Since you all whomped that last poll with a ruthless savagery that does a godless brute proud, how about a new one? Should abstinence-only sex ed continue?. So far, “Yes” is winning 53% to 47%, despite the fact that abstinence-only sex ed does not work, and has been demonstrated to be an abject failure time and time again.
It’s sad to see such a close vote in a poll that really should be a slam dunk. How about making one of those bars swell like Bristol Palin’s fecund little belly?
So far 52% yes 48% no
What bothers me most about this issue is that its a false dichotomy. It’s not abstience-only education vs. go-out-and-have-sex-kids-but-do-it-safely education. The alternative to abstience-only education is a comprehehsive sex education program that includes abstinence as a component. That’s what actually works.
And PZ’s hoards of flying monkeys set off yet again to try and skew stupidity in the direction of reason.
Flying squid. Come on, get the phylum right, at least.
51%/49%, truth still losing.
@ 2
It’s what the religious morons do best – dishonest framing, mysterious language, and verbal slight-of-hand.
50/50.
To hear is to obey, master. Score 50-50 now.
And this is the closest I think I’ve ever been to “first” although I know that’s absolutely nothing to shout about…
50 – 50.
But it’s only been eleven minutes.
50%/50% after my vote. May the truth win out.
Hm, wouldn’t the creos be for “teaching both sides”?
Then too, they specifically exempted sex ed from “teach both sides” in Louisiana, IIRC. As the DI would put it, they’re censoring a viewpoint.
So much for the principle. Here’s thought…teach what actually works.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
But of course abstinence-only sex ed should continue… no one wants those so-called “health experts” telling them how to raise their kids…
I cannot believe that is an actual paraphrasing of a quotation I read a while back, and not a caricature suffering from excess hyperbole.
The tide has turned: 48% Yes to 52% No.
Also, to update, it is now Yes – 48%, No – 52%. Yay, voting!
Sorry PZ, I understand your affection, but after being brutalized as a youngster watching Wizard of Oz, nothing will ever be more frightening than those damn flying monkeys. Just MHO.
As an aside, I watched a neat documentary on Discovery about the Humboldts in the Gulf of California. They seem to be, shall we say, quite assertive. Scary.
Yayah! 54% and rising.
How odd. The votes were yes 47% and no 53%, when the page came up, I voted (no) and submitted, and in that timeframe, like one second, yes suddenly jumped back up to 51%.
WTF?
Heh. I went over and was surprised that it’s only at 52%, and wondered what went wrong and who else was skewing the poll, then came back and realized the post has only been up for 20 minutes. Well, then. :)
My local district was considering teaching abstinence only. Thankfully they decided not to do so. One woman at the Council meeting put forth an interesting argument:
We teach abstinence only education regarding drugs because we do not want our children to ever use drugs. We do eventually expect our children to have sex and even want them to. Teaching abstinence only regarding sex is sending the wrong message to our children. It is telling them there is something wrong with sex.
Of course the best way to make sure a teen does something is to tell them it is wrong.
Latest Palin sex-ed initiative
Musta been a glitch or something; no is taking the lead again.
We have done your bidding master. Another poll bites the dust.
Let’s hope that all this power doesn’t go to PZ’s Head.
You know what they say, power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.
From the comments there:
“Abstinence is the only method of protecting the whole person including body, self-respect, and future ralationships.”
And a spacesuit is the only way of protecting the whole person from rain.
I am still amazed that people can call purposely withholding information “education”.
I think this poll would benefit greatly from qualified responses. For instance, “Yes. How else are we going to keep up with Asian advances in population density?”
There may be some groups monitoring this site to see which poll we are trying to push the results on. If they have a strong opinion on the other side, they may try to get their members to push the poll the other way.
Of course all this makes the results even more meaningless.
Again, it all depends on what the goal is. As a way to prevent teen pregnancy, abstinence-only clearly doesn’t work; no argument there. But as a way to identify and stigmatize girls who go ahead and have sex anyway, it works pretty darned well, and I think that’s the real point.
58% No
By the way, I read this encouraging news over the summer:
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1817663,00.html
%58 No.
Alex, I too was scared half to death by those damned horrid flying moneys. Everytime PZ sends out the horde, I hear the music from that scene in the back of my mind. *shiver*
Hihi
Just voted.
Results at a not quite as convincing as I’d like 60% no, 40% yes.
I’ve never understood how anyone can think that telling teenagers not to do something is going to be effective…
I feel you Patricia. I don’t know if I’ll ever shake off the trauma of those winged beasties.
Come on, churchies… it’s not that hard.
“Kids, you shouldn’t have sex so young. But if you do it, here is what you should do to protect yourselves. But remember, the best protection is no sex at all.” (Or masturbation.)
THERE. It wasn’t that hard now was it? You shouldn’t close your ears and ignore that kids are doing it anyway, and they’re doing it with lacking info.
What really gets me mad is the “Before you’re married” stuff. HEY! What if I don’t want to get married? I should never fiddle? Sounds boring to me. Sounds… RELIGIOUS to me.
fighting Teh Good Fight With Pee-Zed™ daily!
“It’s sad to see such a close vote in a poll that really should be a slam dunk. How about making one of those bars swell like Bristol Palin’s fecund little belly?”
Why don’t you cut the crap with trashing these polls?
It’s really a little juvenile and quite tiresome.
I wonder how you’d feel if someone crashed this website.
It’s really quite easy, you know.
Your concern is noted.
As for the threat….
Glen Davidson wrote @11:
Some Florida senators proposed to attach a “healthy teens act” to the “academic freedom” legislation to teach more than abstinence-only sex education. It didn’t pass, but the point was made brilliantly (the bill thankfully died in legislature).
As an aside:
How about making one of those bars swell like Bristol Palin’s fecund little belly?
This didn’t sit well with me. Too close to mocking the kid for the parent’s positions.
PZ really should stop making claims about social science. I mean, I don’t blather on about biology.
Abstinence education programs do work. They reduce teen pregnancy rates & STD infection rates. The studies which claim to show the contrary make elementary methodological errors that would embarass an undergraduate in economics (which is really the only social science). Control for race, ethnicity, income, parental education, family background (parents married, divorced, never married) and the true picture begins to emerge.
Such an insular little world you folks live in.
Crashing BS polls is important to spread common sense. Don’t like it, don’t do it you know?
Such pessimists. Rather than lament the human effect of abstinence-only sex ed, why not consider that it helps increase biodiversity by ensuring that STIs have fertile ground in which to flourish? In fact, I’m surprised the abstinence-only people haven’t taken a page from the pro-lifers and got rid of their negative sounding name, instead opting for a more positive term, like ‘pro-HPV’ and ‘pro-teen pregnancy.’
I can see the campaign already: bumper stickers proclaiming “God Loves You, But He Loves Gonorrhea More,” billboards with graphic pictures of syphilis spirochetes cruelly dying on the surface of a condom, and teary-eyed ministers wailing on talk shows about the ‘holocaust’ being waged by godless liberals against billions of innocent virii and bacteria.
Oof, I am overcome. When will the killing stop?
PZ really should stop making claims about social science. I mean, I don’t blather on about biology.
from what I’ve seen of you, John. using your own logic, you should just sew your mouth shut.
“Why don’t you cut the crap with trashing these polls?”
Ummmmm…no.
“It’s really a little juvenile and quite tiresome.”
That’s your opinion. It’s more about making a statement that these kinds of polls are pointless, and anyone using them to attribute some kind of significance of opinion to such important issues are morons.
“I wonder how you’d feel if someone crashed this website.”
I think ScienceBlogs, and P,Z would luv the excess traffic.
“It’s really quite easy, you know.”
Not Quite. You need to restate this as “It can be really quite easy, you know.” Of course you have to have an audience that will participate with your website-crashing objective.
You’re really not qualified to judge me, Icky.
We are against teen pregnancies (too young mothers), againts forty-some pregnancies (too old mothers), against 20-30 mothers (not so young but not so old mothers) against out-of-wedlock pregnancies (too single mothers), against in-of-wedlock pregnancies (too married mothers) etc. Mmm. Perhaps, we should apply to the VHEMT.
@37:
Ok, we’re listening. Do you have data to back up the claim that abstinence-only education is working?
By what measure are they “working”?
Haven’t done my own formal study, but I’m on the side of the guys who say abstinence-only basically increases the stigma of the girls who do go ahead & have sex, which is not a good outcome.
Patricia (#29): if any “damned horrid flying moneys” come your way, just forward them on to me – or, of course, if there’s billions and billions of them, start bailing out banks.
John Knight
Control for race, ethnicity, income, parental education, family background (parents married, divorced, never married) and the true picture begins to emerge.
Source?
Until I see data that suggests abstinence-only sex education not only works, but works BETTER than comprehensive sex education including contraception, in reducing transmission of STDs and teen pregnancy, I remain unconvinced.
Oh wow, you made an absolutely horrible attack-on-name “joke” (for lack of a better word) despite his name only starting with a whopping two letters.
Man, I better watch out before he starts starts moving up to third grade attacks.
If you block cookies from the following domains to vote early and often:
doubleclick.net
.parade.122.1o7.net
polls.polldaddy.com
quantserve.com
http://www.parade.com
You’re really not qualified to judge me, Icky.
well, apparently nobody here IS, Mr. Black Knight, so one wonders why you spend time here threatening to bite our legs off.
Abstinence education programs do work.
Seriously, John, can you show us something that will back that up? My opinion on this matter isn’t so set in stone that I couldn’t change it if the evidence is really there. I’ll bet I speak for others here, too. But your evidence had better be good, and you can expect us to pick it to pieces before we buy into it.
Evidence please, Mr. True Picture? Otherwise, I fail to see how you’re any more qualified to blather on about either social science or biology.
1. To reiterate Boomer: show the data. And numbers provided by The Heritage Foundation won’t count as they are a pro-Repugnant think tank.
2. Where are these program’s implemented? Is it even possible to make those controls?
3. Instituting these programs was, from the start, based upon bad biology. But there again the groups promoting at the local level abstinence ONLY programs have a religious agenda anyway and are indifferent to evidence. (No one is claiming that abstinence should not be taught.) Do you really expect teens whose bodies are being flooded with hormones and whose neocortex has only begun to develop and make neural connections to other parts of the brain to have a strong cognitive capacity to not engage in sexual activity of some kind? So should we be teaching masturbation and abstinence only? Here is a catch phrase, “Let your first girlfriend be Manuela.”
People’s teenage daughters really ought to be left out of things, don’t you think?
John Knight is just a polically conservative godbot. He has been pretending to talk philosophy and showing an “I am superior” on another thread that should have been closed weeks ago. He deserves to be treated in kind.
Voted. I would have voted more than once, but my javascript:void(document.cookie=”PD_poll_968945=;path=”); trick didn’t work. :(
Still waiting for some data… any data that backs up this ignorant claim… any time now, John… waiting… waiting…
Wrong. The evidence is in, as anyone who cares to look into the matter will find.
Ha! With few exceptions (Stiglitz, EPI,…), economics is pure ideology, even more divorced from social reality than it was a century ago. Actual empirical research on pressing issues is largely foreign to the field, as was lamented by economists in the Chronicle several years ago. The only ones who take your type seriously are the elites you serve. Unfortunately they have a lot of clout and funds to throw your way.
Without a hint of irony. Amazing.
(You may be interested in the interview with Peter Agre from which I just quoted on the Nobel thread.)
“You’re really not qualified to judge me, Icky.”
Since you know nothing about the qualifications or experience of anyone here, that’s a statement of ludicrous arrogance.
I, for one, can judge you. I judge you either a poor thinker or a great comedian (economics is the only social science- man, keep those zingers coming, I nearly laughed out loud) and a mediocre troll.
No is now 69%
What’s with all this “Leave Bristol alone!!!” crap? Is she or isn’t she the one who parted her legs like the Red Sea and got up the duff in the first place?
http://www.slate.com/id/2164742/
Wow, this poll’s been killed. 20 minutes after posting, it’s not up to Yes 30%, No 70%!
I noticed. It seems just about any crackpot can post here, can’t you they?
Here’s a suggestion for for frequent voters. Instead of just clicking on the link and voting, copy the link location into a blank browser or tab and voting from there. This should make it less obvious to the admins on the site that they’ve been Pharyngulized. When these sites see a bunch of votes coming from one site, especially one like ours, they tend to discount our opinions.
My browsers added 5 to the ‘No’.
“Why don’t you cut the crap with trashing these polls?”
Who’s trashing? Why do we have less of a right to vote in polls than anyone else?
Fighting the good fight, but I’m a little torn.
Turns out abstinence only sex ed makes kids 4 times as likely to have oral or anal sex. That way they can keep their babyshutes pure for marriage.
I can get (ahem) behind that.
Where can I get me some of that abstinence only sex ed for my wife?
Yes 28% No 72%
bwwwwhahhahaahahahah
John Knight is cleverer than we think.
Very tricksy, Mr. Knight. Very tricksy.
You may actually be correct, that they reduce teen pregnancy and STD rates, but relative to what? Relative to no education at all? That’s not too hard to believe. How about relative to comprehensive sex ed programs? Cause that’s the alternative the reality-based segment of society is promoting.
Note: To be the better choice, comprehensive programs only have to be no worse than abstinence-only in reducing teen pregnancy and STD rates. If they come in equal by those measures, then the one which does not include lying to children is the better program. Wouldn’t you agree?
That’s actually one of the goals of these little exercises, SASnSA. The whole point is that these polls are completely useless on their face because they are so easily manipulated. The primary point of poll crashing is to make this statement, with a secondary goal of letting our viewpoints be known in the process. At least that’s my take on these little poll-crashing exercises.
Checked no at 71%
No kings,
Robert
@68
Even THAT is hard to believe…
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080916143912.htm
@ggap: 4 time more likely to have oral and anal? Where does that leave John Knight and his reduction of STDs? Seems as though that’s at least as risky behavior as vaginal sex to me, and you know just know they’re not using condoms for their fudge-tunnel furloughs.
Threatening to crash the site, what are you going to do eric? Go tell Big Bad Bill, been tried. Tattle to gawd. That I want to see.
Thank You for the gracious remark ffrancis!
# 72 – “fudge-tunnel furloughs”.
And I thought I had already heard every possible euphemism for anal sex…
“Fudge-tunnel-furloughs”=(coffee spew). Hah! I’ve heard of “up the ol’ dirt road”, and, “crusin’ the Hersey Highway”, but that’s a new one on me!
Here’s the report from the Mathematica study. Note (page xvi) that the teens were randomly assigned to the program and control groups:
http://www.mathematica-mpr.com/publications/PDFs/impactabstinence.pdf
Nephmon
I was worried my joke would be a little crude for some on here but…
“fudge-tunnel furloughs”???
I LOVE IT!
Vote, Pharyngulaniaks, vote!
Bill Maher on the abstinence pledge:
A vote for McCain/Palin is a vote for this kind of stupid policy; check out the Daily Show clip of RNC Republicans squirming when asked about choice: http://brainrageblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/voting-with-little-hood.html
Can we get some links from the majority here? Obviously sources we trust say “abstinence only sex-ed doesn’t work,” and “comprehensive sex ed is the best way to reduce teen pregnancies and STDs,” and I believe them. But demanding that dissenters provide evidence for their position isn’t quite like saying “You’re the one who believes in God, you have to prove he exists.” Both sides are making claims.
Instead of just saying “go away until you show evidence supporting your position,” why not say “here’s the evidence we’re basing our position on, show me something contrary.” If I had such links, I would provide them, and I admit I’m interested in what you guys can produce.
Somebody is proposing sending hordes of commenting godbots to crash this site? Please do. I get paid by the page view.
The great cracker incident paid for a 42″ flat-screen TV, for instance. Send me enough viewers, maybe I’ll even be able to pay my daughter’s tuition. Woo hoo!
Thanks Jared. So, looks like Mr. Knight is reaching even just to get numbers that show his preferred plan working better than nothing at all.
Hang on, let me roll for surprise.
*clatter-clatter*… Six.
Erdrick,
See, e.g., the link in my comment @ #76. This was the study done for the government.
Where the hell did I leave my ?’s. That’s what I get for flinging pooh all morning at Rev. BigDumbChimp.
Done and done, Bwanna
Where was it that I heard the wonderful line: “Abstinance only education has failed, The war on drugs has failed, we should get them right to work on something like how to kill endangered animals….”
Something like that anyway.
JC
Sarah Palin is an imbecile and a liar, but I don’t see the need to bring the kid into it. Yeah, I know that she, and her pregnancy, have been used as political pawns, and in some sense that might open the door, but shouldn’t we attack Sarah Palin for using her pregnant teenage daughter as a political pawn, rather than the teenager herself?
The comparison to Crocker/Spears is inept. Spears voluntarily made herself a target of public interest for personal gain, and nobody’s having a tearful hissy-fit, merely suggesting that attacking a teenager as a proxy for her parent is highly questionable.
Classy. Very classy. And without a hint of sexism or misogyny.
@ggab et al. Just made it up for that post. Amazing what a little alliteration can accomplish :D
PS ggab, get some of that lube that’s infused with novocain. She’ll never know what hit her, so to speak.
I was just reading an article yesterday that said that although American and European teenagers are having sex at the same rate, American girls are 2-4 times higher to get pregnant. What’s the only difference between us and them? Sex education that focuses on delivering REAL information and a focus on the use of contraceptives.
Wake UP, America!!!
Oh…. maybe I should have clicked the link before commenting… it’s the same article. D’oh!
Erdrick,
See also Jared’s link @ #71.
ummm… Shannon @ #89… do you mean the article that this post links to? Because it pretty much states exactly that…
From the linked article:
“American girls are far more likely to get pregnant than teens in other developed nations. The U.S. teen-pregnancy rate is about 7.5%. According to figures from the Alan Guttmacher Institute, that’s almost twice as high as Britain and four times higher than Sweden or France. Why? “American adolescents are as likely to have sex as European teenagers but less likely to use contraception,”
That is a flat out lie. The US CDC has studied this all along and rates of teen age pregnancies and STDs, which were going down, have started back up again. The lowest rates of teen age pregnancy by a lot are in normal education states and the highest are, like most social problems, in fundie states of the DFN.
You live in a thought free fantasy world like all fundies. No big deal but trying to force the rest of the world into the same nightmare isn’t going to work.
And BTW, anyone can form an opinion of someone else. You are clearly a mentally ill, stupid, christofascist troll.
#82: Should I fire up the auto-refresher then?
Here is a list of secondary/tertiary sources to compliment those already provided (prior to you even asking).
Just cast my vote. “YES” 27% “NO” 73% Pharyngula Potentates do it again.
What’s with all this “Leave Bristol alone!!!” crap? Is she or isn’t she the one who parted her legs like the Red Sea and got up the duff in the first place?
Yep, nice dose of slut-shaming you’ve got going on there. Go right ahead and pick on a 17 year-old. That’ll show everyone just how smart you are.
Mmm. Cuttlefish nature videos in HD. Tentacular cephalopodian goodness….
That article has an important factual mistake. Yes, the federal gov’t spends $175 million/year on abstinence-only programs, but that’s not counting the vast amounts of additional money being pumped at abstinence-alternative via the “faith based and community programs” office. As much as $400 million per year in 2007, according to the FBCP program office’s own literature.
Even if it did work in the sense it reduced STD’s and unwanted pregnancies, abstinence before marriage is a really bad idea. You wouldn’t know if you’re sexually compatible before it was too late.
SC and ProfMTH,
Excellent, thanks.
@ Marcus Ranum # 99
Well, first of all, you’re confusing a “factual mistake” with an omission. Important distinction, and second, the point in pointing out that the fed. govt. spends $175 million per year in abstinence-only eduction is that it’s patently absurd to continue spending gobs of taxpayer money on programs that have been shown, again and again, to NOT WORK. There’s no reason to point out how much money is being spent on programs that DO work, in the context of this article…
So what’s your point, Marcus?
ggab – You’ll know what’s crude when Scooter and Quiet_Desperation show up. *sly wink*
If abstinence-only education is so effective, then how come they don’t bother teaching it to RC priests, evangelical ministers and republican politicians?
@#87: (a) I don’t see anyone attacking li’l (or not so li’l now) Bristol. Since when has acknowledging the fact that she made a huge freaking mistake, certainly the biggest of her young life, been the same as attacking her? Yes, she has dolts for parents, but please don’t try to tell me she didn’t know what happens when you let the long straight snake enter your garden of Eden and spit out its venom.
Maybe you can point out exactly how my description of how she got herself into her predicament is sexist and/or misogynistic. It’s a colorful description of what almost certainly took place (I don’t recall reading anything implying that Levi raped her). Is it sexist to describe what a women does during the sex act? Is it misogynistic to use a slang expression for “get pregnant”? Are you projecting?
I firmly believe the preggy daughter should be in play, but not as a personal attack.
Palin herself was pregnant when she married and now her daughter is following in her footsteps. Her abstinence only bullshit didn’t work for her own family.
This is a failed policy issue.
As far as the insulting comments aimed at a teenage girl…
well that depends on how funny they are.
This is what my family believes.
1. There is never a bad time for a bad joke.
2. You can’t beat a dead horse enough.
There are many studies detailing how abstinence only sex ed doesn’t work as well as normal education. One is below.
The studies focus on teen age pregnancy for a good reason. The highest correlation between any variable and poverty is….teen age pregnancy. Girls who get pregnant young start out in life way behind the pack and have real difficulty catching up.
Where is Mr. John Kanigit? It would seem he disappears when real research comes out…
Or, failing that, outercourse. “Think outside the box.” :P
You just need to put some sort of anti-Viagra in the school’s water supply and cafeteria food.
Yes, my mind is just an epic vista of pure evil at times, especially Mondays. :-)
This is such a perfect nugget of wrong I don’t know where to start. For instance…
1) and you figure she did that all by herself…how exactly? (Implicit in your phrasing the situation as if it’s her fault specifically).
or
1) and it’s her fault she was not educated about, and almost certainly lied to about, contraception why?
or
1) and what’s wrong with having sex?
or…
…idiot.
Perhaps Mr. Big Stuff Kanigget went off to sound the call to his vast slavering troll army. Idjit.
@Carlie. Ha! you realize your comment is pretty much aligned with abstinence-only promulgators, don’t you? Like you, they prefer to treat our little teen darlings as precious untouchables who shouldn’t be exposed to the realities of what happens when you have sex, and by extension, the predictable consequences of it. Well guess what? If Bristol is old enough to have unprotected intercourse (and at 16, she was plenty old enough), then she’s also old enough to be confronted with a little criticism of her thoughtless actions. (Criticism that, of course, she will never actually see.)
In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not “picking on” Bristol, because she’s not actually part of this discussion. I’m pointing out that she did something incredibly stupid and avoidable. What makes her immune from such criticism? When did our sexually-active little china dolls suddenly become so precious that they’re granted immunity from accepting even a hint of responsibility for said mistakes? As I’ve acknowledged before, Bristol didn’t choose her asinine god-bothering parents, but this weird taboo against saying anything critical of her is far more insulting to her than anything I could possibly come out with.
77% No.
Hardly anyone will change the direction now…
Now that point can’t be made often enough. I’m absolutely in favour of attacking Sarah Palin relentlessly for her hypocrisy, stupidity, double-standards, and failure to learn a simple lesson even from her own experience, and I’m totally in favour of using the example of her daughter as evidence against her in that regard. No problem there.
At least pregnancy isn’t an issue for them.
Whatevs, man. My friend Dave totally knows this guy who only has sex with his girlfriend in the bath or a swimming pool, since you totally can’t get pregnant that way. And if you’re worried about catching something, you can always rinse your dick or vajayjay with Coke (and it has to be Coke, since they put in a chemical that can dissolve nails, and Pepsi doesn’t have that, which is why they put the word ‘sex’ on their Cool Cans in 1990; everybody knew about the Coke-douche thing and Pepsi was losing all its business.) You’re also fine if you only do anal, because you can’t get AIDS that way since AIDS has to be transmitted through blood and there’s no blood in your ass (otherwise your blood would get all poopy just like if you got shot in the stomach or if your appendix explodes.)
Anyways, who cares if teachers teach abstinence or sex-ed? Kids totally know more about sex than adults give them credit for–who do you think I learned all of the above from?
Wasn’t it McCain that was harping on “accountability for one’s actions” or something like that. Perhaps we should teach THAT in sex ed classes… That might raise a few eyebrows. Sex is, by its very nature, an action which requires more than one person. If an individual does decide to partake in the fruits of love (or lust, as the case may be), we should, as a society, at least be allowed to be critical of their actions regardless of the individual’s age. If I were to knock up a consenting woman, do you think either of us are more at fault than the other? I think not. Both are at fault for engaging in an act which has certain consequences innately attached to it.
@Azkyroth: OK, this is my last response to cretins who don’t believe a sexually active teen deserves at least a smidgen of criticism for her actions.
(1) No, astonishingly I do know that it takes two to make a baby. But guess what? This thread was about PZ’s description of Bristol’s belly. But if it makes you happier: “Hey, Levi, you’re an irresponsible selfish punk who should have had more self control and a whole heap of more common sense. I hope your dick falls off.” Happy?
(1) Love the crazy numbering scheme. Yes, as I’ve cheerfully acknowledged, she had creotards for parents, and I feel deeply sorry for her because of that. I guess I just don’t accept that that absolves her of all responsibility for her actions. Can a 16-yo in 2008 America, even in a god-deluded household in Alaska, really not know that what she was doing just might have some serious consequences? Yes, she’s a poster-child for the failings of abstinence-only education, but she’s not 100% blameless.
(1) Nothing at all! I was doing it at 16 as well. Never got my gf pregnant though, in spite of having Irish Catholic parents whose views on sex education would make Bush/Palin’s look enlightened.
I used my firefox browser, and all I had to do was vote, clear cookies,refresh, vote, clear cookies, refresh, vote…
However, I was unable to get the NO vote above 75%.
Yes 23 %, no 77 %. Total number of votes not shown.
So Manuela is what you call your… er… is that a pun on “manual” or something…? ~:-S
LOL! Incredible. :-D The irony! The irony!
Carlie. Ha! you realize your comment is pretty much aligned with abstinence-only promulgators, don’t you?
You’re kidding, right? Slut-shaming is exactly what abstinence-only people DO, to keep them in line. The opposite of that is to say sex, so what, just use a damned condom. I was commenting on your use of shaming language, not Bristol’s actions.
With parents like these, it’s entirely possible she had no idea.
Phosphoric acid dissolving nails? (Or for that matter dead rats, to cite the European myth…) That I wanna see. It turns rust into “stable iron phosphates”, but it doesn’t dissolve iron.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder/
Abstinence makes the hard grow stronger.
@Carlie: I’m sorry if you interpreted my language as “shaming”. I have no problem with underage sex at all. I come from a society that has a way more relaxed attitude to teen sex than most of the US does, believe me. Nothing in my description involved a value judgment of what she did, cos guess what? She did have to open her legs, either literally or figuratively, in order to conceive. My point all along has been that she is not an entirely blameless party here, which is what some seem to be trying to make her out to be. Yes, there are a lot of people we can point fingers at: her parents, Levi, her school counselors/educators. But… trying to deflect all responsibility from the one person who’s truly at the center of this mess doesn’t seem very helpful to me.
PS So why do you think she’s a slut again? Maybe you’d like to tell us how you came up with that word…
But you were the Dave I was referring to! Whatever, it must have been somebody else who told me that.
And now I suppose you’re going to tell me that peeing into a cup full of Drano won’t tell you the sex of the baby.
@Brownian #116
“You’re also fine if you only do anal, because you can’t get AIDS that way since AIDS has to be transmitted through blood and there’s no blood in your ass (otherwise your blood would get all poopy just like if you got shot in the stomach or if your appendix explodes.)”
I do believe you can contract HIV through anal intercourse (hence the population of homosexual males with HIV) and I believe it’s oral that you can’t contract HIV, unless you have open sores in the mouth.
@jj: We seem to have an irony-challenged bunch here today. He was JOKING, jj. And don’t try to pretend you knew all along!
jj @#126:
Nuh-uh! My mom’s boyfriend’s brother told me that.
Uhhhmmmm. 6-Oct-2008, 1523 PST (+800).
The poll, as I saw it moments ago said:
yes: 22%
no: 78%
Nice work, folks.
Indeed, I am joking, although everything except the anal sex comment were culled from my own memory as a teenager of some of the more dopey rumours that were spread about sex.
I’d better check the latest thread to see whether or not my satirically racist comment caused similar undue distress.
Bristol Palin was sixteen or seventeen when she got pregnant. The age of consent in Alaska is sixteen, which means that the state of Alaska considers people to be mature enough at sixteen to make correct decisions about sex. Even if she did receive an abstinence-only sex education, she still knows what happens when a male and a female have sex. She and her shotgun-hubby-to-be are the ones responsible for this and I think they are fair game.
I’m running a little slow today – long weekend
I hoped as much, but ya’ know what they say about those who assume – and I think it’s you poop that gets bloody, not your blood that gets poopy – but I’ve never experienced myself so I wouldn’t know!
Bristol Palin was sixteen or seventeen when she got pregnant. The age of consent in Alaska is sixteen, which means that the state of Alaska considers people to be mature enough at sixteen to make correct decisions about sex. Even if she did receive an abstinence-only sex education, she still knows what happens when a male and a female have sex. She and her shotgun-hubby-to-be are the ones responsible for this and I think they are fair game.
Sorry for the double-post.
despite the fact that abstinence-only sex ed does not work, and has been demonstrated to be an abject failure time and time again.
works about as well as the president that pushed it on the american people.
Oh, no worries jj.
Incidentally, I developed hemorrhoids back in 1999 (when eating corn nuts in bulk, please remember to chew thoroughly, kids!) and it’s only been for the last few years that I’ve been relatively symptom free, but I remember being worrying about tainting my bloodstream whenever there was blood in the toilet bowl.
Hmm. Was that too graphic? Maybe. Sorry, all.
This poll has been PHARYNGULAED!
Pour it on.
No 80%
Yes 20%
Abstinence-only education is an abomination to civilized society. It’s primary purpose it to put a strangle hold on the sexuality of young people and to leave little kids to be afraid or embarrassed about their bodies. It’s also a lie by omission to tell kids, “All you have to do is say no.” Really, what you have to do, is say no every single time. Abstinences is a choice that has to be made over and over if it’s going to actually work. And that is the problem.
Abstinence-only education is corrupt and it has directly affected my own family repeatedly. In two generations, five young women in my family have gotten pregnant in their teens. Why did it keep happening? Because all of them were taught abstinence-only, none of them had easy access to birth control or condoms, and my family just never talked about any of the above. Never talked about the fact that the teen pregnancies just kept happening. (And still continue to happen. The next baby is due later this year.)
So, I urge all of you to get involved in your state and make comprehensive sex ed the standard in your schools. You can get involved with Advocates for Youth (http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/) or you can talk to your legislators directly. Here in Washington state, we’ve finally changed the rules to require all schools that teach sex ed to teach comprehensive sex ed.
Also, TALK TO YOUR KIDS! Even when their young, it’s important for them to know the words for their anatomy and physiology. Don’t be afraid to talk about sex, body parts, sexual functions, and condoms. As embarrassed as you (and they) may be to talk about it, it’s just too important not to. And if you need help, “It’s So Amazing!: A Book about Eggs, Sperm, Birth, Babies, and Families” is a great book on the basics and “It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health” is a great book about puberty.
The flying monkeys were cute. It was the apple trees that freaked me out. There is a local tree service that has radio ads about removing “bad” trees that has imitations of the voices of the WizOz apple trees. Creeps me out evertime I hear it.
The poll stands at 81 no to 19 yes after I voted. It looks pretty well pharyngulated.
And I supposed statistics from countries that have full disclosure sex ed and teen access to birth control having much lower teen pregnancy rates falls on deaf ears when talking to the abstinence crowd. As Reagan once said: “Facts are stupid things.”
And thank you SC for the link to Maher’s YouTube rant. I also found an essay he wrote on the same topic: Abstinence pledges suck — literally
Alex @ 31: I feel you Patricia. I don’t know if I’ll ever shake off the trauma of those winged beasties.
“and some of me is over here, and some of me is over there….”
those guys could tear up a straw man quicker than Karl Rove
Eric Williams @ 34: It’s really a little juvenile
Dude, I just clicked your name and it turns out you are a bad guy in an Avengers comic book
BWAWAWAHAAAAA
Thanks for not being juvenille
Brownian @ 116
Of course there’s always the pull-out, that works great too!
That stuff you posted reminded me of this junkie dude who was astonished that he got AIDS because he always wore a condom when he shot up
PS So why do you think she’s a slut again? Maybe you’d like to tell us how you came up with that word…
Oh, for fuck’s sake. Stop trying to make me out to be the one calling her names just because I’m calling you out on what you’ve said. I used the term “slut-shaming” because it’s a common phrase used in reference to those people who call women sluts if they dare to have sex, and it describes exactly what you did. Notice what was missing in all of your description? The guy who was also involved. Nothing about him, no, it was all about Bristol not being able to “keep her legs shut”. You were being a fucking jerk and using exactly the language used to make women feel terrible about having sex and feeling like getting pregnant is just getting what they deserve if they dare to have sex, and of course it is all their fault. Don’t even try to hide behind saying your description didn’t involve a value judgment, because it sure as hell did.
Scooter – Grin, you noticed I let that typo go all day. ‘I feel you Patricia’, I got a kick out of it. But I get the sympathy. Those monkeys really did horrify me as a child. When the wind would scrape branches across the windows at night, my little brother and I would hide in the closet and cry.
Did it scare you out of your wits too?
82-18.
PZ, I kind of wondered about whether/how you guys got paid. I’m glad that everytime I click on that bookmark, I put a penny (or whatever it is) in your pocket.
Patricia Those monkeys really did horrify me as a child.
Did it scare you out of your wits too?
Fly my little pretties.
That whole movie was pretty scary to my young young ass.
The cackling lady on the bike in the tornado turning into a witch, the guys marching around doing that weird chant, the fire head oz jerk. Of course the monkey scene was the best because the musical score was so perfectly terrifying, kinda like the bathtub scene in Psycho.
Have you ever done the stoner thing with the wizard of Oz and Dark Side of the Moon?
I tried doing it sober (I’m a drunk, not a stoner), there was no connection at all!
Yes 17%
No 83%
Still 17-83 against worthless sexual cirricula.
The witch used to scare me, and the monkeys, too. Last time I saw them, they just looked like bad special effects. What a difference a few decades make.
Scooter – Hell no!
I would never watch that movie drunk. I’d probably have a heart attack.
The wicked witch of the West didn’t scare me too much, my grandmother did that sort of thing at campfires, telling stories. But she would calm it down by singing songs with us right before bed.
The troll chant & march did scare me. *Brrrrrr!* I watched that movie on a tiny, snow filled black and white TV. My little brother and I were sitting on the floor, hugging each other in terror, and hiding our faces in each others shoulders, at all the appropriate places. The film is a master piece for it’s time.
Carlie@145: Wow! You’re easier to tweak than I dared to dream.
First, what was allegedly missing about my description. Guess what? The thread was about Bristol and my point was about the nonsense of declaring her out of bounds for criticism. I don’t feel obligated to give a lecture on the fact that her baby wasn’t the result of parthenogenesis. That it was a boy she was opening her legs for was a given. I’m sorry that you need these details spelled out for you, but that’s not really my problem.
Second, my so-called judgment of her: if you want to interpret it as a blunt attempt to deprive women their freedom to fuck by decrying them as (to use your word) sluts, then, again, that’s your issue to deal with. Unlike you, I happen to know what my views on these things are, and I have a totally open mind about women’s sexuality, even women as young and foolish as poor Bristol.
My point, and if you can’t get it this time I really can’t help you, was to wonder why the very person, young and ill-equipped as she is, who actually got pregnant (by the seed implanted into her by a boy, blah blah blah) was somehow supposed to be immune from the slightest criticism. I’m sorry if my raunchy language upset you, but in spite of your whining to the contrary, all of the value judgments you invested it come entirely from your (apparently somewhat fevered) imagination, not mine.
I guess we’ll just have to put it down to a communication breakdown, probably because you’re just a big soppy girl. (That was your free sexist comment. Don’t ask for any more.)
I watched the Wizard of Oz every year it was on when I was a kid. I first saw it in 1956 when I was 7. It immmediately became my favorite movie and I think it turned me gay. No, actually, I was gay before that.
I worked with a woman who had a five-year-old son who loved the movie, but he always had to point out that her dress really didn’t go with her shoes. He also hated when his father dressed him because he didn’t coordinate things well.
Maybe it does turn people gay.
I have a somewhat unrelated, although in some ways it is very related, story to tell. I live in Texas, the land of abstinence-only education, crazy theists, and kill-you-if-you-disagree-with-me-ism. Because I’m a somewhat… abnormal student, I’ve always found high school incredibly boring. So, as a Freshman (9th grade), I decided to start a little bit of a game to liven things up: Every time I was walking in the hallways, in class, or eating lunch, I would look around and count every pregnant student that I saw. I would then memorize their face in order to avoid counting any of them more than once.
I am now a Senior (12th grade) and I have counted 66 of them. Sixty-six 15-18 year old pregnant girls. To add a bit more to the story, I live in an area that is mostly Hispanic and religious, has a really big problem with truancy and academic apathy, and is alarmingly ignorant. (I do not mean to say that all Hispanics are either gang members or pregnant. It’s just a simple fact that there is an alarmingly large minority of us that are either in a gang, pregnant, or obscenely religious.)
The really scary part is that my game is very inaccurate. There were probably tons of pregnancies that I didn’t notice, pregnancies that occurred during the summer, and so on.
Oh, and the health class here is still abstinence-only when it comes to sex-education.
#145 – Carlie – This is a christian theme, and a muslim theme, of the woman being a succubus, that men are defenseless and helpless in the presence of a female.
I could quote you book and verse of this crap until you wanted to puke.
To their credit, most of the men that are regular commenter’s here don’t blame the ‘temptress’. PZ stomps the crap out of misogynist bastards that won’t give it up. The guy is a coward and totally wrong minded. This just shows once again how unfair biology is, and if there is a gawd – he is a perfect shit. A man gets a squirt, and I get a kid for 18 years. Thanks gawd.
Nephmon, you really are hopeless. You might think that you have a totally open mind about sexuality, but you’re expressing it in the pursed-lips tsk-tsk language of red-state conservatives, not “raunchy language”. You’re dreaming if you think that referring to leg-parting like the Red Sea is somehow edgy of you. You sound like my grandmother and her cohorts, not like some daring soul who tells it like it is.
Oh, and “slightest criticism” =/= the entire country discussing her sex life. She is not a public figure; her mother is. She is a teenager who is in a shitty situation who found out she was pregnant at about the same time her mother and family hit the national stage. Picking on a teenager is simply bad form no matter who the teenager is, but to do so simply because she has a family member in the public eye is taking being an asshole that extra mile.
#154 – What?
The Wizard of Oz frightened you into becoming gay?
I cannot grasp this concept.
The Wizard of Oz scared the everlovin’ crap out of me and made me cry, and squeal like a schoolgirl. But it never made me a lesbian.
You’re gonna have to testify.
Here we go.
Really Bristol Palin has been put in the spotlight by the republican party. They even flew her “fucken redneck” boyfriend down to sit with her at the convention and put her right in the way of an eager media. Hell, there’s even talk that the shotgun wedding would be a fully televised event. She’s become another campaign strategy for the republican party.
Assuming the above was posted in good faith, I would first suggest that you might want to think before walking, looking, and quacking like a duck, and you might also want to review this. Replace “smug” with “self-righteously indignant.”
Wow, I wish I was you Carlie. You can know so much about someone from one throw-away line. Guess what? The Red Sea thing was a Biblical reference. You see, the Palins are this religious nut-job family who almost certainly literally believe the story of Moses waving his staff and leading the Israelites out of their exile etc. etc. I could have said “had sex” but that seemed a bit dull. I wasn’t trying to be “edgy” (whatever that means), I was making an allusion. A crude allusion, perhaps, but certainly not one vested with the heaps of meaning you’ve chosen to bog it down with. (I’m sure you’re going to take the wrong meaning of “crude” there, by the way. So it goes.)
I must admit, though, I’ve been fantastically impressed by the almost religious devotion to PC-ness here. Seems that you can dis people for their religious delusions to your heart’s content, but dare to say something a bit negative about a silly teenager (who’s – horror! – been seen on TV), and you incur the wrath of Carlie (not to mention Patricia, whose comment is too whack to even reply to).
I’m still at a total loss as to what you mean by “picking on” her. Did she or did she not get pregnant? Was this or was this not a rather silly thing to do? What do you want me to do, congratulate her? You can call me sexist till you’re blue in the face, but I refuse to accept that a 16-yo girl who gets pregnant unintentionally can’t be taken to task for it. It was this ridiculous “hands off poor Bristol” attitude that I was actually objecting to, not her specific behavior, which was fine and dandy, other than she didn’t seem to think the consequences through.
BTW, to say my comments are treacherous because Bristol, by dint of her mom, is in the public eye is a total non sequitur. If she wasn’t in the public eye, we wouldn’t be having this conversation! And why are you equating the comments on this blog with “the whole country” talking about her? I couldn’t give a flying one about what the whole country is saying. My comment was aimed solely at the remarks I’d read here. You seem very confused about the scope of this blog’s comment section. Which given your obvious confusion about my own comment doesn’t really surprise me.
Anyway, feel free to spew your meaningless drivel in response to this. I’m out of this thread. It’s kind of sad that, like a devout Christian, you don’t care what anyone tries to tell you, because you “know” what the truth is. You’re as intransigent as the most sincere creationist, and just about as dumb.
Patricia: It never scared me. I was just dazzled by the special effects–even in black and white. I think I was about fourteen the first time I saw it in color. I always identified with the Cowardly Lion.
Carlie, do you think the shadows are attacking you as well?
Besides, my father was a dry-drunk, violent ragaholic. Nothing was scarier than that.
John Knight wrote @ 44:
Really? Why don’t you come take a look here in Northwestern Europe, where “abstinence only” isn’t even an issue! We have a markedly smaller teenage pregnancy rate, simply because more knowledge works!
Who is being insular here? I am so sorry for the all the rational people in the US having to put up with this “moron majority”!
Just remember John Knight wrote: You guys hate God & hate people who try to honor God. And you are willing to twist logic to justify your hostility.
He doesn’t have the greatest understanding of things.
You guys hate God
you know what I really hate?
flying unicorns.
If the reflections off their glittery horns don’t blind you and cause an auto accident, the constant piles of shit falling from the sky will.
… swell like Bristol Palin’s fecund little belly
Tacky, Bub. Wait till she runs for office, at least.
Nephmon, if you can find your dick, suck it next time you feel ~raunchy~. Maybe it’ll keep you from embarrassing yourself in public. And stop prissing on about “mistakes.” If getting preggers gets that kid out of her parents’ house, who knows? It might be the best fuckin thing ever happened to her. Yeah it does work that way sometimes, whatever the neoPuritans might command.
Odd though it might seem, this thread wasn’t about Bristol Palin, until she got to be the wankers’ squeakytoy. It was about crashing a poll. Can’t see the topic for the metaphors if you’re drooling all over your own eyeballs, evidently.
Ron @46: actually, I find the Carlie/Nephmon interchange the most entertaining part of this thread.
@Carlie, Bristol’s gravidity was actually raised in the post proper (its relevance of course relates to the [observed] consequences of the message her mother promotes).
What do you want me to do, congratulate her?
Why do you think you have to comment on it at all? What makes it your business? Now I’ll wait to see if you respond, since most trolls who huff and flounce off actually keep hanging around and commenting because they just can’t help themselves.
Bristol’s gravidity was actually raised in the post proper (its relevance of course relates to the [observed] consequences of the message her mother promotes).
I know, and I don’t agree with that. It’s one of the few times I’ve been very much against something PZ has written. I was about to write a comment that it wasn’t cool, but then Nephmon was so loud and annoying it seemed more amusing to take him on instead.
Basically, hundreds of teenagers get pregnant every week in this country, and the statistics show that quite well, and perfectly make the case against the way we “educate” children about sex in the is country in general. We have the highest teen pregnancy rate of any first world country. All of those teenagers made basically the same set of decisions, and those are the SAME decisions made by countless thousands of other teenagers who just happened to get lucky. There is no need to force one of them into being the poster child for teenage pregnancy, no matter who she is. Her mother’s policies can be argued against effectively without dragging her into it.
Except she’s been made a champion of teen pregnancy by both sides of US politics. You can’t say that the media is playing dirty, her family and the party she is in has trumpeted her as a pro life child. The Palin family could have let her be, instead that flew that redneck hick down to Minnesota to be a posterboy for the RNC. Her family put her in the spotlight, blaming people for talking about her is kind of pathetic.
This Wizard of Oz/gay talk reminded me of a quote I saw a while back. I don’t watch Oprah, but apparently she had a show titled When I Knew I was Gay. She opened the show by saying, “Andrew Friedman says he first knew he was gay back in 1969. ‘My father was watching the evening news. The announcer said that Judy Garland had died. I fainted. I was nine.'”
You can’t say that the media is playing dirty, her family and the party she is in has trumpeted her as a pro life child.
Well, sure, because everything in the media has to be commented on in the same terms that they were defined with. There’s really nothing wrong with saying that using a teenager is really skeevy, especially if it’s your own kid, and we’re not playing along with you on that.
Yes 15%
No 85%
In the UK unmarried mothers [can] get free social housing, it is a well known get-out clause for people in bad situations (or frequently, a free ride for those too lazy/stupid to work for a living).
Is this the same in the US?
The pregnant daughter is a victim of fundie xian family values. The ones that they babble on incessantly about.
Marriage is a sacred institution forced on two unwilling kids who were unlucky, unwise, and ignorant.
She is collateral damage of religious kookery and her crazy mom’s evil bitch personality.
The pregant daughter is a victim of fundie xian family values. The ones that they babble on incessantly about.
Marriage is a sacred institution forced on two unwilling kids who were unlucky, unwise, and ignorant.
She is collateral damage of religious kookery and her crazy mom’s evil bitch personality.
Hey John Knight! I am qualified to call you out. I’m a social psychologist. And you’re lying out your ass about their being proof Abstinence-only works.
Also…economics is not a science as they don’t conduct controlled experiments on economic systems. Everyone else, please note I said “controlled.” Uncontrolled “experiments” don’t count.
John Knight has left the premises. You see, to a wingnut fundie liar, facts are like a crucifix in daylight to a vampire.
His flimsy worldview made of magical thinking and delusions was about to melt into a small puddle of dreck.
The wingnut is still trolling a recent Dinesh thread. A few of us are calling him out, but he isn’t getting the hint to leave in spite of all his arguments being refuted.
Isn’t it obvious that “abstinence only” is a more successful reproductive strategy for the group preaching it, compared to a group preaching, say, contraception? It seems to me to be the selfish gene at work.
By “recent”, do you mean the thread from several weeks ago? I believe it was a dicussion of Dinesh’s article on Crackergate…
Zop @ 178
That stereotype certainly exists in the United States, but I have yet to see any convincing evidence that young, poor, single women get pregnant on purpose to get government benefits. If you have some actual evidence I’d like to hear it.
Yes ma’am, that’s the thread. Persistent cuss.
John Knight and Piltdown Man seem to be from the same school of dungfish.
I’d vote for teaching abstinence-only education if they also permit the teaching of personal financial management classes using lottery tickets, work-at-home schemes, and wishful thinking as the only approved methods to avoid being penniless.
Perhaps that’s not a good idea – it sounds a little too much like the Republicans’ actual fiscal policy for comfort.
Still at 15 : 85 %.
I most certainly won’t tell you that.
(If only because I have no idea whatsoever what Drano is. Something to drink? A toilet cleaner? Both?)
:-o
Color me culture-shocked. I’ve never seen a single one. Of course I knew that the red states have higher teen pregnancy rates than Europe, but I still didn’t expect anyone to use “every” with “pregnant student”.
Can I add to this discussion about teaching sex education that there’s an email going around (not sure if it made it here) to support Planned Parenthood in Sarah Palin’s honor. I posted it on my blog – at http://pccrochets.blogspot.com/2008/09/in-honor-of-sarah-palin.html. I’m sure if you google it it will pop up all over the place. So far PP has raised $800,000 – I’m sure you Pharyngulites can raise that even more.
Ooops – that darn punctuation. The blog is http://pccrochets.blogspot.com/2008/09/in-honor-of-sarah-palin.html
Ooops – that darn punctuation. The blog is http://pccrochets.blogspot.com/2008/09/in-honor-of-sarah-palin.html
To which the only possible answer is:
Does “You guys hate leprechauns & hate people who try to honor leprechauns. And you are willing to twist logic to justify your hostility” sound completely ridiculous to you?
Now you know what you sound like to us.