get from her school or the middle school, but I think a sit-down talk would be more impactful.

Like telling dogs not to bark:
Or cats not to stretch:
This is like telling the young-ins not to discover the body..

How long will it be until we learn that IN-formation is more beneficial
than DE-formation (which is censorship) and that the grass always
DOES win and bursts through the cracks of the asphalt...??

Texas (and other southern states) do have the right to wallow in the
pissy puddle of public policy pretending prisfully to portray particular
practical , pragmatic plans for the prenultimate gene-pool of SUPER
MORALITY of God the big-man (wipe your hands boy an' don't be lookin
at those girls cause thats where adam went wrong) and all such rot.

I guess it's not cool anymore to be natural...I always try to let the kids be
beautiful and inquisitive....there are so many sides to human nature...
what a dilemna **sigh