Check out this shit.
The Department of Health and Human Services lists evidence-based teen-pregnancy prevention programs. Good for them! I approve of it. (Of course, the best teen-pregnancy prevention program is ending poverty, but that’s neither here nor there.) Much to the grave displeasure of everyone with a thinking brain on the planet, the updated list includes something called Heritage Keepers Abstinence Education.
How bad is it? Let’s just take a look, shall we?
Sexual activity outside of marriage can lead to “sexually transmitted viruses, sexually transmitted bacteria, cervical cancer, AIDS, legal and financial responsibility for a child until he or she is at least 18, raising a child alone, emotional hurt and regret, increased chance of abuse from a partner.”
Well, those are all consequences of sexual activity outside of marriage, yes. I mean, they’re consequences of sexual activity in marriage too, a marriage license is not a magic protection against HIV. Hell, “emotional hurt and regret” is a consequence of relationships, not a consequence of sex. And some of them are somewhat exaggerating the consequences– I mean, a case of the clap is hardly going to ruin your life. And I don’t know what the FUCK is up with that abuse thing. But overall it doesn’t seem that–
Sex is like fire. Inside the appropriate boundary of marriage, sex is a great thing! Outside of marriage, sex can be dangerous!
Oh. Oh. Well, um.
HOW THE FUCK DID THIS GET APPROVED?
95% of Americans have had premarital sex. Just to give you an idea: if you had sex education that focused on only queer sex, and that extensively covered the use of dental dams by lesbians and the differences in sexual responses for trans men while leaving PIV intercourse among cis hets and sexual reproduction completely out, it would actually be relevant to MORE of the population than this is.
Not to mention that sex is dangerous period, this is the age of AIDS, sex can KILL YOU. Marriage is not a protection.
But not only is it a perpetrator of misinformation, only relevant to a tiny percentage of the US population, and prone to the cold-blooded murder of basic statistics (the link between premarital sex and divorce doesn’t mean premarital sex causes divorce! It could mean people that wait until they get married for sex are from very religious backgrounds that stigmatize divorce! Christ!) it’s also misandric as fuck!
Males and females are aroused at different levels of intimacy. Males are more sight oriented whereas females are more touch oriented.
I guess they hate porn, so they probably haven’t been looking at the (NSFW) James Deen tag on Tumblr lately. But seriously what is this nonsense? Men can’t be physically attractive? No straight woman’s ever been attracted to a dude with a nice pair of arms or a sweet crooked smile? Sexist fucking bullshit that’s designed to make men feel unattractive.
There are also two separate guided journeys where you’re asked to imagine your wedding day. Let’s look at the boys’.
The doors swing open and there stands your bride in her white dress, looking more gorgeous than you have ever seen her. Even though every eye in the place is on her she is looking at you. This is the woman you have waited for who has waited for you…This woman loves you and trusts you with all that she is and all that she has. You want to be strong, respectful and courageous for her. With all your heart, you want to protect her, and by waiting you have.
Knight/Beast Dichotomy up the ass. Men should be strong, respectful, courageous noble knights that protect women from all the evils of the world! This is definitely not a ridiculous way to view a relationship between human beings! I mean, seriously, assuming you’re not dating in a war zone, how often does “protect my partner” actually come up? I’m racking my brain trying to think of times it’s come up in my relationships, and there really aren’t any except for protecting me from myself.
Why can’t we have men wanting to love their partners, or emotionally support them, or even have fun with them? Why is it always the protection thing? Oh, yeah, because emotional support isn’t manly.
The girls’ guided journey thing, by the way, mostly discusses how she trusts her partner and is so happy that she doesn’t have any memories of other sex partners or guilt or anything that makes her cringe in her past. Which is good! I am firmly in support of that. Personally I accomplish it by not having internalized slut-shaming and not having sex I’ll regret in the morning, but everyone has their own path. By the way, someone ought to write a gender studies thesis on the idea that women preserve their virginities for themselves and men for their partners.
Basically: boo the Heritage Keepers Abstinence Education! They hate women, they hate men, they are completely irrelevant for queer people and people who don’t want to get married, they’re mostly irrelevant for 95% of the population, and worst of all they are encouraging innumeracy and statistical stupidity in the population at large.
You can contact the White House to ask that only scientifically valid and non-sexist sex education material be used. In addition, if you have some spare money, donate to Scarleteen, a great organization dedicated to doing all the queer-positive, sex-positive, feminist, consent-oriented sex education that those abstinence-only assholes don’t want to. With this thing approved, God knows we’ll need it.
This is what my sex education in school (Sweden, in the early nineties) looked like: 1. Sex=PIV. 2. This is what penises look like: Picture. This is what vaginas look like: Picture. 3. If you don’t want to get STD:s you must use a condom. Then there are all kinds of stuff you can use just to avoid pregnancy “teacher brings out the took kit of assorted contraceptives” but the most efficient of those is the pill. 4. Oh, and there are also homosexuals and bisexuals. 5. (In private, to the girls only, said by the school nurse): You know… Read more »
I remember the similarly named “Promise Keepers”, who were also abstinence promoters. Basically they tried to get teenagers to pledge abstinence until marriage. Studies later showed that most of the “pledgers” failed in this, though it did slightly increase the average age of virginity loss. It also significantly increased the rate of STDs and unwanted pregnancies among them compared to teenagers in general because hardly any of them used condoms or the like. Also, even if it’s true that on the average men are more sight-oriented and women are more touch-oriented, it doesn’t mean that everyone is like that, or… Read more »
But…but if men aren’t from Mars, and women aren’t from Venus, that means we have to actually THINK about relationships and WORK at them, instead of just following a simple one-size-fits-all formula that leaves everyone miserable! 😛
Um, the James Deen tag 404’s on a GMP address. Just thought you’d like to know coz I’m a guy, and by definition, am more sight oriented
Thank you, Ozy. It’s the sight of a 404 that offends me !
“Sexual activity outside of marriage can lead to “sexually transmitted viruses, sexually transmitted bacteria, cervical cancer, AIDS, legal and financial responsibility for a child until he or she is at least 18, raising a child alone, emotional hurt and regret, increased chance of abuse from a partner.” Let’s say that’s all true, or let’s say the Heritage Foundation really believes this. If these dangers really are the main concern, then the group should definitely promote more masturbation among young people. None of these problems are much of a danger when it’s just you. (Not that masturbation has to be done… Read more »
I really freaking hate how the stereotype that women don’t get turned on or are attracted to visual images of men has hung around. Why would we have good looking men at all if that were the case? I must have a stupid amount of testosterone, because there’s no way that as a “normal” straight woman I could be at all attracted to (or want to see naked) men like Michael Fassbender, Jason Mamoa, or James Deen. I would list all the men I’m attracted to but that would likely take three pages of comments to do so.
This idea of Women Not Wanting Sex is extremely toxic in Catholic settings, too. It’s the same bullshit, plus a huge dose of the worst thing Thomas Aquinas has ever said: “Masturbation is an intrinsically disordered act.”
For years, I thought there was something wrong with me because I liked to mess with my lady-parts.
Religion, I’ve found, tends to do that. Most of the more Abrahamic religions and their respective sects at least. It’s saddening to me that people grow up with such ideas as that – that bodies are dirty and sexual desire, particularly in women, is bad. My mother was raised Catholic, but thankfully, she was an enlightened lady. I got good education from her because I think she learned some things for herself and she moved away from the church. So I’m lucky, I grew up in a household that never made me feel ashamed of my body. I had been… Read more »
… and then I threw up.
“Knight/Beast Dichotomy up the ass”.
I would never date a broad who could not support herself.
“Males and females are aroused at different levels of intimacy. Males are more sight oriented whereas females are more touch oriented”.
I can see some logic here. Men are generally turned on by the sight of a naked woman, but women do not generally like looking at men’s penises. They might not like the sight of a penis, but they sure like it when it is crushing their kitty 🙂
But it’s not just about how a man feels to us, any more than the physical sensations of sex are meaningless to you. I personally ADORE looking at man-chest (hairy or otherwise), and at penises*, and if there’s one thing that really turns my crank, it’s seeing my partner’s O-face and knowing zie’s enjoying the act every bit as much as I am. * I find penises utterly fascinating, and not just in the sexual way. It’s a hydraulic tube attached to your body! It grows and shrinks! Different ones are bent different amounts, in different directions! Some of them… Read more »
Such a book exists- it’s called: The Internet.
More seriously, I’ve heard of a few projects that were all about taking pictures of normal (not professional models, I mean, I just woke up and can’t think of a less problematic word) men and women naked, to show how real bodies varry and to encourage self-acceptance. I believe those archives have been uploaded fo the net somewhere. There’s also chat roulette.
By Odin’s beard, I hate the “you have to protect your woman” bullcrap. Dammit, the women I’m attracted to are better at protecting themselves than I am! Just another reason for me to be glad that I’m not religious, I guess.