Pubdate: Fri, 28 Feb 2003
Source: Daily Nebraskan (NE Edu)
Copyright: 2003 Daily Nebraskan
Contact:  http://www.dailyneb.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1176
Author: Simon Ringsmuth
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth)

IGNORANCE MAY BE BLISS

You've seen the situation before. You meet up with an old friend and start 
talking about things you used to do. Things you had in common. Things from 
the good old days. And then she breaks it to you: she's pregnant. Or he's 
gotten a girl pregnant.

The conversation shifts to family, life, a different future, and you feel 
kind of funny inside. Do they want sympathy? Congratulations? Help? Soon 
enough the ambiguity becomes more than you can bear, and you find yourself 
running late to class. You part ways and think. What happened? Why him? Why 
her? Why didn't the person just wait to have sex until married?

Lots of people would change that last sentence to why didn't the person 
just use a condom? Maybe the person did use a condom and it broke. Maybe 
she was on the pill but forgot to take it. Maybe the rhythm was broken. 
Maybe no one ever told them they should wait.

Our schools and our society are giving entirely the wrong message to our 
children. We aren't teaching them to not have sex, we are teaching them 
"safe" ways to have sex. We are sending our children into the world, 
charged with hormones and inundated with sex from music and television, and 
we just assume from the get-go that they will not be able to handle it. We 
give out condoms and pamphlets and half-hour informational videos on STDs 
to kids and assume they will make responsible choices.

But why are we stooping to the lowest common denominator? Why not encourage 
no sex at all?

All through my school education, I was taught that drugs were bad. "DARE to 
keep kids off drugs," said the shirt I got in the sixth grade. "Drugs are a 
dead end," Bill Cosby told me after school during the commercial breaks for 
Duck Tales. But kids do drugs all the time. At my high school there were 
lots of kids who did pot, smoked and drank, even though all three things 
were bad for you according to pamphlets and speeches from motivational 
speakers during all-school pep rallies.

Everything around us told us not to do drugs, because they were bad. But 
when we talked about sex, the message was, "It's dangerous and harmful, so 
do it responsibly."

Some people say we should encourage abstinence but provide condoms and 
teach kids how to use them properly anyway. Sort of a back-up plan in case 
the whole abstinence thing doesn't work out. So why not use the same logic 
with drugs? Why not pass out sterilized needles to curious tenth-graders 
because we know they might want to try drugs sometime? If they're going to 
do it, they might as well be safe. Of course, we'll tell them drugs are 
bad, but ultimately it's a choice they must make for themselves, so we 
should be teaching them how to do it right. We need to start showing our 
children just how much cocaine to snort, how to properly inject heroin, and 
how much weed they need to smoke to get high. We could even have them make 
bongs in art class.

And yet we don't. Our schools have a unilateral abstinence-only drug 
program. Is it working? Maybe. We haven't given up, though, because if we 
even hinted it was OK to do drugs (by teaching safe and effective drug 
control), kids would be on them faster than you could say diaphragm.

Why not hold our kids to the same higher standard? Because they'll just do 
it anyway, so we should have taught them how to do it right? Give me a 
break. If we're going to promote condom use instead of abstinence, we might 
as well roll out Nature episodes and have kids watch 'em in health class. 
"See those water buffalo, kids? They run around humping each other all the 
time. They can't control themselves! Just like you! Now take these condoms 
and have fun, but remember to be safe." By promoting safe sex we're telling 
our kids they're no better than animals. Except animals don't wear pants 
that get in the way.

Why not hold them to that higher standard? We do it all the time with 
school, work and sports. We always expect the best out of them and 
encourage them to never give up, set their minds to it, accomplish their 
goals and all sorts of other bite-sized nuggets of wisdom. In every area of 
life we encourage our kids to have discipline and tenacity, except when it 
comes to having sex. We assume the worst, and don't even bother to 
encourage students to save it for marriage.

We start out by assuming they won't be able to succeed at remaining 
abstinent without even giving them the benefit of the doubt.

So what about the kids who fail? Those who go through high school and try 
real hard to remain abstinent, but darn it, Simon Ringsmuth's "keep your 
damn pants on" method just didn't work for them? The ones who try real hard 
but just can't control themselves? They have to deal with the consequences 
of their own actions.

Abstinence education teaches about the hazards, dangers and risks of having 
sex. But those who want it bad enough will get condoms and go do it - same 
as the current system of sex education. It's a personal choice and our 
schools can't decide for anyone. But we can give kids hope, dignity and 
some amount of self-respect by telling them about abstinence.

If our kids aren't being abstinent, it's because we've taught them it's 
impossible. We have to stop taking the cop-out way when it comes to sex 
education and start doing it the right way.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager