Abstinence failure rates exceed condom failure

[BaliBabyDoc]

Health behavior research from a school of public health

Abstinence-only curricula evaluations have demonstrated changes in adolescents' attitudes but little change in sexual behaviors. Comprehensive sexuality education curricula have demonstrated attitudinal changes and delays in adolescents' sexual activity.

In essence, teaching abstinent kids to stay abstinent works but teaching nonabstinent kids does not. Teaching abstinent kids sex ed works (primarily b/c they aren't having sex anyway) but it also works for protecting nonabstinent kids from STDs and unplanned pregnancy.

excellent summary of abstinenc...ion . . . the horror!!

ABSTINENCE
Failure Rate: 0%
Abstinence, refraining from sexual intercourse, is a common practice all over the world. Historically, abstinence has probably been the single most important factor in preventing pregnancy. Women and men of all ages deliberately choose to abstain. Abstinence is a normal, common, and acceptable alternative to sexual intercourse.

what really worked in the Ugandan AIDS crisis

Uganda employed what's been labeled an "ABC" approach to preventing HIV infections ? "A" for abstain, "B" for be faithful, and "C" for use condoms.

Essentially, the program used a combination of messages about abstinence, monogamy, and condom use to halt the spread of HIV, and the numbers suggest that it worked.
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Nearly all public health experts agree that a combination of behavioral changes in A, B, and C all contributed to Uganda's success in reducing HIV rates. And an analysis released by the Alan Guttmacher Institute in November 2003, A, B, and C in Uganda: The Roles of Abstinence, Monogamy, and Condom Use in HIV Decline, supports this general consensus. Specifically, the study found that between 1988 and 1995:
Fewer Ugandans were having sex at young ages.
Levels of monogamy increased.
Condom use rose steeply among unmarried sexually active women and men.

The report concluded: "Progress on the three components of the ABC approach contributed to bringing about and sustaining reduced exposure to HIV in Uganda.? Development funds to combat HIV should focus on policies and programs designed to target all three prongs ? 'A,' 'B,' and 'C.'"

make a promise . . . break a promise

In 1999 the Philadelphia Youth Risk Behavior Survey (n=958) included a question about whether students had ever promised themselves to wait to have sex until marriage. Overall almost 38% of the adolescents had made such a promise to themselves while 62% had not.
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Of those young people who had promised themselves to wait until marriage, 55% were still virgins compared to 40% of those who had not made such a promise.
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This perhaps suggests a 45% abstinence user-failure rate. However, does this constitutes a true failure rate if no negative consequence (e.g. pregnancy or STD) resulted?

 

[Cobalt]

Rip is lame needs its own category so I can make two votes. :evil:

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: BaliBabyDoc
...

Teaching kids that safe sex is safe is a flat out lie. You can teach them the truth - that abstinence is the only way to be safe, but 'safe sex' might help. However, if you tell them that safe sex is really safe, then you're liable when one of them comes down with an STD or becomes pregnant. Besides, we're not fighting an HIV epidemic here, so our course of action should be varied accordingly. What it all comes back to is that people need to be responsible for their actions - children should be taught this, not pandered to as if they will not be held responsible.

Sorry for the non-internet source, but I'm looking into books because everything on the internet with regard to this issue and others that are important are completely biased towards one side. Besides, some good peer-reviewed studies never hurt anybody.

 

[BaliBabyDoc]

Dude, where did you find a single reference to "safe sex" in my post??

Maybe I'm mistaken but I doubt it's there b/c I neither said it nor meant it. Comprehensive sex education is an integral part of "safer" sex where children . . . and that's often what they are . . . put themselves at LESS risk. Abstinence only education is a farce. Sadly, it's a very hazardous one b/c it increases the risk that sexual activity between "abstinent" kids will be LESS safe.

The whole point of the discussion is to note the REAL failure rate of abstinence . . . which is difficult if not impossible to do. Abstinent people are not at risk for anything beyond being lonely on a FRI night or having steep bills for hand lotion/acrylic dildos. But people do not follow abstinence b/c they've been educated on it. They follow it for several other reasons: 1) personal conviction, 2) family support, 3) family pressure, 4) lack of opportunity . . . ain't that a beotch. Accordingly, all it takes is the right motivation to make that abstinence pledge a distant memory.

Comprehensive sex education by definition teaches children (and young adults) to be responsible for their actions. Every good class gives ALL the pros and cons. I can guarantee that abstinence always get's noticed for it's 0% failure rate for pregnancy (a high quality class will note that "intercourse" abstinence does not have a 0% failure rate for STDs). Regardless, abstinence should be a prominent part of ANY sex ed curriculum. That is indeed the key to succes . . . telling the truth . . . the whole truth . . . to kids that are desperately in need (and often desire) honest answers.

 

[CycloWizard]

You rule out the possiblity that anyone could follow abstinence because it is, in and of itself, the only way to prevent pregnancy and STDs? You assume away the success of any such program based on the fact that it's hard to quantify the results.

Since I'm guessing I was in high school more recently than yourself, let me tell you what I learned in my 'comprehensive' sexual education class.
1 - The teacher had a 'magic pizza box' with a bunch of contraceptives in it. She passed it around the room so people could look at it.
2 - We made areas on the back wall that were labeled "Safe" "Risky" and "Dangerous." Use of condoms, IUD, the pill, all placed under 'safe.' That's what we learned. :thumbsdown:
3 - We learned that if your parents wouldn't give you consent for an abortion (which was required by state law for minors in Indiana), there were states that you could go to where you didn't need their consent. These states were given by name.

Items 2 and 3 are obvious plays to divert away from the real problem: people need to be responsible for their own actions. I voted B, C, and D in your poll because A is basically giving in to debunked theories regarding human sexuality, settling and basically conceding that we can't do anything about our behavior. In the end, your entire argument is the same as Kinsey's: humans will have sex because it's what we do - we're animal in nature. Then, the only way to keep people from becoming pregnant or contracting an STD is teaching them methods that often fail, which is disingenuous at best.

 

[Genesys]

G! [just kiddin Rip, most of us dont think youre lame...]

i dont see sex ed as really working, why would you want to taunt people with the most intimate of acts at an early age, and then tell them its ok as long as [insert liberal conditions for sex here]

answer F is probably the best way to go about things

 

[sandorski]

Voted E, but was very tempted by G.


Absstinence Ed is a sick joke. Sure, you can't get Pregnant or Contract an STD by abstaining, but Nature ownz Thought.

 

[CycloWizard]

I went ahead and took the liberty of finding some more info, this time from The New England Journal of Medicine. These are paraphrased.

1. 20% of Americans twelve years and older test positive for genital herpes.
2. After one episode of intercourse, 46% of teenage girls contract human papilloma virus (HPV) and 14% will go on to develop cervical cancer.
3. More women's lives are lost to cervical cancer every year than to AIDS.

Stat from the National Institute of Health:

Condoms, if used 100% of the time correctly, may reduce the risk of HIV by 87% in men and women, and may reduce the risk of gonorrhea in men, but for all other STDs, there is insufficient evidence that condoms work at all.

 

[Jhhnn]

Setting aside all the moralizing, which is pretty much the only argument against it, A is the only truly correct answer.

What's the objective? If we can't agree that reducing teen pregnancy and std's as much as possible is the objective, then there's really nothing more to discuss.

CycloWizard's own source actually reveals the truth w/o intending to do so. If the failure rate of abstinence approaches 50%, which seems realistic, then the use of condoms among those who fail at this strategy would reduce pregnancy and disease transmission among them by 90%, no matter what that rate might be...

Nor is that to endorse any sex-ed program deficient in any other way, particularly those that might overplay the effectiveness of condoms or anything else. They're no more worthy than programs promoting ignorance, of which abstinence only must surely be one...

 

[LordMagnusKain]

Condoms fail to prevent pregnancy in more than 1 out of 8 couples who use them regularly, within the first year.

This is not a sure way to prevent pregnancy, and not a sure way to stop the spread of STDs.

We should inform children of this, but explain the benefits, at the same time giving them strong moral and personal-emotional reasons not to engage in extra marital sex.

Preemptively: You people are ars-hats who disagree either because you want to keep children from hearing the word ?sex? in school, or because you are dough-bag that wants to justify your own sexual promiscuity by not admitting, ever, even for the betterment of children and society over all that there are honest benefits to abstinence.

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: Jhhnn
Setting aside all the moralizing, which is pretty much the only argument against it, A is the only truly correct answer.

What's the objective? If we can't agree that reducing teen pregnancy and std's as much as possible is the objective, then there's really nothing more to discuss.

CycloWizard's own source actually reveals the truth w/o intending to do so. If the failure rate of abstinence approaches 50%, which seems realistic, then the use of condoms among those who fail at this strategy would reduce pregnancy and disease transmission among them by 90%, no matter what that rate might be...

Nor is that to endorse any sex-ed program deficient in any other way, particularly those that might overplay the effectiveness of condoms or anything else. They're no more worthy than programs promoting ignorance, of which abstinence only must surely be one...

Wow. The failure rate of abstinence is ZERO - that's the entire point. You assume away the entire problem by shelling out some completely arbitrary figure. You further brush aside the statistics I presented by two leading health bodies and claim that it's just 'moralizing.' P'shaw.

If you teach me to use condoms to prevent disease and/or pregnancy and I become diseased/pregnant, I could, nay, SHOULD sue you or even hold you criminally accountable. You told me the condom would keep me safe, which it didn't, and you KNEW that it wouldn't.

 

[magomago]

My sex eduation was quite a little different. We learned about everything, but every time abstinance was ALWAYS emphasized, and it was ALWAYS a question on the test. But regardless of who came in and what we learned- absintance is the only real safe solution.

but to only preach absitance isn;t the solution because it doesn't give people something to "gauge" it too....

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: magomago
My sex eduation was quite a little different. We learned about everything, but every time abstinance was ALWAYS emphasized, and it was ALWAYS a question on the test. But regardless of who came in and what we learned- absintance is the only real safe solution.

but to only preach absitance isn;t the solution because it doesn't give people something to "gauge" it too....

Sure it does - on the one hand, you have STDs and pregnancy out of wedlock. On the other, you have a normal, happy life.

 

[joshw10]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard

Originally posted by: magomago
My sex eduation was quite a little different. We learned about everything, but every time abstinance was ALWAYS emphasized, and it was ALWAYS a question on the test. But regardless of who came in and what we learned- absintance is the only real safe solution.

but to only preach absitance isn;t the solution because it doesn't give people something to "gauge" it too....

Sure it does - on the one hand, you have STDs and pregnancy out of wedlock. On the other, you have a normal, happy life.

That's dumb. Sorry, teenagers and the unmarried will have sex, will always have sex, always have had sex, it doesnt matter what you do. Teach abstinence as the only 100% guaranteed solution to preventing STDs and pregnancy, but you also have to teach the other stuff with even more importance. Fact is, the kids who are abstinent arent that way by choice

 

[Zebo]

That's right joshw10 no choice

Where's the "I'm locking my daughter in the basement until she's 21" option?

 

[joshw10]

Originally posted by: Zebo
That's right joshw10 no choice

Where's the "I'm locking my daughter in the basement until she's 21" option?

Very few are abstinent by choice. Maybe I'm just speaking for the guys and the really ugly

In thinking about it, if you really want abstinence to work you'd probably have to start teaching it around age 5. I can just see the Christians having heart attacks right about now

 

[Amused]

For the people who think I'm a "neocon" this may be a surprise... but I agree. Abstinence education alone is a huge mistake. It's simply hiding your head in the sand and saying ignorance is best.

(I voted for A,C & D but I think along with that, kids should still be told that abstinence is the safest bet)

But I have to ask, if ignorance is not best, why is this the very program most liberals propose for teaching our children about guns and gun safety?

 

[joshw10]

Originally posted by: Amused
For the people who think I'm a "neocon" this may be a surprise... but I agree. Abstinence education alone is a huge mistake. It's simply hiding your head in the sand and saying ignorance is best.

(I voted for A,C & D but I think along with that, kids should still be told that abstinence is the safest bet)

But I have to ask, if ignorance is not best, why is this the very program most liberals propose for teaching our children about guns and gun safety?

Because you arent born with a gun attached to your body and with instincts telling you every moment that you need to use it.

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: joshw10

Originally posted by: Amused
For the people who think I'm a "neocon" this may be a surprise... but I agree. Abstinence education alone is a huge mistake. It's simply hiding your head in the sand and saying ignorance is best.

(I voted for A,C & D but I think along with that, kids should still be told that abstinence is the safest bet)

But I have to ask, if ignorance is not best, why is this the very program most liberals propose for teaching our children about guns and gun safety?

Because you arent born with a gun attached to your body and with instincts telling you every moment that you need to use it.

That makes no sense. The plain fact is, we are and always will be surrounded by firearms. You cannot uninvent them or wish them away. Hiding your head in the sand and pushing blind ignornace is simply begging for trouble.

 

[Red Dawn]

Abstinence will never be embraced by Adolescent Americans as long as they keep getting bombarded with via the Media.

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: Red Dawn
Abstinence will never be embraced by Adolescent Americans as long as they keep getting bombarded with via the Media.

SHHHHHH! You know only tobacco ads influence kids. Not all the sex and violence on TV, in music and in movies!

 

[Red Dawn]

Originally posted by: Amused

Originally posted by: Red Dawn
Abstinence will never be embraced by Adolescent Americans as long as they keep getting bombarded with via the Media.

SHHHHHH! You know only tobacco ads influence kids. Not all the sex and violence on TV, in music and in movies!

THis is not a new thing, back in the late 60 and early 70's we also were bombarded with the same stuff. The difference was we were able to go out and get it instead of posting on the internet complaining about not being able to get it

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: Red Dawn

Originally posted by: Amused

Originally posted by: Red Dawn
Abstinence will never be embraced by Adolescent Americans as long as they keep getting bombarded with via the Media.

SHHHHHH! You know only tobacco ads influence kids. Not all the sex and violence on TV, in music and in movies!

THis is not a new thing, back in the late 60 and early 70's we also were bombarded with the same stuff. The difference was we were able to go out and get it instead of posting on the internet complaining about not being able to get it

Yeah... that, and we weren't in danger of getting any deadly viruses.

 

[Red Dawn]

Originally posted by: Amused

Originally posted by: Red Dawn

Originally posted by: Amused

Originally posted by: Red Dawn
Abstinence will never be embraced by Adolescent Americans as long as they keep getting bombarded with via the Media.

SHHHHHH! You know only tobacco ads influence kids. Not all the sex and violence on TV, in music and in movies!

THis is not a new thing, back in the late 60 and early 70's we also were bombarded with the same stuff. The difference was we were able to go out and get it instead of posting on the internet complaining about not being able to get it

Yeah... that, and we weren't in danger of getting any deadly viruses.

True. Back then getting laid didn't mean a possible death sentence...unless your girlfriend's father or brother busted you.

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: Red Dawn

Originally posted by: Amused

Originally posted by: Red Dawn

Originally posted by: Amused

Originally posted by: Red Dawn
Abstinence will never be embraced by Adolescent Americans as long as they keep getting bombarded with via the Media.

SHHHHHH! You know only tobacco ads influence kids. Not all the sex and violence on TV, in music and in movies!

THis is not a new thing, back in the late 60 and early 70's we also were bombarded with the same stuff. The difference was we were able to go out and get it instead of posting on the internet complaining about not being able to get it

Yeah... that, and we weren't in danger of getting any deadly viruses.

True. Back then getting laid didn't mean a possible death sentence...unless your girlfriend's father or brother busted you.

Yep.