Abstinence Education: Your Tax Dollars at Work.

[featherynscale]

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.

Comments

[diermuid.livejournal.com]

As I recall, a lot of the girls in high school, particularly the ones just budding and wanting to move from barbies to beers and skip everything inbetween, were horribly 'fast' for their age. They needed a boyfriend with a car, even if he just used them the mentality was that they were using HIM too. I suppose that is a healthier thought process than being victimy about it, but it still meant 13 year olds trying to hook up with 17 year olds. Made all the worse by the fact that the only 17 year olds willing to hook up with the 13 year olds were the ones that couldn't find anyone 14-18 that would even give them the time of day. Witnessing those train wrecks is probably why I never liked younger women.

I'm not sure if this is their target audience, but I remember a lot of girls being reckless because "There is nothing else better to do". I think the 'swag' money was a bit misspent, these girls knew what they wanted, and were getting it, they didn't feel vicitmized at all. But programs to give teen girls something better to do are still a bit lacking, Girl Scouts peters out a lot after Juniors, and kids only want to do 4H for so long. There are plenty of sports now... but I am pumped about the new Venture crew coming to Gardner, high-adveture activities, co-ed, and recruiting more heavily from the girl scout ranks. I hope it builds out like I think it will.

[uberreiniger.livejournal.com]

but it still meant 13 year olds trying to hook up with 17 year olds. Made all the worse by the fact that the only 17 year olds willing to hook up with the 13 year olds were the ones that couldn't find anyone 14-18 that would even give them the time of day. Witnessing those train wrecks is probably why I never liked younger women.

In my high school every girl wanted to date a boy from the local college "because they're so much more mature!" Never occurd to them to ask themselves why someone "mature" would want to date a 14 year-old.