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Notable and Quotable
“The girls [whom the Times reporter] interviewed cited wholesome-seeming celebrities as their favorites. . . Is it possible that today’s teens have seen enough to inoculate them against the pressures of their teenage years?”
--Stephanie Rosenbloom, "Grade-School Girls, Grown-up Gossip," New York Times, May 27, 2007
Abstinence only vs. abstinence plus education?
Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 09/05/2008 - 12:46Hi Mrs. Shalit,
I was inspired to read your book "girls gone MILD" after seeing your websites. I had decided to write a paper this past semester on the subject of this post (for an interpersonal relationships class). Mostly all I found were research reviews showing the failure rates of abstinent only programs versus the overall effectiveness of the comprehensive type. Therefore, most of what I could write about were things that went against what I believed to be true because there was hardly any evidence to support my stance.
Do you have any ideas on why these abstinence programs are consistenly shown to 'not work'?
Here are a few of my ideas on the subject.
-Teenagers feel more empowered when they are given several options to choose from, and thus more may choose to abstain when it is presented as a choice rather than an obligation.
-The abstinence only message can only work in a supportive environment and when taken out of the context of family upbringing/societal pressures may be seen as just a 'preaching sex education course'
-It is much harder to provide a strong abstinence message versus just telling people "use condoms cuz it can prevent a lot of the 'most dangerous' problems." No higher philosophy involved there. Alas, long-term wisdom is much harder to acquire.
Insights welcome!