Abstinence Education: Your Tax Dollars at Work.

Sunday, during the Gaia class on HIV/AIDS, 8elements handed out some 'swag' from a de-funded county health program of abstinence education. Some of the things purchased for this program were beach balls, calculators, and other cheap plastic crap imprinted with the phrase "Self-Respect: the ultimate contraceptive".

I'm getting a good look at why abstinence education fails.

First off, kids, it doesn't happen to be true that when you screw, you'll only get pregnant if you hate yourself. That would be a lie. Lots of people I know who like themselves very much have children.

Second, what the fuck does that even mean? I mean, I don't know about you lot, but for me, I can't even work it up to get laid if I'm lacking in the self-respect department. For me, there's a minimum threshold of competence that I have to feel like I have, or else, hey, I'm not feeling very sexy. In fact, in those situations, I'm feeling like if I even bothered to have sex, I'd probably do it badly, and it wouldn't be any fun.

Third, I don't know how the kids today do things, but my range of sexual behavior very rarely involves calculators, and has never yet called for beach balls. I'm going to take this moment to wonder bemusedly about the sex lives of the people who designed this program.

On the bright side, the hardworking citizens of 8elements' county don't seem to be paying for this steaming pile of monkey crap anymore. But you have to figure, at some point, basic health services were not being provided because the budget included Abstinence Beach Balls instead of vaccine doses, nursing hours, and suchlike. That bothers me.

Abstinence Education: Your Tax Dollars at Work.

Sunday, during the Gaia class on HIV/AIDS, 8elements handed out some 'swag' from a de-funded county health program of abstinence education. Some of the things purchased for this program were beach balls, calculators, and other cheap plastic crap imprinted with the phrase "Self-Respect: the ultimate contraceptive".

I'm getting a good look at why abstinence education fails.

First off, kids, it doesn't happen to be true that when you screw, you'll only get pregnant if you hate yourself. That would be a lie. Lots of people I know who like themselves very much have children.

Second, what the fuck does that even mean? I mean, I don't know about you lot, but for me, I can't even work it up to get laid if I'm lacking in the self-respect department. For me, there's a minimum threshold of competence that I have to feel like I have, or else, hey, I'm not feeling very sexy. In fact, in those situations, I'm feeling like if I even bothered to have sex, I'd probably do it badly, and it wouldn't be any fun.

Third, I don't know how the kids today do things, but my range of sexual behavior very rarely involves calculators, and has never yet called for beach balls. I'm going to take this moment to wonder bemusedly about the sex lives of the people who designed this program.

On the bright side, the hardworking citizens of 8elements' county don't seem to be paying for this steaming pile of monkey crap anymore. But you have to figure, at some point, basic health services were not being provided because the budget included Abstinence Beach Balls instead of vaccine doses, nursing hours, and suchlike. That bothers me.