This garbage doesn’t belong in public schools.
3rd January 2008
by trailer park
“What if this duct tape represented your body?”
Or what if your body was a firework, and sex was the match?? One little spark and you’re OBLITERATED!!!
When I was in abstinence-only classes, I believe the metaphor we were given was a piece of gum: you wouldn’t want to chew gum that had already been chewed by three different strangers, would you? Hell no!
Not a documentary.
Even when I was 16, these shitty metaphors had me rolling my eyes. I knew damn well that abstaining until marriage would not guarantee a happy marriage in the future. How could it? Abstaining from sex doesn’t make anyone a better judge of character or improve anybody’s communication skills. There’s nothing magical about virginity that wards off losers and abusers. This isn’t education; it’s fairy-tale fantasy. They might as well pop in a copy of Disney’s Sleeping Beauty and tell the students, “See? Sleeping Beauty married the first man she ever laid eyes on, and she lived Happily Ever After! And so can you!”
Thank God my body isn’t a piece of duct tape, or gum, or any other one-time-use, disposable object. How can anyone think it’s a good idea to tell kids that having sex makes you sort of like garbage?
January 3rd, 2008 at 10:35 pm
And let’s not forget some pertinent facts:
The rise of abstinence-only education has been accompanied by a higher birth rate among teens.
Sex education discourages teens from having sex before age 15.
Abstinence-only programs have virtually no impact on teens’ sexual behavior.
Teens who have sex tend to be better adjusted emotionally and have lower rates of delinquency than teens who don’t. Personally, I attribute this not to the positive effects of sex, but to the fact that troubled and emotionally immature youths are unattractive to other teens.
January 3rd, 2008 at 11:22 pm
Two pieces of tape being “stuck” together made me laugh as much for the unintended metaphor of being “stuck” in a marriage…which is precisely what the producers won’t admit to wanting as well. The old “stick it out” arguement. Someone should tell them where to stick it.
January 3rd, 2008 at 11:33 pm
Abstinence-only classes are stupid. By that I mean, come on…really? No, really? Serious thought on this matter would dictate that anyone with half the brain of a three-year-old would realize that without giving children the proper information about sex, what happens when you do it, how to be safe about it and all of that is dooming children to the current high rate of teen pregnancy and turning into the Spears kids. Okay, that was a cheap shot…sorry. I am serious about educating teens and children to know what it is all about so they can make somewhat informed decisions and so they can take the conversation to their parents or those they trust. Without information look what we have.