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Abstinence is the Key Of Life?



I wonder what we’re really teaching kids these days. A friend of mine sent me a link to several pages of posters promoting abstinence made by the students of an middle school health class out of Skokie, IL. The posters speak volumes on their own, and are worth looking through in great detail. But it seems like we could have a field day examining the issues which seem to be running behind some of these slogans and images.

Now, I suppose I should preface this by saying that I myself don’t have any kids, and have never had to deal with the subject of sex education for kids. I will 100% have to defer to people with more experience in that area. However, I do know my own life and personal history. Beyond that all I can really do is raise questions and let parents and would-be parents try to answer them for themselves.

Myself, I was raised in a very Catholic household where it was made painfully clear that sex between people that weren’t married was a big no-no. I also remember as a kid being made to cover my eyes during semi-nude scenes in movies, and stuff like that. While I understand - and on some level appreciate - what my parents believed and the values they were trying to instill, it took me a good long time to get past feeling guilty over just about anything sexual. I’m not saying they turned me into some kind of crazy freak, but I will regretfully admit - for the sake of open discussion here - that I didn’t have sex until I was nineteen. Hell, I’ll go one further and admit that I’d never even kissed a girl before that. Make fun if you like, but I had some serious programming and internal hurdles to be able to overcome in that area and I wasn’t always the debonair ladies-man I am today. (Ha!)

Anyway, so the purpose of the above confession was to let you know where I’m coming from. If you’d like to share your own experiences, feel free. Until then, let’s take a look at some of these posters, shall we? First up:

It reads “You don’t have to be smart to know that virginity is the way to go!” Now, I know these are made by kids and for a school project at that, but I do think it’s fair to say that they highlight ideas floating around in society and tactics of persuasion people use to convince and manipulate each other. As far as I remember being a kid, the concept of “abstinence” is not one which children themselves spontaneously strike upon on their own. It’s introduced to them by adults who have generally nothing but their best interests in mind. I guess what I’m wondering then is this: is abstinence really in their best interest?

Obviously pregnancy and sexually-transmitted diseases are important topics that shouldn’t be taken lightly. The purpose of my post is NOT to call that into question. Instead, I’d like to question two other things: (1) Is it healthy to teach kids through what seems at time to be a kind of blind obedience - so long as it’s for their own good? And (2) Is it healthy for anyone (adults, kids, culture at large) to be so fixated on what essentially amounts to a denial of one of the primary life impulses? Very complicated subjects, definitely. I’m very excited to hear other people’s thoughts, feelings and experiences in these areas.

I chose to start with the above image because it naively parrots a common rhetorical gimmick: “If you think about it, you’ll see I’m right!” Or, “I’m more intelligent than you, so put more trust in my beliefs and experiences than in your own.” Certainly the kid who made it wasn’t consciously tapping into this, but this very attitude is what forms the foundation of an empire of talking heads, media experts, and unassailable professionals in all fields. The irony of the whole thing - of course - is that through their wording, the kid seems to inadvertently be suggesting, conversely, that if you ARE intelligent, then you might penetrate through to an understanding that says abstinence is NOT the way to go.

This poster operates along a similar vein of reasoning. Except it adds in the idea that you ought not to confer with your peers or social group in determining what constitutes a course of right action, and go it alone. Even worse, it recommends that you value the lifeless words printed on an anonymous poster than the opinions and experiences of real living people. Of course, it’s a semantic paradox to issue a command essentially telling someone to ignore your command: “Think for yourself” followed by a list of what to think about. Again, I recognize this isn’t what the kid was going for, and they were probably intending to combat peer pressure surrounding sex. But they’ve inadvertently gone down a slippery slope of persuasion,sloppy thinking and social isolation.

In fact, this whole exercise smells a little wrong to my instincts as a teacher. I don’t want to condemn the guy whose classes created these projects, because I’m sure he’s a good guy just trying to help kids. But there’s a clever trick being played here. If you want to convince somebody of something, you can take a couple different routes. You can sit down and highlight the positives of your approach, and the negatives of competing approaches. All of this seems to have been done, based on the informatio conveyed in these signs. You can also get people to skip over having to actually evaluate and decide by asking them to persuade others of your original arguments - especially in creative new ways. The element of individual creativity allows the newly trained persuader to feel an emotional investment in the content of the message, even if they never actually made the decision to accept it in the first place (PS. A great deal of religious evangelization and brand promotion works along similar lines).

This one kind of breaks my heart. This kid seems to be expressing a much more personal and emotional sentiment: that sex is messy, shameful and painful. At the same time though, this kid is kind of on to something. Getting sexually and emotionally involved with other people is incredibly challenging. Relationships are extremely difficult, and often go bad. Another couple posters also echo this underlying theme in slightly different ways:

The first one seems to be a reference to the idea that if you don’t have sex, then you won’t have babies. The second suggests that you won’t get STD’s. Both are factually true statements that hide a lot beneath their surface. The first one could be reformulated to say that isolation is the only *true* freedom. The second seems to say that we ought to avoid the pain of living. It’s sad to see kids expressing these things already at such a young age. What kind of adults will they become if isolation and retreat from the pain and complications of human life are their mantras? We have only to look around and see their sad vacuous adult counterparts who’ve come to the same conclusions.

This one below I find to be one of the most troubling of all:

Troubling, because it’s a blatant untruth. Abstinence is simply NOT the key of life. If anything, sex is the “key” of life, because without it, life doesn’t move forward (human life anyway). And the whole “NO SEX” thing reminds of all those creepy banners and things in the movie They Live!

Maybe that’s a bit of an unfair comparison. But it does strike me as incongruous - if not downright creepy - that children are being taught to deny Life itself, and are allowed to proudly proclaim untrue facts in support of it. On some level, it almost does seem like there is a skeleton, avatar of death, ordering us to OBEY lifeless words on an anonymous sign over the deeply felt natural impulses of our bodies. Is that skeleton a real threat, or is he simply the dark counter-player to God, transmuting life from one stage of form to another of latency?

Now, before I get a bunch of hate mail, I’d like to reiterate that I don’t have the answers. But I do think we’ve raised some really interesting questions by looking at what kinds of ideas and imagery our children are giving back to us. Are they really reflecting our own attitudes? Are our own attitudes regarding sex and life as healthy as they really ought to be? How do we effectively instill our values into our kids without squashing the basic virtues of questioning, exploration and healthy emotional self-expression? Can we teach kids about not only the dangers and pitfalls of sex, but also about the beautiful, incredible and soul-uplifting parts as well and then trust them to make the right decisions without burdening them with undue guilt? There must be a way. As that one kid said, life is a fucking mess, but it’s all we got. It’s either that or the skeleton on the podium handing out “freedom”. All you have to do is obey.







24 Reader Responses

  1. Joe Chip Says:
    March 2nd, 2006 at 1:50 am

    Forcing people to write down propaganda that they may or may not agree with is a technique the Communist Chinese government used on American POWs (I think from the Korean War), or so my friend told me the other day. The idea behind it is kind of ingenius. The act of writing something like “China is better than America” that disagrees with your beliefs creates cognitive dissonance. The way out is to change the behavior or change the beliefs.

    I am tempted to say something about how awful it is that these abstinence posters is basically doing the same thing to children. But this brainwashing technique is central to other aspects of the educational system as well. I don’t know if it would even be possible to educate children without using the technique. What I do know is that the abstinence posters are very creepy. The whole abstinence campaign is almost sure to backfire, and the proponents will be left either scratching their heads and wondering what went wrong (duh) or doggedly defending it in spite of its obvious wrongheadedness (much more likely IMO).

  2. Gary Says:
    March 2nd, 2006 at 2:17 am

    Tim,
    I am so far in agreement with you that I don’t have much to add except that I am still amazed that there are enough people out there who actually believe this might do some good. I mean, weren’t all the parents of these children teen agers once too? And the teachers and other educators involved? This is a futile effort at a return to puritanism that is doomed to failure.

    What scares me the most, though, is that reasonable adults think that force feeding opinions into children about something the children can’t yet fully understand is a good idea. Or even an idea that has half a chance to suceed.

    BTW, how are you adjusting to Seattle? Have you made it to the Art Museum? Is the hammering man still outside pounding unsuspecting tourists? Ever pick up Tom Robbins book yet? Still Life with Woodpecker might be good to enjoy with the coming pacific northwest spring…

  3. Trash Stratum » Nancy Colours Eggs Says:
    March 2nd, 2006 at 3:26 am

    […] (Uncategorized) Tim at Pop Occulture dives into deep analysis of… middle school student-created abstinence posters. As usual, he takes […]

  4. Bluejay Young Says:
    March 2nd, 2006 at 4:06 am

    Some of these abstinence campaigns seem misleadingly targeted. I’ll never forget the huge billboard that stood for about a year beside the road I traveled every day back in ‘02; done up in passionate tones of scarlet, gold and black, it displayed a stunningly attractive girl of indeterminate race, and beside her, in huge letters, the word SEX … underneath that, in smaller letters, “Can wait. I’m worth it.”

    Gee, um…

  5. Anonymous Says:
    March 2nd, 2006 at 5:30 am

    Well, let’s just hope they aren’t surprised when the amount of individual/mutual masturbation and oral sex skyrocket…

  6. JK Says:
    March 2nd, 2006 at 6:36 am

    Check out James W. Prescott’s Body Pleasure and the Orgins of Violence

    The origins of the fundamental reciprocal relationship between physical violence and physical pleasure can be traced to philosophical dualism and to the theology of body/soul relationships. In Western philosophical thought man was not a unitary being but was divided into two parts, body and soul. The Greek philosophical conception of the relationship between body and soul was quite different than the Judeo-Christian concept which posited a state of war between the body and soul. Within Judeo-Christian thought the purpose of human life was to save the soul, and the body was seen as an impediment to achieving this objective. Consequently, the body must be punished and deprived. In St. Paul’s words: “Put to death the base pursuits of the body—for if you live according to the flesh, you shall die: but if by the spirit you mortify the deeds of the flesh, you shall live” (Romans 8:13). St. Paul clearly advocated somatosensory pleasure deprivation and enhancement of painful somatosensory stimulation as essential prerequisites for saving the soul.

    “Now concerning the things whereof you wrote to me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman” (1 Corinthians, 7:1).

    Explore violence.de and see what you find. Don’t know if everybody will agree with all of it as it comes from a materialist/secular humanist perspective. Still seems pretty damned compelling to me though.

  7. Sounder Says:
    March 2nd, 2006 at 8:18 am

    What is it within our human psyches that produce these fascinating relationships with authority and rebellion from authority?

    Identification (and promotion) of an incorrect imperative, perhaps?

  8. slomo Says:
    March 2nd, 2006 at 9:28 am

    Some pointy-headed ramblings about effectiveness: I’ve read that abstinence-only programs are not only not effective in achieving their stated goals, but also may be harmful. I did a quick search to find some supporting information. I found this article, which is not exactly from an unbiased source, but it does have a respectable bibliography:

    Data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) suggest that virginity pledge programs have had mixed results. They have been shown to delay intercourse up to 18 months, result in participating youth having fewer sex partners and getting married earlier. The long-term effectiveness of this approach, however, is questionable. A study analyzing the data found that 88% of pledgers had sex before marriage.[6] In addition, teens who took pledges were just as likely to contract STDs as those who did not; the study found that this was because the virginity pledgers were less likely to use condoms when they did have sex.[7]

    References [6] and [7] are from Peter Bearman, Hannah Bruckner, “The Relationship Between Virginity Pledges in Adolescence and STD Acquisition in Young Adulthood,” Paper Presented at the National STD Conference, March 9, 2004. Peter Bearman is a sociologist/econometrician out of Columbia, and designed and directed the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Here is the abstract from a relevant paper:

    Since 1993, in response to an organized social movement sponsored by the Southern Baptist Church, well over two and a half million adolescents have taken public “virginity” pledges, in which they promise to abstain from sex until marriage. This paper explores the effect of virginity pledges on the transition to first intercourse. On one hand, we show that adolescents who pledge, controlling for all of the usual characteristics of adolescents and their social contexts that are associated with the transition to sex, are much less likely than adolescents who do not pledge, to have intercourse. The delay effect is substantial and almost impossible to erase. Taking a pledge delays intercourse for a long time. On the other hand, the pledge effect depends on age. Pledging does not work for adolescents at all ages. Second, pledging delays intercourse only in contexts where there are some, but not too many, pledgers. Too few, and too many, pledgers in the adolescent world can negate the pledge effect. The pledge works because it is embedded in an identity movement. Consequently, like other identity movements, the pledge identity is relatively fragile and meaningful only in contexts where it is at least partially non-normative. Consequences of pledging are explored for those who break their promise. Promise breakers are less likely to use contraception at first intercourse.

  9. Fatima Says:
    March 2nd, 2006 at 10:12 am

    I see 2 lobbies at work:

    - The Xian fundies on the first hand, shoving their agenda down the throats of innocent kids (talk about freaking rape!!)

    - The pseudo psycho-babble, fluffy-Cosmopolitan psychanalists and trendy Spin doctors a la Dr. Phil, rubbing their hands, masturbating their wallets at the though of these generations and generations of future nevrosed neurotics and psychopaths to be milked.

  10. drop Says:
    March 2nd, 2006 at 10:17 am

    I think that teachers and parents need to spend less time trying to push abstinence and more time acctually teaching kids about the importance of the emotional aspect of sex. I think my sex talk with my mother went along the lines of: “Sex feels good, but it’s a lot more than that. There are a lot of complicated emotions involved, and you really want to pick carefully who you have sex with.” It was a little more long winded, but you get the jist. Though my “first time” wasn’t perfect, and I don’t think that I was exactly prepared for it, but who is when they do something for the first time? After comparing notes with friends, I think that my first time was pretty healthy.

    Obviously STDs and Pregnancy are also a big part of teaching kids about sex. I remember being about 19 in a convenience store and watching the woman behind the counter deny a 14 year old boy condoms because she thought he was “too young to be having sex.” Apparently she didn’t think he was too young to be getting a 14 year old girl pregnant.

    It amazes me that people like to push off even talking about sex and just going with a “just don’t do it” approach. It’s a cop-out. No wonder kids are having blow job parties at 12. No one ever really taught them about sex. Of course, their parents and teachers are probably just as ignorant as their children, so it just becomes a case of the blind leading the blind.

  11. slomo Says:
    March 2nd, 2006 at 10:52 am

    I wholeheartedly agree with Drop. It seems a lot more effective to have a serious talk with your child, presenting all of the complexities and issues. In many (if not all) areas of life, my basic philosophy is: “It’s your choice, make your own decision. But make sure it’s an informed decision.”

    Of course, I don’t have children, so it’s probably a lot more complicated than I’m thinking.

  12. xdell Says:
    March 2nd, 2006 at 11:19 am

    Not only was this initial post cogent, profound and enlightening, but many of comments are as well.

    Just to add: how can one expect a 13 or 14-year-old to understand the concept of abstinence if they’ve never been in heat? That is, if they never been in a situation where sexual activity is an immediate possibility?

    I get the sense that many of those kids are honest when they say “no” to sex. But many of them don’t actually know what that ‘no’ means.

  13. Ant Says:
    March 2nd, 2006 at 11:41 am

    Wow. That’s startling. When I was still in school, we never went that far. I was in Ode2Youth and all of that … stuff. But my team approached it at a level that was “don’t just do things because you think you’ll be more accepted because of it.” And plus, I didn’t like the thought of little kids huffing glue and taking ecstacy. Admittedly, our team weren’t completely “angels” ourselves, so we often avoided subjects like marijuana and sex for the sake of… not trying to overpropagandize.

    There was a time period though when I was younger that we made posters like this though. Nothing to this extent, for sure, but a lot of it was a matter of rhyming a funny word with something crucial. Crack is whack! Ecstacy is… flex… f… nevermind.
    I dunno, it was like, if you get a good grade for it, it’s worth it. But like I said, those campaigns are weird. And over time, my school (mostly after I left) started taking away school dances because they were “too sexual,” anything Valentines themed, started promoting abstinence like mad, and probably castrated one in ten boys at random. But what do I hear about now from some of my teacher friends that still work there? Stories about kids giving and getting blowjobs in the back of the classroom while class is in session. So, is all of that bullshit working?

  14. SubstanceM Says:
    March 2nd, 2006 at 12:53 pm

    Ant, Your comment about bj’s in the back of the class scares me because I have a kid around that age - a girl…if it was my son, hmmm would I worry for him?…. :) - and it’s not the first time I’ve heard tell of that. I am not sure it is really too widespread, but anyway my point is - what about all the Internet porn available to kids these days vs. a few unconvincing abstinence posters. This must be having some effect on why it’s thought ok to get a quick bj during math class? I was young, I don’t forget and even at my horniest I never really considered that an option…

  15. jp Says:
    March 2nd, 2006 at 1:01 pm

    Seriously, this is some weird stuff. The only poster contest I can remember from my school days was a “name the new police horse” contest. (Sadly, my entry, “Lightning,” lost to the far more clever “Mister Meener.”)

    What I wonder is how this whole abstinence in schools thing contributes to the fetishization of the young. It’s like, by framing the argument in the first place, are you actually conflating “Kids” and “Sex” in the cultural millieu? After all, how many of these pro-abstinence parents turn around and dress up their 8-year olds like fashion models & parade them around on stage?

  16. Tim Boucher Says:
    March 2nd, 2006 at 5:41 pm

    One more item this calls to mind. From an article on Sun Myung Moon and how the Unification Church promotes abstinence. It’s about adult abstinence, but is still worthwhile:

    http://www.timboucher.com/journal/2005/01/sun-myung-moon.html

    I believe that focusing on sexual conduct serves many purposes for someone trying to maintain control over members of a totalistic group. By turning natural biological and emotional drives into something shameful, it creates guilt, confusion, self doubt, and a sense of sinfulness, which in turn creates a need for salvation and a dependence on your savior, usually the group leader. It diverts attention away from other conduct in the group which might be seen as immoral such as deception, emotional abuse, exploitation, etc. It also serves to create a sense of self righteousness in the members - after all, if they are not “doing it”, they can view themselves as superior, pure and “undefiled”. It serves the group to channel that sexual energy into the “mission”. This was the case in George Orwell’s “1984″, where the authoritarian police state had it’s “chastity patrol”. In fact, it could be argued that a totalistic group must control it’s members sex and love life, for their compelling and powerful nature make them the biggest threat to the groups control over the members lives.

  17. tom campbell Says:
    March 2nd, 2006 at 10:42 pm

    I, too, grew up in a Catholic household where I was taught that any sexual pleasure outside of marriage is sinful. I think I must have signed five or six different pledge cards over the years. I am now 19, and 9 months in to my first ever romantic relationship. I never kissed a girl before her. It was not until I questioned the blind faith of my youth and moved on to my own spiritual path that I could allow this development to happen (we met 3 years ago while both still very Catholic and were interested in pursuing more from the start but suppressed all those wonderful emotions, brushing them off as immoral infatuation. The time that I started to step away from the Catholic church synchronized completely with the time that I finally “gave in” to our desire for a relationship.) While I am still technically a virgin (technically), I doubt that will remain the case for much longer (as soon as we figure out that all important actual birth control.

    So that’s just more first-hand experience to back up Tim and his own story of childhood sexual repression (and how it ultimately fails).

  18. channel null Says:
    March 2nd, 2006 at 11:44 pm

    Foucault, for being such a shithead, had this theory he never finalized, a means of integrating post-Nietzschean individualism with post-Marxist cultural theory. He called it “bio-power,” where somehow individuals who gained control–which isn’t exactly the right term, but he means as opposed to being controlled by the state and cultural edifices–over their biological habits & actions were on the path to true self-sovereignity as well as a healthy, unrepressed society. I hope to finish this theory myself.

    Foucault was also into BDSM and died of AIDS. Funny, how the dog chasing its tail bites itself sometimes.

  19. slomo Says:
    March 2nd, 2006 at 11:46 pm

    I appreciate the honest reflections of Tom Campbell and Tim. Without going into details, I’ve seen the other side of the spectrum, extreme sexual excess (as a participant in the early days of youth, more of an observer in later years, and monogamously coupled at present). Statements like this worry me:

    But what do I hear about now from some of my teacher friends that still work there? Stories about kids giving and getting blowjobs in the back of the classroom while class is in session.

    If true, this is a terrible catastrophe. I know where all that excess leads. Even forgetting the physical dangers, there is a spiritual price to be paid.

    Unfortunately, I don’t think that abstinence/virginity pledges are the answer. They serve only to mystify sex, make it more alluring by making it taboo. Plus, it doesn’t seem to work, or at least it doesn’t work in the way it’s supposed to (see my post above). There is a bigger problem here, one that involves the commodification of other people. This is a big topic, and the only people who seem to have addressed it are feminists to whom very few people listen these days.

    As we advance towards late-stage capitalism (and perhaps the end of civilization), we are now reaping the consequences of aggressive commodification of every possible thing. Dunno what can be done about it.

  20. Ant Says:
    March 3rd, 2006 at 10:08 am

    SubstanceM, I’d have to say this: The reason I think a lot of this happens is because of the fact that if you sexually frustrate a kid by making them believe that abstinence is the only true virtue, that sex is wrong, and take away all of the ways to express it, and all of that… I think it’s automatically going to manifest itself in different ways. I have a feeling that your daughter doesn’t fit into this category, just because I see your concern and it’s obvious that you’re a part of your daughter’s life and have instilled rational values in her. The internet porn thing… well, I’m not sure how I feel about that, and I’m not sure how it fits into how it effects kids in this issue for sure, but I think it’s kindof an easy scapegoat for the real issue, which is probably deprivation. Like I said, when a school takes away absolutely everything sexual, it just might manifest itself in other places that might not be so socially acceptable. Just my opinion though, I’m not psychoanalyst.

  21. Ant Says:
    March 3rd, 2006 at 10:09 am

    oh man, ignore all the times I just said “effects” instead of “affects.”
    *cough*

  22. channel null Says:
    March 3rd, 2006 at 10:09 pm

    slomo, that reminds me of something, tangentially.

    Tantra tells us the only effective disciplines left to humans are breathing and sexual practices. Now, the breathing is fairly simple: breath in counting to four, hold for four, exhale for four, hold for four, repeat for five hours a day for ten years until you break into the pleroma.

    But what about sex?

    I don’t think we really appreciate the power of sexual practice, even those chaos magickians “[v]oicing lackluster admonitions to half-forgotten powers, shy petitions to gain entry into the hallowed mysteries of the office receptionist’s pants.” Karezza can lead to religious ecstacy and out-of-body experience. Even simply a long period of stimulation can break through in the orgasm to a massive etheric download…

    I think “the reality priesthood” realizes this, and pursues stupid-ass policy/engineered experience that creates this world of abstinence and two-minute blowjobs–niether buys you the ticket. Consider how damn near no one can offer sexual training, e.g., or even explain it… Download Melissa Gira’s Whorecast 11?, “Another Sex Magick Social Network” for more albeit less top-down paranoid and more about sexual initations of the initatiatory sort. Sacred Whore main site

  23. SubstanceM Says:
    March 4th, 2006 at 3:18 pm

    The internet porn thing… well, I’m not sure how I feel about that, and I’m not sure how it fits into how it effects kids in this issue for sure, but I think it’s kindof an easy scapegoat for the real issue, which is probably deprivation.

    1st try on the block quote thing above so hope it worked.
    Ant - ya I wasn’t looking to place the whole topic at the feet of porn.
    I was just kind of wondering as I typed about that specific issue of bj’s
    in classrooms and when in the name of krusty this became a possible
    if not allowable occurance. I am not one to especially blame, like rock lyrics for suicide as a possible analogy - just wondering along the lines that the 60’s was the start of a less sexually repressive / media saturated society, then how its moved on through the time that I passed thru HS to today (and mags, vcr’s, then internet in that span). Now when I was in early high school at 13 or whatever, the possibility of getting me a bj in class, for real, wasn’t in the air. I wasn’t exactly advanced joe studly but to take me out of the equation, I never heard anyone with such a story to tell either. I am wondering when the leap was made that now it is told as a kind of factual occurance among kids that age in school.

  24. SubstanceM Says:
    March 4th, 2006 at 3:18 pm

    Hmm. So it didn’t work. next time.



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