No, it's only ok to lie to them about AIDS to get them to wear condoms.

Sex education as taught by Henry Waxman would terrify anyone.

So just correct the inconsistancies, retain the common sense and continue the program.

I've come to feel, that's the equivalent of leftist thought, to just say no to anything Waxman proposes.

The erroneous information only serves to discredit the valuable information.

Using a condom reduces the occurrence of AIDS significantly. Not as much as abstinence, but it's a lot easier to get people to use a condom than it is to get them to abstain.

Bart:

Why would you teach them to engage in high risk behavior?

Two things:

It used to be you could influence such behavior by adducing morality if not religion. Both are now off limits.

And why is it that gross exaggeration reinforcing politically correct behavior/views OK? Have you seen what passes for symposia on environmental awareness, gun control advocacy, racism in Amerika, sexism (including spousal abuse) in Amerika, etc. And let's not forget what goes on in the tort world!

"Why would you teach them to engage in high risk behavior?"

Because the results are better than engaging in delusional expectations.

Please reference your recent AIDS stories - the reason to just tell people the full truth about these things (AIDS, premarital sex, drugs, etc...) is that eventually they do find out the truth and then don't believe any of the half-truths you've told. Prime example from my latter high-school/early college years is that crap from Chick Koop et al (that's really his nickname - he lives in our town now) that ANYBODY having sex was equally likely to get AIDS, including heterosexuals and women. You could use that for a while to scare kids out of having sex until folks figured out that the risk was not the same (or, in fact, even remotely the same). So the scare tactic only works briefly and then you've lost the trust of your target audience.
Really, there's enough scary stuff out there - you don't have to go making it up.

You want to scare them?

Take them into the delivery room. Introduce them to young mothers who can't go on vacations, who can't plan to do many things because their time is taken up by a 3 month old baby. Then suggest, gently, that they have alternatives: they can get to know the person first.

the results are better than engaging in delusional expectations.

One word: Uganda.

Wife:

That's not what you tell our own Satan spawn....

As soon as you read this, you will all go, "Doh".

Do you realize that you're assuming that Henry Waxman is telling the truth?

Clayton Cramer has a few comments on this subject which I think are worth considering. You may need to repair the following URL to see the entry.

http://claytoncramer.com/weblog/2004_11_28_archive.html#110200565046191733

People used to get married at 19, and there wasn't birth control. Now, people get married later and there is birth control. The pill (and all the fancy appliances for domestic chores) changed everything. Women can choose when and if they want to have babies, or want to work, or want to get married. So can men.

As a result of technological advances, people get married later. It's one thing to tell a 14-year-old kid to wait. It's absolutely another thing to tell an 18-year-old kid to wait. Abstinence reminds me of nothing so much as leftist economic policy: keep trying to enforce policy that doesn't work and is contrary to human nature.

We want two things out of sex education: (1) to produce babies only in long-term relationships; (2) to avoid AIDS and STDs. Abstinence would accomplish this BUT PEOPLE WON'T DO ABSTINENCE. Rather than abstinence, policies that should be promoted include serial monogamy, frequently consummated by marriage. Also: frequent STD testing, condom usage in random hook-ups and early in relationships, and constant warning that anal sex frequently leads to serious disease and death.

Amen to The Wife.

I was amused when my daughter stopped believing the DARE scare stories. I had expected it, of course. And, in fact, I wanted her to become a skeptic.

With my older kids, I worked hard to make them skeptical. With the youngest, government did the job for me.

Arnold, your tactic will not work, because it is not unusual for young mothers to turn the babies over to their parents to raise (sometimes involuntarily).

There is a 100% chance abstinence will prevent pregnancies and STDs. What's so wrong with teaching that? It is the truth.

Vince,

There's nothing wrong with teaching that, but relying on it as the only answer is a fool's errand.

While we're talking about the way things ought to be, this business of expecting substantially all the young 'uns of the middle and upper classes to remain in a state of irresponsible adolescence until their mid-20s or later (college, plus graduate or professional school) is loopy. Expecting them to remain celibate for 15 years after puberty (calculating that from age 13 to the average age of first marriages, 28) is expecting an awful lot. (The loss of a fertile decade probably also contributes to lower birth rates, but that's another topic.)

I don't know that encouraging folks to marry at 18 is a solution, but I do know that the more normal of my law school classmates were the married ones. (The ones who didn't get divorced in the first two years of law school, that is.) That group was almost exclusively (1) folks over 30 who had spent a couple of years as adults, (2) Mormons, (3) conservative Catholics, and (4) Southern Baptists, in roughly that order.

Jeff:

("Why would you teach them to engage in high risk behavior?"

"Because the results are better than engaging in delusional expectations.")

What chapter of the secular catechism is that from. I do so admire a man of faith.

Peter:

Seven Machos explains it perfectly.

Don't let perfect be the enemy of better than nothing.

I suspect the correct answer for many parents is that they want their girls terrified.

Mr. Machos is not completely correct. IIRC, age of marriage was higher in many pre-industrial societies than it was in industrial societies. Post idustrial socities seem to be returning to a more ancient form. See:
The world we have lost, by Peter Laslett

OTOH, children in pre-industrial societies were raised around domestic animals and grew up with a fair knowledge of reproductive biology. It was only Industrial socities that could support prudery.

My son is 17. I don't think you are going to get very far by feeding him BS. His BS detector is very sensitive and he is knowledge of basic science is very strong. By the time he graduates from high school next year he will have taken AP Chemistry and AP Biology. How much misinformation do you expect him to be able to absorb?

Agreed that it is a mistake to try to inculcate traditional morality soley on the basis of exaggerated science or scare stories. Abstinence is about a lot more than avoiding disease. But the problem I have with the Wife's comment is that it doesn't take into account the unique and complex parent/child relationship and how different that is from a third party adviser like a doctor or teacher. There are lots of things I don't discuss with my kids and lots of fears and cautions I try to inculcate that may not be statistically worrisome. And, although I expect and am resigned to the fact they may make choices I wouldn't approve of, I'm sure as heck not going to tell them that in advance.

But moving to the general, I really doubt that conveying precise and accurate information about sex (which, as we all know, is ever-changing and "self-correcting")protects them in any way. We've had almost three generations of sex education and public health information now. If there had been any wisdom in the original promise, STD's wouldn't exist and we'd all be happy and fulfilled sexually and in great emotional health. So why is counselling one of our biggest growth industries?

Peter:

STDs and lousy emotional health have been around since long before "the orginal promise."

Counselling is one of our biggest growth industries because we have more money than we know what to do with.

I think some of the self-correction that Peter mentioned is happening among girls of my daughter's generation. Unfortunately, it takes the form of developing an attitude that most boys/men are creeps and pigs, and a sexual relationship just isn't worth the pain and bother. Hopefully this will lead to a situation where young men will be forced by women to provide something of value to women to get what they want, namely by becoming stable, responsible partners and providers.

That's called marriage.

Of course, there's always the Northampton solution.

Robert: Let's assume you are correct. Did those older brides and grooms in pre-industrial societies maintain abstinence until they were, say, 25? Until probably half their life was over?

I highly, highly, spectactularly doubt it.

I would argue you, and I rather think the author you cite would agree, that abstinence has always been something that the old try to get the young to do, but that they don't do.

Steve:

Perhaps, at least to a point, but they should never stop trying. It's when the older folk throw up their hands and say "whatever" that the trouble starts.