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michelle's picture

We've Got the Power to Change

That is quite interesting, however, I believe the study should not have focused on when the students initially started having sex but whether the students were having safe sex or not. One of the teaching approaches focused on abstinence and clearly failed in its purpose because the students were still having sex. Moreover, they were having sex soon after, if not during the time they were being taught to avoid sex altogether. The contraception-friendly approach wasn’t instructing the students to avoid sex, but to have safe sex. Therefore, the fact that the students were having sex did not go against what they were taught. I found an article referring to the study because I was curious to read more about it. It has a link to the published study. For others who are interested:

http://www.boston.com/yourlife/health/diseases/articles/2007/04/14/study_abstinence_classes_dont_stop_sex/

One of the researchers DID mention that, "… the second part of the story that I think is equally important is that we find no evidence that the programs increased the rate of unprotected sex," which affirms that both programs failed in their mission. What they are advocating now is a comprehensive sex education program where abstinence makes up only a small portion.

To add to your thoughts about human nature, I do believe that we are biologically driven to crave sex. It makes tremendous evolutionary sense. However, I do believe in will power. I believe we have the power to overcome biological signals. We can, if we really want to, abstain from eating and ignore hunger pains. There are stories of mothers subjecting themselves to normally intolerable amounts of pain to rescue or protect their children. Despite all of our recent talk on how we have little control over our behavior, I do still believe humans have to ability to override biological demands should feel strongly enough about the cause. What we have to do first is convince our brains to comply. For example, I've spent years trying to convince my father to quit smoking- giving him statistics on lung cancer, etc. However, he never actually quit until he personally made the decision to do so. Our brains will only comply if it is our OWN conscious decision, not that of others, because only we know what's best for ourselves. Therefore, maybe the only thing we can do is present all the facts to the students and hope they decide for themselves to make appropriate sexual decision.

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