Abstinence just ain’t going to crack it.
Thanks to Aquoibon for his thoughts – he’s appalled at the old-school approach of the Minister of Education when it comes to teenagers doing the wild thang. Let’s fact it, how many of us have grand or great grand parent that was gafoefling at a young age getting themselves pregnant with our forefathers? Young people have been having sex at a young age for centuries and that’s never going to chan…
ge. So he wants to know, do you really think telling horny youngsters to ‘abstain’ will work?
Having unprotected sex in South Africa is deadlier than playing Russian roulette. You’ve got 16% chance to hit the bullet as opposed to 30% chance to hit an infected partner. Somehow, having sex is still more appealing than playing exotic social games.
When I reminisce on my teenage years (something I try to avoid when possible), it is quite clear that while the hormones kicked in and my face got covered with acne, a powerful agenda was creeping its way up to the top of my to-do list: getting laid. I was certainly not the only one the winky fairy visited, my school inmates were pretty obsessed about it too,all like a bunch of crackheads on a binge. Did you get some? How can I get some? Please give me some…
Now, try and explain to a kid that candy is bad for him, that your teeth rot when you eat that stuff, that you go blind and poop your pants. Try and explain to a teenager that sex is bad for him, that your lifespan shrinks to a few years if you play with that stuff, that you get all skinny and die in a smelly hospital bed.
Surprisingly, kids still want candy. Teens do too. That’s human nature, we drink, we drink and drive, we smoke, we max out our credit cards, we eat burnt meat…
Now, the difference between most of our daily unreasonable activities and sex is that there’s a very simple trick that makes sex pretty safe: wearing a condom. It doesn’t take much of the fun away, but makes the activity much safer.
I almost choked when I heard that Naledi Pandor, our minister of education, doesn’t want teenagers to be taught about the trick.
She publicly condemned the distribution of preservatives in schools, advocating the promotion of abstinence as the alternative to safe sex, arguing that “learners should concentrate on their studies and not engage in sexual activity” and that she doesn’t understand why “13-year-olds are engaged in sexual activity at that age”.
These kids must do as they’re damn told and that’s the end of it. If they decide to go out there and play Russian roulette with their friends, she won’t be giving them any helmet.
Somehow I fell the abstinence story won’t convince many sex-crazed teens not to “cut the cake.”
Pandor’s stance has been heavily backed by Doctors for Life, a Christian ideology driven NGO supporting value-based sexual education and fighting against same-sex marriage, abortion and euthanasia. Their website’s press release about Pandor’s statement informs us that “The failure of condom based strategies stands in stark contrast to the roaring success of abstinence based programs that present a clear and consistent message.”
We were unable to find any evidence of the roaring success of abstinence-based programs while searching the net. The only serious articles we were able to find seem to indicate that these programs are, at best, useless and that the most efficient way of dealing with the problem is to educate kids about the disease and the use of condoms along with promoting abstinence and faithfulness. Common sense, really.
Is this decision just a case of mixing ideology and reality or could this have to do with the U.S. five-year Global HIV/AIDS strategy prioritizing funds for abstinence until marriage Programs?
Minister Pandor is toying with the life of millions. I hope she can still sleep at night.
