LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY nebris)

From The NY Times

June 18, 2007
By ANDREW ADAM NEWMAN

IN a commercial for Trojan condoms that has its premiere tonight, women in a bar are surrounded by anthropomorphized, cellphone-toting pigs. One shuffles to the men’s room, where, after procuring a condom from a vending machine, he is transformed into a head-turner in his 20s. When he returns to the bar, a fetching blond who had been indifferent now smiles at him invitingly.

Directed by Phil Joanou (“State of Grace”), with special effects by the Stan Winston Studio (“Jurassic Park”), the commercial is entertaining. But it also has a message, spelled out at the end: “Evolve. Use a condom every time.”

“We have to change the perception that carrying a condom for women or men is a sign they’re on the prowl and just want to have sex,” said Linda Kaplan Thaler, chief executive of the Kaplan Thaler Group, the New York advertising agency that created the “Evolve” campaign. “It’s a sign of somebody being prepared — if the opportunity arises — to think about their own health and the health and safety of their partner.”

( But the pigs did not fly at two of the four networks where Trojan tried to place the ad. )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY redtheda)

Bush Administration Very, Very Quietly Releases Abstinence-Only Study which shows that the abstinence-only programs had absolutely no effect, despite the $87 million spent on them.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY vanar_en_daeor)

Interesting.

===============
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16287113/?GT1=8816

Even grandma had premarital sex, survey finds
Americans weren't any more chaste in the past, researchers report

Associated Press
Updated: 7:57 p.m. ET Dec 19, 2006

NEW YORK - 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.
( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY wyldraven)

An "Institute" of Ideology

In April, the so-called Medical Institute for Sexual Health (MISH) made headlines after the federal government announced that the group would receive a $200,000 grant to establish a sexual health curriculum for medical students. Sexual health experts affiliated with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were taken aback.

Why the outrage? Despite what its legitimate-sounding name might suggest, MISH is really nothing more than a thinly veiled ideological interest group that manipulates science to advance its mission.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY jehovahsfitness)

The other night I watched the movie Kinsey about Dr. Alfred Kinsey whose ground-breaking studies on human sexuality rubbed many of his era the wrong way. Qucikly, I found it easy to relate to.

( spoilers )
We have a challange that did not face Kinsey in his time. Just as with the "intelligent" design issue, certain individuals are trying to use pseudo-science to promote a religious agenda. Repeated experiments have shown time and again that homosexuality, masturbation and other sex-related phenomena considered immoral by some occur in nature. Kinsey notes how homosexuality is anything but unnatural, as many believed and continue to believe.

Rather than own up to the fact that they have been fallen prey to a bigoted mindset, many continue to assert that homosexuality is, dispite the consensus of maintream scientists, unnatural and unhealthy. The likes of Dr. James Dobson ignore scientific evidence that would refute their claims, essentiallty rejecting science. As with "intelligent desgin" we have another religious philosophy which has put on the disguise of science. The challenge these days is that those on the religious right have realized that blatant religion cannot win out against science in our modern society, so they have taken to underhanded tactics.

We cannot allow our society to revert to the days when natural sexuality was denigrated to the point that it has caused psychological harm. My question for you, is how can we do it? By what means will love really win out?

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY seshen)

The federal government agreed to stop funding a nationwide program that promotes teen abstinence to settle a lawsuit alleging the money was used for Christian proselytizing.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Yeah, and that chunk funds the religious right's 'abstenence only' nonsense, and actually spreads the disease.

More here.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY britzkrieg)

From MedPage:

Abstinence-only education programs are not turning out to be a panacea for the problems inherent in adolescent and premarital sex. Indeed, they may deprive adolescents and young adults of critical sexual health information that could protect them from potentially life-threatening sexually transmitted diseases, researchers here reported in a literature review in the January issue of Journal of Adolescent Health...

Abstinence-only sex education programs have been increasing in popularity, and federal funding for these programs has jumped significantly over the past decade, from $60 million in 1998 to $168 in 2005...

While parents appear supportive of teaching their children both abstinence and ways to protect against STDs and pregnancy, current government policies appear to suggest that there is no room for sexual health information in abstinence-only education. They also noted that many faith-based organizations are receiving increased funding to promote an abstinence-only message.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY nebris)

This is where the argument is spun on Dominionst bullshit. The best way to prevent abortions is proper sex education and the ready availability of safe birth control. And they have done their best to block that at every turn. They've twisted the law so that anyone who gets Fed money can't even talk about contraception.

They don't want anyone to take pleasure in sex except in the way they dictate. Period. Abortion is ultimately a smoke screen in that it gets folks blood running hot.

~M~

~Posted the above comment to a pair of D_K members who were snarling at each other in this post. This IS how they run the whole fucking show. We, their enemies, are still letting them frame the debate. Stop It! Cool off...and then remember what the goal is: the prevention of these people from quite literally talking over The Republic.

~Now go back and read the above, rephrase it in your own words, and then get back into the fight. Nuf Said!

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY britzkrieg)

CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- A leading group of pediatricians says teenagers need access to birth control and emergency contraception, not the abstinence-only approach to sex education favored by religious groups and President Bush.

The recommendations are part of the American Academy of Pediatrics' updated teen pregnancy policy.

"Even though there is great enthusiasm in some circles for abstinence-only interventions, the evidence does not support abstinence-only interventions as the best way to keep young people from unintended pregnancy," said Dr. Jonathan Klein, chairman of the academy committee that wrote the new recommendations...

Wade Horn, assistant secretary for children and families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said counseling only abstinence, preferably until marriage, is the best approach because it sends a clear, consistent message...

The Medical Institute for Sexual Health, a nonprofit group that has worked on pro-abstinence programs with the Bush administration and faith-based groups, opposes the academy's policy shift.

"I don't think it's a smart move at all," said group founder Dr. Joe McIlhaney Jr., an obstetrician-gynecologist.

However, Karen Pearl, interim president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said the academy "is to be applauded ... for having medicine trump ideology."

HHS' Horn also said advising pediatricians to ensure that teens have access to emergency contraception is problematic for doctors and parents who morally object to the pills. He faulted the report for lacking guidance on what to do when pediatricians' moral views differ from their patients' parents.

Full Story

x-posted

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

A fantastic Jeff Sharlet article about the Christian abstinance movement.

What if the true face of the Christian right in America is not that of Dr. James Dobson or Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson; not that of an aging, comb-over preacher orange with pancake makeup, smiling orca rows of ungodly white teeth on The O'Reilly Factor or Hardball? Nor that of spittle-flecked Fred Phelps of Topeka, Kansas, roaring that God hates fags? What if the true face of the Christian right is, instead, that of a twenty-four-year-old religious-studies graduate student at New York University?( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

This AlterNet article is quite interesting. It 'depicts the transformation of a Texas teenager -- from conservative Christian to champion of sex education.'

Comprehensive sex education is at the heart of what divides America today. One side thinks it's a direct affront to the Christian value of abstinence until marriage; the other thinks it helps prevent the 60% of teens who already having sex from getting pregnant, or contracting a disease and dying.

Tonight's documentary on PBS, "The Education of Shelby Knox," traverses the bridge between both sides. Shelby Knox is a 15-year-old Christian girl who takes a church pledge to not have sex until marriage. She lives in Lubbock, Texas, a Republican Christian stronghold where local government meetings begin with a prayer, and where students learn that abstinence is the only way to prevent pregnancy and disease.( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

The Silver Ring Thing is a blatantly religious abstinance program that is federally funded.

(WOMENSENEWS)--The Silver Ring Thing is a live three-hour, high-tech sound, light and video show complete with actors and comedy sketches with a stated mission to impress teens to promote teen chastity and so-called Christian values.

The mobile shows--set up in churches, conference centers and other venues around the country--culminate with teens pledging abstinence until they present a silver ring that symbolizes their celibacy to their spouse on their wedding day. They also sign a covenant agreeing to follow "biblical standards." Teens who don't want to participate in the religious testimonials that are part of the ceremony are allowed to leave the room.

The $15 silver rings that teens are encouraged to buy for the ceremony are inscribed with a biblical reference of 1 Thessalonians 4:3-4, which reads "God wants you to be holy, so you should keep clear of all sexual sin. Then each of you will control your body and live in holiness and honor."

Photographs of Silver Ring Thing events in newsletters and on its Web site depict a majority of female teens in the audiences.( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY ellid)

http://bozemandailychronicle.com/articles/2005/05/11/news/abstinenceflap.txt


The speaker in question, Tina Marie Holewinski, works for www.truelies.org, a ministry that seems to have ties to the American Family Institute. Ms. Holewinski's web site, http://tinaholewinski.tripod.com/Index.htm, is not overtly Christian (at least the parts I checked out), but there's a salacious undertone that doesn't quite square with the wholesome image she seems bent on projecting.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY britzkrieg)

GREENBELT, Maryland (AP) -- Two groups filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday to block a health curriculum that would allow discussions of homosexuality with eighth graders, and a video to be shown to sophomores demonstrating how to use a condom.

Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum and the Virginia-based Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays want to prevent Montgomery County from starting the program in six schools later this week. A hearing has been set for Thursday.

Full Story

The plaintiffs here are among those who believe that homosexuality is a disease that can be cured -- or at least treated by religion.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY anarchys_savior)

There was a recent post in gsa_lj about abstinence education, and how it's not working. Why are fundamentalists pushing for this so hard? They're just shooting themselves in the foot. If more people practiced safe-sex, there would be less unwanted pregnancies, thus less abortions. It's so obviously not working; why are they still pushing this and pretending like it is or ever will?