Americans are not waiting until marriage to have sex:
More than nine out of 10 Americans, men and women alike, have had premarital sex, according to a new study. The high rates extend even to women born in the 1940s, challenging perceptions that people were more chaste in the past.
"This is reality-check research," said the study's author, Lawrence Finer. "Premarital sex is normal behavior for the vast majority of Americans, and has been for decades."
Finer is a research director at the Guttmacher Institute, a private New York-based think tank that studies sexual and reproductive issues and which disagrees with government-funded programs that rely primarily on abstinence-only teachings. The study, released Tuesday, appears in the new issue of Public Health Reports.
The study, examining how sexual behavior before marriage has changed over time, was based on interviews conducted with more than 38,000 people -- about 33,000 of them women -- in 1982, 1988, 1995 and 2002 for the federal National Survey of Family Growth. According to Finer's analysis, 99 percent of the respondents had had sex by age 44, and 95 percent had done so before marriage.Even among a subgroup of those who abstained from sex until at least age 20, four-fifths had had premarital sex by age 44, the study found.
Finer said the likelihood of Americans having sex before marriage has remained stable since the 1950s, though people now wait longer to get married and thus are sexually active as singles for extensive periods.
The study found women virtually as likely as men to engage in premarital sex, even those born decades ago. Among women born between 1950 and 1978, at least 91 percent had had premarital sex by age 30, he said, while among those born in the 1940s, 88 percent had done so by age 44.
"The data clearly show that the majority of older teens and adults have already had sex before marriage, which calls into question the federal government's funding of abstinence-only-until-marriage programs for 12- to 29-year-olds," Finer said.
First comment: Hot. (I knew I liked Americans for one reason or another.)
Second comment: Hmmm, tell me again why we are giving huge quantities of money (hundreds of millions) to subsidize a policy that is a catastrophic failure?
I recognize a point of view that would argue that even if abstinence education fails utterly for most people, it works for some and we should aspire to perfection even if we are unlikely to achieve it. But I have a problem with that as well because abstinence equals perfection only for the minority. A minority of people are abstinent; a minority of people think that is a good idea. Fair enough, and far be it from me to tell them how to have sex lives. Why is their choice the majority's policy?
As physicians, we aren't in the business of judging people; we are in the business of saving lives and improving health. Thus, if you told me that boysenberry juice was the most effective way to prevent STIs, I would recommend it to my patients just the same. Abstinence education is not effective, so it is time to abandon it as a policy.
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Sorry, but your argument at the end is just another version of the "argument from popularity". Look at it this way: let's take your argument and wherever "abstinence" appears, insert the word "eat(ing ) a nutritious diet". For the most part, it would seem sensible to argue that even though most people fail to eat an entirely nutritious diet, it still makes sense to try to convince them they should.
The only place where my comparison fails is in the part where you claim "a majority of people think that it is a good idea". I'm not sure that th reported study provides those data, and unless you have some data to back up that claim directly, you can't make that inference based on what people do. IOW, just b/c most have premarital sex, one cannot infer that most think its a good idea, b/c one must assume that people only behave consistently with their beliefs. This is definitely a shaky assumption, as the recent case of Ted Haggard would suggest.
I would argue that even though most people engage in premarital sex, many of those (maybe even most) do NOT "think that it is a good idea".
disclaimer: like you, I think abstinence education is pretty much a waste of money, maybe even counterproductive (by encouraging kids to engage in non-vaginal intercourse instead), but your rationale at the end is weak. Abstinence education should be abandoned due its lack of utility, not because people do or do not agree with its ethical basis.
That's ridiculous. There is no ethical basis for abstinence unless you believe there's an omnipotent diety who cares (stop and think about that for a moment) where you stick your genitals. Sex is incredibly fun, healthy, and fundamentally human, and furthermore, is safe mentally and physically if the right attitudes and protections are taught. There's no comparison between "abstinence" and a "nutritious diet" - there's probably a closer comparison between "abstinence" and "not eating". I do other things that arn't as fun and are much more risky than sex (specifically, I have a penchant for rock climbing and motorcycles). Sex should be taught and celebrated as the intrinsic aspect of living that it is.
alas, 'tis an age sadly lacking in the virtue of chastity....
shit n mlagkit