Abstinence-only based education! FUCK YEAH!

[bzarcher]

We live in America, in the 21st century, and I just heard a woman sincerely ask "If you have an orgasm during conception, does that automatically make it a boy?"

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH.

Comments

[riotlounge.livejournal.com]

To be fair, I did not even know this. It's basically a game of theoretical obstetric science that gets winnowed down to it's very bare essentials. Orgasms, apparently to the one person that seems to dominate this research, induce a cervical alkalinity that creates a more male-sperm friendly environment since male sperm are more fragile but faster swimmers. However, it still is mostly up to chance, 49/51 split usually.

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

And the chemical knowledge -is- interesting. But I'm almost dead certain that in a health class that uses real science, they at least tell you, "There's no reliable way to fix the sex of the baby."

[chaptal.livejournal.com]

Evangelical homeschooling rocks!

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

With so much money dumped into abstinence only education by the current administration (I think it's something like, no shit, a billion dollars a year), I don't even think we can blame this on homeschooling.

[remotesensing.livejournal.com]

Hey, not all homeschooling materials are abstinence only- and not all homeschoolers are evangelicals.

( My wife may be an evangelical, but she's also a former labor/delivery nurse who got tired of delivering teenager's babies. Our kids have a *thorough* appreciation of what's involved, etc, blah blah blah. )

Last time I asked around at the local homeschooling group meeting (dominated by Christian conservative parents, no less), probably about half of them were actually going beyond the abstinence only viewpoint.

[avylin.livejournal.com]

Revoke her Vagina License.

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

We can do that? Wow!

[feras.livejournal.com]

the only answer to someone asking this is: "yes...yes thats true /walk away"

[las.livejournal.com]

Hey, at least it's better than the woman who was convinced you got pregnant by eating peanuts. (Horrifying but true story from a social worker acquaintance of mine.)

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

...pardon me while I boggle.

[chapel-of-words.livejournal.com]

With all the rancor and partisan back and forth the news media still managed to find someone on the street who knew McCain was running, but was sure that Obama was his running mate.

People, they be stupid.

Tim C.

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

A-men.

AAGGH!

[kores-rabbit.livejournal.com]

I was writing about abstinence-only in a note on my facebook. This sort of lack of basic knowledge really gets my hackles in a tizzy, to combine sayings.
I'm astounded by the lack of education in regards to sexual health and reproduction, even here in Canada. I sometimes wonder if people are running around with their fingers firmly placed into ears, screaming "NAHNAHNAHNAHNAHNAHNOTLISTENING!!!"
I've found tons of opportunities to teach girls about birth control here. It amazes me. Back in Philly, it was ten times worse.
I met a girl in high school who was taught (by Jehovah's Witnesses... >:( ) that when you mix blood, you get HIV/AIDS. Yes. She firmly believed this.
I convinced her otherwise, I hope. Maybe she seemed to believe me just so I'd shut up about it!

Re: AAGGH!

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

Hopefully.

Oh, well. At least she didn't say "I thought that mixing blood was miscenigation!"

Re: AAGGH!

[jennekirby.livejournal.com]

I've met a couple of people who thought that HIV was spontaneously generated when two men had sex with each other, which prompted an acquaintance in high school to tell me she was so sorry to hear that my father is gay, and to ask after his health.

Re: AAGGH!

[mephron]

I remember in college, in the 1980s, when a Catholic school in Northeast Philly had to tell people where to get maternity uniforms because there were so many pregnancies at that school.

Twenty years on and people can't stop being stupid.

[faetan.livejournal.com]

Well, personally, they hardly even touched on abstinence-before-marriage at my school, and I graduated in 96. It was more like a sidenote. 'Hey we know you're all gonna have sex because that's what NORMAL teenagers do and here's how to do it...oh yeah, go abstinence...now let's discuss what kind of birth control methods you need to use.' Sex seems to be encouraged, and for teenagers, I just can't see how that's a good idea. I haven't met anyone who got an abstinence-only education in public schools, so I'm not too sure I trust the media on this current topic. Then again, I don't really trust the media not to be biased, either.

Stupid media.

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

1996 was also when we had a lot less federal pushing on education standards and requirements, too...

[snowspinner.livejournal.com]

At least they know that women can have orgasms.

[dasubergeek.livejournal.com]

I have met a couple guys who have told me that women can't have orgasms.

In other news, I've found that "well, apparently you're not a good enough fuck to produce one then, huh, Minigolf Pencil Boy" is kind of a conversation-stopper.

[jennekirby.livejournal.com]

I do have to wonder if some of the problem is not the education they're getting in school. I have almost no memory of what I learned in sex ed. My school did real sex ed--they kind where they teach you how to stay safe but also try to emphasize that it's just fine to just say no--in the ninth grade. I took it two or three years late because of my schedule, so you'd think I'd remember it better. But about half the class was already sexually active, some with terrible misconceptions, and some (like me) who'd actually done good research.

The point is, the barrage of information I've gotten from other people and the internet really drowns out anything I learned in that classroom, especially since I needed to know it before then. If I had been, like most people, unable to filter good information from bad, I can't imagine that hearing the right information just once could cancel out everything bad, especially since the world tells us that schools are going to do anything they can to keep teenagers from having sex. Why even trust what you hear there if you keep hearing that kids these days don't get adequate sex education?

My mission in life is to find the best way I can help the most people filter information they hear to figure out if it is valid. An actual understanding of what science is and what makes research valid as well as how to verify facts is a good first step.

[jennekirby.livejournal.com]

Also, I used to think my mission in life was creating a really good combination of education on safe sex and education on good sex, because in general, except for a few things marketed to highly educated people, all the sources of information on how to have good sex are very separate from all the really good sources of information on how to have safe sex, but at some point relatively recently I realized my calling was in science rather than medicine. Plus I don't think I could look my grandparents in the eye and tell them I was a professional sex writer.

[sciron666.livejournal.com]

You did tell her that the female orgasm was a myth, right?

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

I'm just gonna step back until you finish exploding.

[aphextwins.livejournal.com]

We will have our own circumstantial evidence in about a week and a half ;)

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

Looking forward to hearing your results. :>

[neversremedy.livejournal.com]

Now ask her to find the U.S. on a world map. Ooh, and ask her if her partner stimulated her uvula for that orgasm.

The only way to make sure you have a boy during intercourse is to have the woman on top. Works every time. ;)

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

I get the impression your advice may be biased, dear. ;D