No sex please, you're American

[T_i_B]

Any shagging on this thread will automatically be reported to herr A$$crack. :eyes:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/women/story/0,3604,1037335,00.html

Welcome to the world of teenage abstinence, a choice championed by the reigning Miss America and until recently (following her confessions about the true nature of her relationship with Justin Timberlake) Britney Spears, and embraced by some 2.5 million young people in the United States in the past decade. In an age obsessed with sex, they inhabit an interior universe where intercourse turns relationships stale and leads to break-ups, condoms don't work and those weak enough to have tried the pleasures of the flesh are inevitably sorry.

"You don't realise what you are doing until everything has changed," says 16-year-old John Wagster, peering earnestly through round glasses as he explains his decision to embrace chastity. "You are having oral sex, and you don't realise it's wrong. It's like eating Pringles. Once you start, you can't stop."

he growing desire to remain a virgin, and the Bush government's eagerness to back programmes which would lead Americans to a biblical lifestyle, has alarmed organisations such as Planned Parenthood, and those who support sex education in schools. In a country where the teenage pregnancy rate is double that of Britain's, 35% of all school districts have replaced sex education with classes that focus solely on why not to have sex. During the last few years Planned Parenthood itself has been forced to mention abstinence as a strategy for avoiding pregnancy and disease.

For organisations such as the Silver Ring Thing, which hosts tonight's event, it is the only way. Since emerging in 1995 from Christian youth outreach programmes, Silver Ring Thing claims to have persuaded 14,000 young people to keep themselves pure until the day they wed. Since August, it has become impeccably situated to do so, after it received $700,000 (£443,000) from the US government, the largest such grant awarded.

[JohnKleeb]

1. Ive had abistance mentioned to me in class

but I havent ever had a class that soley promotes abistance. No I have not been up all night if you all want to know sorry for the rant. My perspective on this is simple: If teens wanna fuck let them fuck but they should use contracetives but thats their choice. Kind of a libertarian attiude I guess :shrug:

[Cheswick2.0]

2. oh the horror

During the last few years Planned Parenthood itself has been forced to mention abstinence as a strategy for avoiding pregnancy and disease.

The idea that abstinence can prevent pregnancy and tranfer of sexually transmitted desease is just outrageous. How dare anyone suggest to teenage girls that they might consider anything but screwing to find or keep a boyfriend....

[T_i_B]

3. "Once you pop, you can't stop"

"It's like eating Pringles. Once you start, you can't stop."

Trouble is, having sex is a heck of a lot of fun and as such a great deal of teenagers are going to be tempted to have it off.

Therefore the challenge is to explain to people what downsides there are and how to avoid the bad stuff. For all its merits, abstinence is often easier said than done. No point in pretending that sex is not enjoyable if you ask me.

[xchrom]

4. much ado about not very much

once again the attempt to fill young people's minds with misinformation and superstition in the hope that they won't get it on in the back seat of a car.
some will, some won't. some are hanging out at those meetings and getting laid. every so many years there's an attempt to jump start a tent revival fervor in the hearts and minds of young people in the hopes that they will abstain. but people are people --and some how or other they manage to fuck each other regularly under a whole variety of circumstances. best to be prepared.

[T_i_B]

5. Grauniad is making a big deal of all this

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1038163,00.html

Abstinence is a very American phenomenon and it always makes news over here - not in terms of shopping, or food, or oil or anything else the abstention from which might do the world any kind of favour. No, we're talking about abstinence from sex, specifically teenage sex, which is, coincidentally, the only perpetually renewable resource known to mankind.

The onslaught on teenage sexuality is twofold. There are the evangelical roadshows that preach abstinence till marriage. These are full of Billy Graham-style hysteria from excitable girls; but attendance is not mandatory, so even though they receive government grants, they constitute no violation of the constitutional (though not popular) law against including religious beliefs in the public school system. Abstinence training in schools is subtly different - because of that law, many of the programmes don't even mention marriage, they just say "wait". (I once asked Andrew Doniger, director of health in Rochester, New York state, how long people were supposed to wait. He said: "We don't specify, we just say 'wait'." I said: "What, you just take the time you want to have sex, add an unspecified amount of time, and then have sex? He said: "You're a pain in the ass, you know that?")