defrog: (coop babes)
[personal profile] defrog
ITEM: A new study by scientists at the University of California, San Francisco reports that teens who have sex are more likely to value refraining from it than those who don’t.

The study also reports that the percentage of teens who report solely positive benefits from not having sex declines precipitously with age.

Which basically means that, if yr not getting laid – and if it’s yr choice – it’s better to know what yr missing than to not know.

Some of the results sound obvious – TISM summed the whole thing up in a song a couple years back without the benefit of science. Still, it’s interesting that the study looks at teen sex from a different angle: how teens feel about NOT having sex, and how those feelings affect them later on when they do start. Why is this important?

“Teens are assessing how they feel about refraining from sexual behaviors based upon how having sex makes them feel – and those feelings become increasingly influential over time ... Refraining from sexual behavior should feel rewarding, and engaging in sexual behavior should be based on maturity and readiness ... We often focus on abstinence in sex education programs. It may be that, when we do this exclusively, we’re not meeting the needs of those adolescents who choose to be sexually active, and may be failing to give them the tools to select the most caring partners for them, the right occasions for engaging in sex, and the best strategies for engaging in safer sexual behavior.”

Which is why conservatives hate scientists. They always complicate things. Why fret over nuances about how young people feel in real life when you can just say, “DON’T HAVE SEX OR GOD WILL PUNISH YOU FOREVER THE END!”

Fuck science. Fear is the thing. Works like a charm. Except when it doesn’t. Which is most of the time.

Wankers. (See what I did there?)

Sexual healing,

This is dF

on 2008-01-16 02:29 am (UTC)
Posted by [identity profile] def-fr0g-42.livejournal.com
Well, sure, honesty is always a "confounding factor" in these things. I've wondered that too. On the other hand, I suspect a lot of teens appreciate the opportunity to give honest answers and take advantage of it. You don't have to impress/deceive a researcher like you do yr peers/parents.

Either way, yeah, I think abstinence-only is dishonest and unfair to the kids, not to mention unrealistic. As for the Scared Straight option ... I'm not big on using scare tactics, even when they're accurate, if only because it can backfire if teens suspect yr exaggerating. Still, if you emphasized facts over fear when showing them the herpes pics and taking them to the preemie ward, you'd probably get better results than abstinence-only sex ed gets now.

"F*** Responsibly" - now THERE'S a teen PSA I want to see.

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