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I'm watching CNN Paula Zahn's report on sex ed. *She states the Government is spending $170,000,000 dollars a year to
deliver a largely abstinance message. *Of the dozen or so
school programs being used now 80% are with misleading,
biased or guilt/shame information contained within them.
A *Dr. McIlhenny(Institute for sexual health-pro abstinance) and a rep Bill Smith from the CDC.
They discused figures which were published:
12 grade 53% having sex
11 grade 44%
10 grade 37% (If I remember right)
9 *grade *22% (If I remember right...I'll edit if it shows again)
It seems to me that there has always been a trend with adults who want to point back to a time before the young people were alive.."the good old days"....when people didn't
have sex until they were married etc. *The problem is kids
learn better and see the adults who tell them that as little
more than liars. *That is where the problem starts in my opinion and is perpetuated with abstinance policies that have
kids finding recogintion from their peers by breaking the rules.
In these years many kids who don't fit the mold the schools insist they conform to.....will find ways to attain some status
with their peers by breaking the rules of society. *The
prossess of gaining recognition without achievement seems
to be reinforced by adults all around them and the idea of making it in life on ones looks, charm, and sex appeal is business as usual.
I really don't have an answer for how to turn it all around, but
if you look at the advertising media and the fact that there are always super sexy fashon models pushing every product under the sun for about 26 minutes of every hour of TV boradcast(the legal limit), anyone pushing a "just say no" doctrine will appear to have came from the stone ages, or in a time before WW11.(65+ years ago) *Although the message may hold the greater wisdom, it doesn't translate into many of the kids experience here in 2004.
Kids have an amazing ability to see thru adults, and if they sense the "old people" are BSing them they tune out and the adults have only wasted their time, effort, and resources while the problem is just as much in place as ever.
Sex is the genie out of the bottle, the cat out of the bag,
and little in fashon, music, entertainment media, advertising,
in print, in live public events, and so on doesn't escape the awareness of young people in their formatable years.
Young people deserve to have accurate knowledge to build their lifes on. It is supposedly why we send them to school.
Yet if they get a bad bad bad scolding and doses of guilt/shame in the sex ed programs, the war on teen sex problems will go the same way as the war on drugs. *
eDJ
In the CNN callup poll when asked "do you think abstinance policy sex ed in schools is a viable use of tax dollars" 14% said yes and 86% said no.
Would you want to see $170,000,000 dollars spent each year to tell kids, "JUST SAY NO"!
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