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T.W.
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Abstinence v.s. Prophylactics
December 5, 2004 - 10:10 AM
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What do you guys think should be promoted more for the youth of this era? Abstinence or the use of Prophylactics?
In my opinon, in the USA the government is promoting abstinence all the way, but I feel that it is also it's duty to promote the use of Prophylactics such as condoms and birth control. I think it would be better to present the risks of unprotected sex and then to also suggest abstinence while also creating an awareness of the urgency to protect one's self from the perils that may arise if Prophylactics are not utilized by those teens who are already sexually active.
Essentially, it should be keep the virgins as virgins and protect the sexually active.
Comments?
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kris
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Re: Abstinence v.s. Prophylactics
December 9, 2004 - 07:04 AM
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First of all, I really believe we should be honest with ourselves about the real issue at hand...the issue is not don't wear a condom if you decide to have sex- no one in their right mind, including the government-(yes, shocking isn't it?) is going to tell someone to go out there with the intent to hurt yourself and take the chance of giving yourself a deadly disease. The message many people are trying to send, such as the controversial conservatives themselves, is simply-don't have sex. If you don't expose yourself to such things in the first place, then you won't have to deal with any of the consequences that occur which include a heck of a whole lot more than whether or not you have contracted a std or something of the sort. Quite frankly, they are right whether we want to admit it or not-with the exclusion of certain circumstances, not having sex is the purest and the only really safe way that you can assure you won't contract an std or worse. Why then is it such an issue that people would want to promote such a program? Besides, many of us know all there is to know about sex and then some-all of a sudden people act as if they don't know what goes on during sex-we've heard these issues...Is not AIDS and HIV a very present part of our culture? Don't we already know about condoms? Are we now suggesting that the school systems have finally come to the point where they can make a significant difference in the public opinion of youth? Nevermind the countless ads on such widely watched programs such as BET, MTV, and the like that fully promote "safe sex"-forget those teen magazines that are deemed a religious passage of rite in today's society like Seventeen and Cosmo and whatever else...the schools are going to start teaching kids to be responsible now-what is the world coming to,eh? We're really going to be messed up now because now we are getting into that dangerous phenomenon called "morality"-horrors of horrors...Think about it-could it really get any worse than what it already is...for crying out loud middle schoolers today know a whole lot more about sex than the teachers who even try to teach it to them-I definitely think sex has become a completely comprehensive subject over the years and anything you don't know about you'll learn pretty soon by turning on your tv...I think some people are taking a gamble...maybe if we don't throw the idea of sex at young adults at the rate of a million times a day, and we teach them that sex is more than a bunch of raging harmones, then maybe, just maybe, they won't be so inclined to give into the pressure to succumb to sex that can become eventually harmful to them-is it a difficult message? No doubt. Will it completely change the way sex is viewed in our culture? Most likely it won't. Is it probable? Maybe not...Is it practical- Now there's a question-How about we try and see...Maybe it won't help-but let's face it-at the rate this country is going with s things such as sex, almost any solution is possibly better than the one we now present to our youths and any gamble is just as about as good as another-can the government revolutionize the sexual revolution? Maybe not, but whose to stop them from trying-and whose to say that they can't try in the first place?
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James Dagger
Joined: Oct 31, 2004
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Re: Abstinence v.s. Prophylactics
December 29, 2004 - 04:08 AM
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I think i can sum this up in a simple paragraph.
With holding knowledge about having sex doesn't
prevent teenagers from having sex, it prevents teenagers from having sex safely and offering information about safe sex doesn't increase the rate of sex, it increases
the rate of protected sex.
"Abstience only" doesnt work
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John Proctor
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Re: Abstinence v.s. Prophylactics
January 2, 2005 - 05:15 AM
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I agree that an integrated approach needs to be taken. The message of absentance has been shown time and time to fail. There are many developing countries getting better sex education than kids in the US are at the moment. It is a case of do as we say, not as we do....
The abstiance message will only alientate the people who need sex education the most.
While people should be aware of the existence of Post Exposure Profilaxis, it is not exactly a good option as the side effects are nasty and there it may not be 100% effective.
The other thing to mention is that sex education even in "developed" countries is appalling! As a young gay man practically nothing I was told in school has ever been of use to me, I had to read up myself.
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xxxivy
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Re: Abstinence v.s. Prophylactics
January 2, 2005 - 08:00 AM
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Quote: "The abstinence message will only alienate the people who need sex education the most."
Well-said, bikedemon.
This is my fear, as well.
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Danny Sweeney
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Re: Abstinence v.s. Prophylactics
January 3, 2005 - 04:57 AM
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I've never got how you can 'teach' abstience to someone.
Choosing not to have sex is something which has to come from a person. I do think that people should be encouraged to abstain as it is the only 100% sure method of not getting pregnant or catching a STI.
Condom are only something like 97% - it's a high number but there's still that risk. But it's one that people should have the choice about.
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kris
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Re: Abstinence v.s. Prophylactics
January 4, 2005 - 12:52 PM
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Once again most of us don't have a grip on the real question-when I responded for the first time I responded to the question of which should be taught more-abstinence or safe-sex with the use of condoms(and all that stuff...)not should we teach only abstinence or only safe-sex-it's obvious with the day and times that neither can be effective really. However the most popular message in today's culture is safe-sex and whether or not every school is teaching that is an issue in its own rite but it's obvious that even in teaching kids about how to practice safe-sex, something still has to be done. After the AID/HIV scare in the 1980's through early 1990's, there have been all types of programs to encourage safe sex but they haven't worked that well. Certain media and others have tried to downplay the sex ed programs and have tried to make it look like somehow people were teaching abstinence the whole time when a lot of schools across the country have been required, not recommended, actually required to explain comprehensive sex education-whatever that may be including the use of prophylactics. I don't know where all this crap about teaching abstinence only everywhere and how it has failed has came from but that lie can go head and fall right back into the lips of the people who have been speaking it...which brings us to the issue of how wanting to implement abstinence as a very real solution opposed to safe sex has become absurdly blown out of proportion- of course you can't teach abstinence only.You can't say one thing and do another-you can't tell kids to wait until they're married to a person to have sex and then show them in almost every film including "family films" with PG-13 ratings and almost every show on tv (which includes All the popular WB shows and the OC) that waiting is overrated. And if that isn't enough music videos are paraded with much sexual content none of which is proper or appropriate and don't forget the lyrics to some of this songs anyway-we all know how much morale music has these days don't we? And then-as if it's not enough...you put an article in a magazine where the average age of the person reading it is between 12 & 14 telling them in full detail how to perform oral sex. Abstinence by itself will not work-that's a no brainer, there's no need to even post anything about how it wouldn't work and blah, blah, blah-we already see that. Yet, safe sex doesn't seem to work as well as it should either so what do you do? You teach it more-how can you? I tell you what.. I have seen more than enough of my share of gross pictures of the private parts of people who mad bad choices and that was only in one class! We've even had assemblies as 1000s of other highschools all over the US. Yet, we're still having problems...if we be honest, for the most part abstinence isn't really taught-Bush is trying to change that of course, but as of what alot of us experience in our sex ed class is abstinence as a footnote...they teach us all this stuff about safe sex and then they say, as if they're a company stating a disclaimer, that the best way to have safe sex is to have no sex which really doesn't make sense but most of us get the idea...Personally, I think it should be taught just as seriously,if not more, as the safe sex pitch-not by itself opposed to it but in addition to it presented as a real solution to a real problem which ironically has not been eliminated by the safe sex bandwagon that we all have been riding throughout the last decade.
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Samantha Maresca
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Global AIDS...a Global problem
January 14, 2005 - 02:02 AM
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I'd like to start by answering the question at hand: I think that abstinence should be PROMOTED as the first choice while safer sex (condoms) should be taught to everyone anyway. Even people who decide to be abstinent can find themselves in a compromising situtation in which he or she changes his or her mind and decides to have sex. At that point, the only thing that will help prevent AIDS is a condom or testing before any sexual contact occurs. I think that removing the discussion of "safer" sex from classrooms would be an overall detriment to the health of teens and adults in the long run.
Although abstinence and condoms are discussed as ways of preventing the spread of AIDS in high schools in my country (USA), other (often developing) countries do not have this type of education due to lack of funding and/or lack of teachers, etc..
In addition, many more children are born with AIDS in those countries than in the United States which means transmission of the disease should be discussed BEFORE those children become sexually active. (Oral contraceptives do NOT prevent the spread of sexually transmitted disease; condoms usually are effective in this way. Abstinence is the only 100% safe guard against AIDS, shared needles may spread HIV, etc.)
We need a way to spread the knowledge to this places soon because it is having effects of life expectacy and population in many countries all over the world. In this case, knowledge is definitely power. How can we help?
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Samantha Maresca
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Global AIDS...a Global problem
January 14, 2005 - 02:06 AM
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It is important to remember that while HIV/AIDS takes so many lives in the United States, it takes even more lives in developing countries.
Although abstinence and condoms are discussed as ways of preventing the spread of AIDS in high schools in my country (USA), other countries do not have this type of education due to lack of funding and/or lack of teachers, etc..
In addition, many more children are born with AIDS in those countries than in the United States which means transmission of the disease should be discussed BEFORE those children become sexually active. (Oral contraceptives do NOT prevent the spread of sexually transmitted disease; condoms usually are effective in this way. Abstinence is the only 100% safe guard against AIDS, shared needles may spread HIV, etc.)
We need a way to spread the knowledge to this places soonbecause it is having effects of life expectacy and population in many countries all over the world. In this case, knowledge is definitely power. How can we help?
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Samantha Maresca
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Response to the question at hand
January 14, 2005 - 02:15 AM
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I feel that while abstinence should be PROMOTED as the first choice, safer sex (use of condoms) should be taught everywhere.
Although the only 100% safe guard against AIDS as an STD is abstinence, not everyone will regard this as an option. We need to protect the people who will have permiscuous sex as much as the people who want to wait until they find "the right person", fall in love or get married.
As humans we change our minds all the time. A person who at one point decided to remain abstinent may change his or her mind and have sex at some point. That person will still need the knowledge to either get his or herself and his or her partner tested first and/or use a condom for any sexual contact. Knowledge is power in this case and I think we need to equip everyone with as much power against AIDS as possible.
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michael phiri
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IT SHOULD BE "AND" & NOT "V.S"
January 18, 2005 - 06:13 AM
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JUST LIKE right shoe and left shoe, abstinence and contraceptives should go together.Youths should be fully aware of the benefits of both, because the finally choice of action remains with an individual.That particular individual should be fully armed with the knowledge s/he needs to make an informed and overally beneficial decision. One can not rely on the knowledge of abstinence when caught up in compromising position in which it is difficult to walk out of.I believe that sex education should include safe sex education, because when we practically look at the situation,we find that most youths are getting sexually active at relatively young ages as compared to our parents long back.Therefore, society can not afford be ignorant about reality and only scratch the surface on this very important issue.
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