Great post. My sex education was when HIV/AIDS was just hitting the MSM. It went something like this: have sex.........and DIE. Worked pretty good for awhile.

H-E - Double Hockey Sticks... Love it, Karol! I'm a product of Catholic School and seminary from another era, 50s and 60s). Heck, back then it was H-E- Double Hockey Sticks for masturbation even...... didn't work then either.....

Reminds me of a good Catholic joke we used to tell in former times... a young man goes to confession and tells the priest, " I had impure thoughts... five hundred times.." The priest says, "Did you entertain them?" The young man says.. " No, they entertained me!"

( In case you don't get the joke, having sexual thoughts is not sinful unless you deliberately entertain them, that is, willfully indulge in them. A mortal sin, I might add, worthy of eternal damnation. In other words, don't have sex, with others, with yourself, don't even think about having sex, or you are toast!)

I’m not sure precisely what it is, but there’s something creepy about fathers giving their daughters rings and then getting them to promise not to have sex until that ring is replaced by another ring. Beyond that, I assume “sex” in this case means intercourse, and does that mean everything else is, well, negotiable? Obviously some of this skepticism this is due to a dearth of mothers giving rings to their sons and making the same demands.

Beyond the lack of success convincing little Suzy to lay off the boys, this seems to be just one more attempt to assure that women’s sexuality belongs to men, in this case fathers, to regulate and control. This is a distance relative of the dominance, albeit at a smaller scale and infinitely less toxic, that fundamentalist Islam attempts with the Burqa.

There is nothing at all wrong with pointing our the benefits of abstinence, as long as it’s part of a completely comprehensive program (including birth control) of reproductive health, but that’s not the goal here. The aim of this program is to teach young women that their sexuality is not their own -- it is the property of men.

That's a good one, Murphy. Subtle, right on.

Of course it is no mystery as to why these kids use no protections. At least one reason is that if it "just happened", then one can deny to oneself precogitation of the act. Likewise, if one does not carry around or possess any of the requisite items to lessen the impact of passion, one can claim to simply have suddenly, and without forethought or awareness, "snapped"...

In this way remaining aligned with the orthodoxy under which you live as well as avoiding the really important task, taking responsibility for your choices, discerning or not. And learning from them as part of that process.

And then there's the whole Chastity Ball thing with fathers and daughters: super super creepy. Eeewww.

I like to say that my Catholic high school education made me the feminist I am today: our sex education consisted of lies ("everytime you have sex you will get pregnant"). The Catholic church is incredibly out of touch with reality and truth and is now doing more harm than good, in my opinion. Let's see, this last week the pope said saving heterosexuality was the equivalent to saving the rainforests. Nice. I'm now picturing a bunch of homos stomping through the rainforests like godzilla.

As someone who follows God (I hate using the term Christian; too many negative connotations), I agree with the "comprehensive" approach to sex education. I truly believe there is a place to teach kids the benefits of waiting (abstinence) until they're married. Having one monogamous partner helps prevent STD's, allows pregnancy to be planned, and you don't have to deal with the emotional baggage that many couples carry with them into relationships because they jumped into the sack with whomever, whenever. (I've had numerous friends who have dealt with this.)

At the same time, I think it's naive for any parent (especially those who rear their children upon religious principles) to think their children will never have sex, especially before marriage. They are teenagers with hormones and out-of-control urges. Teenagers often don't know how to think rationally, especially if no one teaches them.

My wife and I have two children. When they get older, we will teach them the importance and benefits of waiting. We will also tell them about the dangers of unprotected sex and the consequences they could face. While our hope would be that they wait, we realize they may choose otherwise. If, at the very least, we can give them the resources so they don't become another statistic, then great. If they choose to wait, great!

Personally, I think abstinence only programs - with no education about condoms, STD's, pregnancy, etc. - is more of an "ungodly" approach. When religious ideas/tradition trump reality, that's when we (and our kids) get into trouble.

Part of the problem now days is that the public schools aren't allowed to teach about contraception. In the seventh grade when I had sex education, a girl in my class asked if we where going to talk about it and the teacher say no I'm not allowed to tell you about any kind of contraception. We have a abstinence only program. We all thought it was ass backwards, they can tell us about STD's, pregnancy, and HIV but not about a freaking condom!

Being "45" and a grandparent is kind of normal in my family, but that's because we have hereditary problems, most can't conceive after 24-25 years old. I'm 23 and have a 4 month old, my mom is 43. I learned about sex long before my friends did, thanks to my folks, and was the one to fill in the holes for them.

I don't quite understand this pledging abstinence thing.

Don't most teenage boys already practice involuntary abstinence?

"Abstinence-only" is to sex-ed what leaving fractions and decimals out would be to math education.

Are there statistics available on divorce rates for people who have taken this pledge? It seems to me that there is much greater pressure to rush into marriage if that's the only way you're ever going to get laid. This may lead to some serious compatibility issues that couples may not realize during an abbreviated, rushed courtship. Like Karol, I have a number of high school friends who got married at a very young age, and many of their relationships aren't exactly thriving. But that's just anecdotal evidence. Anyone know of any studies?

I just read something similar from the Bradly Hasbro Children’s Research Foundation. This is a bit graphic… Apparently as a result of abstinence only education more and more heterosexual teens are having anal sex as a way to “preserve their virginity, avoid pregnanacy, and avoid disease”. Even more shocking is that many teens thought that you could not get STD’s from the “big A” and were for the most part doing it unprotected and adding to the rising number of teenagers who have or have had an STD. The same report also found that since homosexuality is completely eliminated from the program (when I was in highschool they at least did their pesentation in a gender neutral way) they are not only sending the gay kids out there under informed but also further alienated from thiere students. This along with a myriad of other factors leads to gay kids having hetero sex under mental and emtional duress. Doing because you want to be “normal”. It’s extremely common for gay kids (Iwas one of them and I have very few friends that haven’t had het-sex). Not only is sex under duress more likely to lead to having riskier sex but coupled with a piss poor education prgram over the last 5 years there has been a huge spike in gay teen pregnancy. How F’ed up is that?! A policy so terrible that it has straight kids catching diseases from anal sex and gay kids becoming teen parents.

The "creepy" thing that people refer to here is about the role of the father as guardian of the daughter's virginity. But this is classic patriarchy. In patriarchy the father owns the bodies of the females in the family. The father is the one who must give approval to a marriage, and therefore to intercourse. The father is the one who "gives away" the bride. We've been slowly getting away from that in Western societies but it's slow to die. And in the fundamentalist Christian and Mormon family structure there is a conscious attempt to return to patriarchy.

Admittedly as a father who raised a daughter who is now a married 33 year old adult, I saw myself as a protector of my daughter when she was growing up from any boy who had sexual designs on her, and that is appropriate. I knew at a certain age it would be her own judgment and choices that would prevail. And at her wedding both her parents accompanied her down the aisle.

As for boys our culture continues to expect them to act irresponsibly and congratulates them for predatory behavior.

The Catholic Church knows the harm it is causing. That's why they do it. Conform to our behavioral dictates or suffer. They want to be able to say, "see she had sex and look at the carnage in her life". "The wages of sin are death". There is no random event. HIV/Aids cannot be a random. They believe that every instance is a verdict from God. When you use a condom, you deflect God's will.

I remember an Irish priest in a small rural parish. His sister was the principal at the grade school, and he was best friends with the bishop (and a monsignor), so he was pretty much a law unto himself. He had two major talks he would give, one to high school freshman, the other to their parents. He would tell the freshman about a couple, very loving, that had decided that to have sex, as they would no doubt get married. After their first time, they were coming home, and, through no fault of their own, were hit by a drunk driver, running a light. The girl was killed outright, and the monsignor related that the boy just sat there sobbing for hours, exclaiming, "I sent her to hell". "And he did. No reprieve.", he would add, with all those Irish, smug, "hmrumpfs" and long pauses with eye contact added for emphasis.

He would point out to the parents that it was a rural area and that he had gout. If they were near death, he would have to boogie to make sure he got to their death bed promptly for extreme unction (sacrament of the sick; forgives all sins). Thing is, he would remember their level of tithing and how their kids are with sex and, well, that might affect the speed at which he showed up.

When the child abuse scandal broke my main thought was that if you allow conscious abuse I described, and regard it as a mainstream, acceptable religion, you should not be surprised to find out the rest. That said, it's worth noting that you will find these behaviors much less prevalent in the Orders. An old bachelor living alone does not have the social controls that happen naturally when you are living in a community of peers. Anyone that gets too full of himself in a Franciscan friary gets cut down to size directly, unlike a rural monsignor.

---end of relevance, another Catholic joke (long) to follow (relevant to post, though and how often...)----

So the confirmation class is being trained by their teacher, a nun. For those that don't know, Confirmation is a sacrament conferred by the bishop of a diocese on "of age" Catholics to formally accept their infant baptismal vows. A favorite line afterwards- you're usually like 8- is "now you're ready to die for your faith". Anyway, the bishop typically asks questions to see if they've been prepared. It's a song and dance. Still, the nuns want to look good. So this class' teacher talked to a friend in another parish and found out that the bishop always asked the same three questions. Good, she thought, I'll teach to the test.

The bishop always asked, "what's the hat the bishop wears called, what's the staff he carries called, and what's the cross he wears called". For weeks she drilled them, "mitre, crosier and pectoral cross, respectively". Finally, the big day came. First question, "what's the pointed hat on my head called"? Eager hands shot up and of course the lucky child got to respond that it was a mitre. Same with the crosier, and the bishop was getting suspicious. Finally, he asked his last question, "what is a monsignor"? He called on an eager respondent. "I know", said the kid, "that's the big cross around the bishop's neck"!

They're a pain on everyone's neck, along with the other "honorary titles", cardinal and Pope. While I certainly agree with all the comments about the ring thing being creepy and grotesque, maybe one glimmer of hope is that it signals a beginning to the end of the fetishiziing of childhood innocence that started with the Victorians.

I feel really sorry for Catholic folks, especially the Recovering kind. It must be harder than the stupid scattershot mis-messaging the rest of us get. Yuck.

I would like to add that Roman Catholics are not a monolith, even if their institutional structure is. The Catholic laity is quite polarized along conservative and progressive lines, with many, polling suggests a majority, of lay Catholics believing in healthy sex education, legalized abortion, contraception, and acceptance of homosexuality. Progressive Catholics are on the front lines of the struggle for peace and justice, and that includes attitudes towards a healthy and safe sexuality.

Bill R, I suspected as much. However, we typically only hear from the injured. On the reservations, people were literally herded into one church or the other. Literally. They had to choose - Babdist-type or Catholic. And they were outlawed from practicing their Indian religions until the seventies.

My kids have been subjected to the abstinence-only "education" programs that are taught in public schools. The kids are supposed to get both the abstinence and the normal sex-ed back to back, but that was not the case in our school. the abstinence program was so focused on the morality play- sex is bad, sex will defile you, having sex before marriage will make you unacceptable to decent partners in the future. I could not believe the stuff my kids came home with from those "lessons". It was appalling.

I have always been open with my kids about sex-ed. Plus, we had some very in-depth conversations about the morality of sex after those abstinence lessons. If they're old enough to ask the question, they're old enough to get a straight, age appropriate answer. I'm not stupid enough to think my teens aren't considering having sex, and I know the world won't come to an end if they do. They are protected, and know that the responsibility for their future lies in their choices today. I trust them to make the right decisions. Call me naive, but it's worked for us.

I’m not sure precisely what it is, but there’s something creepy about fathers giving their daughters rings and then getting them to promise

Today when most parents think about acquiring a child they seem to care nothing for the individual, but what new possesion the parent has. I would bet my last thin dime that 50% of parents spend more time on the picking the child's name than on discussing sex ed. The less something means in this culture the more high-falutin' a name you have to give it. "Carrie" should be remade taking place at a Chastity Ball. Good example that there's as many dragon lady mothers as fathers that should have kept it in their pants and will be 70, giving sex ed. advice to a teen-aged girl.

A lot is just how many moves you can think ahead. The people promoting this are just stupid. They can't see that it is counter productive, because they NEVER see anything but what is right in front of their face and if it makes them feel good. There was a video done in German about 1930 of a little girl and boy trying to sit down on the rock. It was supposed to show the ifference in the way a 5 year old and 7 year old thought. The 5 year old kept trying to climb up it but couldn't. The 7 year old realized that you have to face away from the rock to sit on it.

It's another variation on everyone's spin game. Every word, every gesture, every second, has to seem to approach the goal or it is anti-goal. That's where they spend all their energy. Then, out of sight, out of mind. This is why gen X generation has decided to simply look you in the eye and lie. It works on stupid parents. All those parents see is they got the response they wanted, move on.

Oregon still funds "abstinence only" education. It is passed through Title V abstinence only education federal money, passed through DHS to school districts to implement Students Today Aren't Ready for Sex (STARS). In spite of Oregon's comprehensive sex education law, schools can only get funds to pay for he abstinence bit, and must improvise the rest.

State level advocacy, so far, has failed to persuade Oregon legislators to pass on the abstinence only dollars, or to supplement them with funds to cover comprehensive se ed, which still teaches young people skills to refuse sex until they are ready, but includes harm reduction techniques and condom/STD prevention education.

Well, FINALLY, a new topic of conversation at the St. Mary's Academy Father-Daughter dinner dance!

Let's face it, the school needs a new motto.

How about: No Glove, No Love!