Wouldn’t we all agree that it’s better to prevent a forest fire, if and when possible, than treat the immense damage in its aftermath?
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“Safe” sex education – or promoting casual sex, while handing out condoms and birth control to kids – is analogous to passing out matches to kids in school, and telling them, “Be sure you play safely with these in the forest and, above all, have fun!”
It’s irresponsible messaging that encourages high-risk behavior at a great cost to families and our entire nation.
47 comments
The best analogy I've heard on this issue involved zombies.
Abstinence-only education is like saying "We're not going to let the Zombies into the building."
"But what happens if they DO get into the building?"
"We're not going to let them into the building!"
"But-"
"WE'RE NOT GOING TO LET THEM INTO THE BUILDING!"
Meanwhile, proper sex education is more like saying:
"We're not going to let the Zombies into the building."
"But what happens if they DO get into the building?"
"Then we have shotguns, hazmat suits, turrets, and anti-zombie-virus inoculations. Pays to be careful, after all."
Zombies: making everything better since forever.
Yeaaaah, talk about preventing forest fires while there's a catastrophic one going on, and forget that the smaller range ones are necessary for certain species of trees' survival.
Even if the analogy made sense, it wouldn't prove your point!
Teenagers are going to jump each others' bones whether you like it or not. "Abstinence only" only makes things worse. With pills and condoms you at least minimize unwanted pregnancies and STD spread. Sorry, moralizers, but you're fighting a battle that's already been lost for millenia.
Most amusing are the people who, when asked why they support abstinence only, reply "because we're Christians". Jesus Christ was a lot of things, but a poster boy for preventing pregnancy through the practice of not fucking is not one of them.
If memory serves me, young people were playing with those matches half a century back, and if rumor serves as well, a century ago also.
Sex Ed PREVENTS that "forest fire" you are so worried about. It teaches kids what sex is, and teaches them that they have the right to refuse to have sex if they dont want to.
It also teaches them about the REAL risks involved (ie: STDs, Unwanted pregnancy, etc).
Religious loonacy OTOH only keeps kids ignorant and afraid...and readily exploitable.
Until recently, with the invention of effective birth control devices/medications AND comprehensive sex education, the most common marriage proposal used to be, "You're WHAT?!"
No it isn't.
Shut up and get laid.
But what if you knew, for absolute certain, that those kids were going to play with the matches anyway? Wouldn't it make sense to teach them how to do it as safely as possible, in order to minimise damage to the forest and themselves? Isn't that more realistic than just saying "DON'T"?
No, it actually helps to prevent pregnancies and STDs by teaching them how to have sex responsibly. They're going to have sex whether you like it or not, so you might as well teach them how to do it safely.
No, safe sex education would be like handing out buckets and telling kids to always have a bucket of water on hand if they're going to light fireworks. It's not a good idea to light fireworks until you're old enough, mature enough, and responsible enough (for instance, to keep a bucket of water on hand) to do it safely, and best to be left to an adult. But you know as well as I do that a lot of kids will want to light fireworks.
Abstinence-only is like telling kids to not even touch fireworks until they're married, not teaching them how to be safe with them, and then being surprised when they burn themselves and catch the house on fire.
Among other things, abstinence is doing a great job in helping win the war against AIDS in Africa, so it should work aginst teenage pregnancy in the US.
But wait, if the teenies use condoms and birth control, they won't be getting pregnant, so where's the "high-risk behavior at a great cost to families and our entire nation"?
Oh yes, how silly of me to forget, pre-marital teenage sex leads to drug abuse, prostitution, mass murder, gambling, devil worship, voting Democrat, and holidays in that socialist hell hole Europe.
Btw, this reminds me of a story I heard back in the 60's. A girl is told by her mother never to kiss a boy because kissing leads to pregnancy. The girl gets pregnant anyway and can't understand why: she was careful not to kiss the boy.
Um, the teens already have the 'matches'. They're kinda born with them. Birth control would be analogous to fire extinguishers, while sex education would be a set of instructions on the matches and extinguisher, complete with big warning labels. Abstinence only programs leave out the instructions and extinguishers and just tell teens not to light matches without explaining that lighting matches cause fires, or even how matches are lit leading to accidental lightings because teens don't realize their actions are lighting the matches.
What's wrong with teaching kids how to safely use matches? If they're out in the woods and they need a fire to stay warm, they should be able to know how to safely light it and keep it from getting out of control. In fact, that's pretty much something every boy scout is taught. Not so much the matches part, as they think you should learn to start a fire without them, but you do learn how to start a safely start and maintain a camp fire.
It's a horrible analogy for you, but it works fairly well the other way - It's unavoidable that people going into the woods to camp are going to start a fire. But by teaching them to do so safely, you limit the possible consequences. And, yeah, they should have fun - Roast some smores in the fire, sing songs around it. Just be careful.
"Safe sex" education is a misnomer because there's no such thing as safe sex. Any type of sexual intercourse carries with it some risk.
That aside however, comprehensive sex education does not promote or condone casual sex. The purpose is to educate students about what sex is, the different kinds of sex, the risks involved with each type and safety measures that can and should be taken if a student decides to be sexually active. In fact, the classes discourage kids from having casual sex because it IS high-risk behavior and increases the likelihood of contracting disease.
While I don't know if I approve of giving teenagers access to condoms and birth control at school, sometimes, it's necessary because the reality is, kids are going to have sex and people who teach comprehensive sex education understand and accept this reality so they react accordingly.
The abstinence-only method has proven to be largely ineffective at reducing risky sexual behavior and in fact, kids who were taught it were MORE likely to engage in sex before marriage. Fundies need to come to grips with the real world and stop treating sex as something to be abhorred rather than embraced.
High-risk behavior is going to happen whether you like it or not. Best be prepared.
We all know this, but fundies have a crippling terror of reality.
> Wouldn’t we all agree that it’s better to prevent a forest fire, if and when possible, than treat the immense damage in its aftermath?
Wouldn't we all agree that it's better to prevent conception with birth control, if and when possible, than treat the immense unwanted pregnancy in its aftermath? OH SNAP
STD rates in conservative states are high.
STD rates in American states are low.
Wouldn't we all agree that doing what works works better than doing what doesn't work?
Of course not. You're a conservative. Your mental illness compells you to do what fails over and over and over.
SAFE sex education IS to prevent the forest fire, stupid. You teach the kids responsible handling and what to do in case of fire.
To just say "DON'T DO IT!" is just going to make the kids curious, ya know.
Which has more teen pregnancies; Bible-belt USA or secular Sweden?
How is it that some fraction of the population doesn't get that contraceptives work very well?
I've heard fundies say "birth control leads to abortion because people have more sex". Hormonal birth control doesn't work that way. And even condoms decrease the rate of unplanned pregnancy by a factor of twenty. I don't think it would be possible for people to have twenty times as much sex.
Yeah except they all already possess the matches and sooner or later are going to work out how to use them. Personally I think knowing how to use them safely is probably a better way of preventing forest fires.
Also research backs this up. In short, you lose.
Gee, I guess that safe sex class where they hammered into our heads that sleeping around with random people whose medical histories we don't know will get us crotch-rot, AIDS, self-esteem issues, and insane stalkers missed the memo they were supposed to skip the "Safe" part that comes loooooong before the sex, as well as the prevention and follow-up portions that immediately followed concerning STD screening, pregnancy, and health issues leading up to birth.
You people have never actually watched a sex-ed video, have you?
Safe sex prevents unwanted pregnancies.
Abstinence-only sex "education" lies about that, so we get unwanted pregnancies. I bet you hate abortion, so why don't you prevent the cause, which is unprotected sex?
analogous to passing out matches to kids in school, and telling them, “Be sure you play safely with these in the forest and, above all, have fun!”
Well, at least they'll know what to do in case they're in a fire? It could save their lives.
Sex education - and the likes of the Marie Stopes Clinics giving advice on contraception (and abortions, if necessary) - merely gives young people the facts , arming them with what they'll need to decide for themselves .
Prevention is better than being lumbered with an unwanted child/STDs (especially AIDS). And speaking of lumber...
...forest fires =/= Safe Sex Education. Use of bad analogy. Your argument is invalid. And none of your fucking business; pun extremely intended.
Now, like said trees - and what is gotten from such: Lumber - in said forest fire, go die in it, Ch(o)ad.
"Wouldn’t we all agree that it’s better to prevent a forest fire, if and when possible, than treat the immense damage in its aftermath?"
Yes, that's why safe sex education is important. To teach people how to have sex safely, and use proper birth control methods to prevent pregnancy. It's always amazing how often fundies manage to make analogies that effectively destroy THEIR OWN position.
Anyway, safe sex education isn't like handing out matches. For one thing, I've never heard of any sex ed that actually "promotes casual sex," and the sex ed I had discussed various types of birth control, but didn't hand out condoms and birth control pills. But even if they did, it would be analogous to handing out something that PROTECTS you from matches and saying "here, use this if you're going to play with fire," rather than handing out the matches themselves.
Fundies are fucking awful at analogies.
Yeah, because "Just Say No" worked so well in the 80s...
I'm the product of uneducated teen sex. My mother hated me for being born and made sure my life was a living hell. Why do you want children tortured, Chad?
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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