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Maranatha
Guest
Thanks God for Jason.
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blessedtoo
Guest
Excellent article.
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strngrnrth
Guest
A journalist some time ago was invited to guest-teach a high-school girls’ Sex Ed class. She asked the girls to pass her a folded slip with their questions at the beginning, so she could teach them what they most wanted to know. She said 80% wanted to know only one thing: How to fend off boys and men who pressured them for sex. The word “abstinence” isn’t even the right word here. What most teenage girls want to know about is protecting their boundaries. We should call it “dignity education” or something.
A study in the 1990’s found that the main reason girls under 17 have sex is “pressure or coercion”, at 70%, followed by common reasons such as “wanting a baby” (have fun teaching birth control to someone who is only doing it to get pregnant), “wishing to seem grown-up”, “money or material rewards”, etc. Way down at the bottom of the list, about 2% “expected to enjoy it” and around the same number did it out of positive “feelings for other person”. I may have misremembered the exact wording, but that’s pretty close.
For boys, the main reason was “wanting to seem grown up”, followed by “pressure or coercion” though usually the pressure on boys is from other boys, to prove they are straight, I think. A minority of even boys did it because they “expected to enjoy it”, and a small number were motivated by a relationship.
When Sex-Ed/Abstinence Ed addresses where teenagers really live and what really motivates them, it will be much more effective.
Girls need to learn:
1 – Physical, verbal, social and legal self-protection. How to say No and make it stick.
2 – You don’t have to be a mommy to be grown-up, important to someone or loved. Having a baby alone is scary and heartbreaking.
3 – It doesn’t matter if the girls think you’re gay. You won’t be around those girls after you graduate.
4 – How to get a job so you don’t have to sell your body.
Boys need to learn:
1 – You are no more grown-up having premarital sex than you are as a virgin. Growing up is a lot more than that. How to get a job, for instance, so you have a sense of independence.
2 – It doesn’t matter if the guys think you’re gay. You won’t be around them after you graduate.
3 – When your girlfriend has a baby, you have one too. Being a father is work.
4 – Deferred gratification is what distinguishes all the winners from all the losers.
If we teach them what they need to learn they will learn more than if we keep missing the point.
A study in the 1990’s found that the main reason girls under 17 have sex is “pressure or coercion”, at 70%, followed by common reasons such as “wanting a baby” (have fun teaching birth control to someone who is only doing it to get pregnant), “wishing to seem grown-up”, “money or material rewards”, etc. Way down at the bottom of the list, about 2% “expected to enjoy it” and around the same number did it out of positive “feelings for other person”. I may have misremembered the exact wording, but that’s pretty close.
For boys, the main reason was “wanting to seem grown up”, followed by “pressure or coercion” though usually the pressure on boys is from other boys, to prove they are straight, I think. A minority of even boys did it because they “expected to enjoy it”, and a small number were motivated by a relationship.
When Sex-Ed/Abstinence Ed addresses where teenagers really live and what really motivates them, it will be much more effective.
Girls need to learn:
1 – Physical, verbal, social and legal self-protection. How to say No and make it stick.
2 – You don’t have to be a mommy to be grown-up, important to someone or loved. Having a baby alone is scary and heartbreaking.
3 – It doesn’t matter if the girls think you’re gay. You won’t be around those girls after you graduate.
4 – How to get a job so you don’t have to sell your body.
Boys need to learn:
1 – You are no more grown-up having premarital sex than you are as a virgin. Growing up is a lot more than that. How to get a job, for instance, so you have a sense of independence.
2 – It doesn’t matter if the guys think you’re gay. You won’t be around them after you graduate.
3 – When your girlfriend has a baby, you have one too. Being a father is work.
4 – Deferred gratification is what distinguishes all the winners from all the losers.
If we teach them what they need to learn they will learn more than if we keep missing the point.
M
Mimi
Guest
Thank you for sending this in!
I am preparing to do a chastity ed program for Catholic jr high students in Nov. All these points and more are addressed in the program Theology of the Body for Teens.
If you are not familiar with this teaching, I urge you to get either the Theology of the Body for Beginners, or Theology of the Body Explained (both by Chrisopher West). He has videos and CD’s available as well. They are excellent materials!
Every person has a desire to know God, and this is exemplified in our desires, and in satisfying them. Chesterton said, “Every man who goes to a house of ill repute is looking for God” (or something like that). Man and woman were designed for each other and to commune, to become One Flesh. However, if our desires are disordered, we become ill. As someone who ate ice cream (which is a good and pleasurable thing), but ate it morning, noon and night, would become malnourished and probably too fat! A disordered view of what our bodies are made for is what West calls “flat tire syndrome”. Nearly everyone is driving around on flat tires, so it’s not noticed that our own tires may be flat. He does a much better job of explaining it, believe me! But you get the general idea.
Everyone also has a deep desire to know why they are here, what purpose is there in Life. This is a deep question, and one that should be addressed seriously. Abstinence education can only go so far – don’t do it!, or practice ‘safe sex’. We are complex beings, and God is even more complex, but can be understood on different levels. Theology of the Body does just that. It is a most profound teaching, and IMO, one of the greatest legacies JPII has left us, if not THE greatest.
Mimi
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