Germany 1942
Germany 2006
Do not get me wrong. I don't want to provoke anybody here, but I feel the widening gap between European and American values and behaviour. Anyway this issue could make a interesting discussion.
I agree with you. The reason Americans and Europeans are so different, you should recall, is because you sent your Puritans over HERE a few hundred years ago. :)
Please do not put all European countries to one box.
Is being married and a father of 3 (born within the marriage) enough to define a European as "conservative"?
I don't mean that as sarcastically as it probably sounds. I'm genuinely curious as to what qualifies one as "conservative" in Germany.
Good stuff. Your sentiments are shared. Don't let the nuts who hae no idea of what they are talking about get to you.
To tell you the truth, there isn't a whole lot of difference between what Americans and Europeans DO in regards to sex. Kids in Europe are promiscuous. Kids HERE are promiscuous. If you're some randy single guy, you're just as likely to get a French woman into bed as you are an American woman.
I think the difference is that the chaste here will say sex out of wedlock is wrong, but the chaste in Europe say it's OK, but won't do it.
OK, I lied above: I do know what drives Europeans nuts. It's the religious aspect of our view of sex. Any mention of religion sends Europeans/liberals into fits.
I completely understand your point of view about chastity rings, pledges, and such. I think they're very tacky.
All of that said, I am a very proud American who is pro-Europe.
"I.e. I do not like homesexuals either but I do not care about their way of living as long as they do not affect my own sphere."
There is no such thing...nothing is every kept locked away, it always spreads. In America there is at least a resistence to the black plague sweeping our free societies out of exsistence. Any ignoble human behavior will draw down the society that tolerates it- to the point of destruction.
"in Germany, persistent Roman Catholic-inspired anti-choice opposition creates a difficult climate in which to implement sexuality education curricula."
Unless their sexuality education curriculum is based solely on anti-abortion propaganda, why is there a problem? Why should an anti-"choice" (pro-life) stance affect other aspects of a sexuality curriculum? They don't mention other aspects that Catholics might object to (such as contraception); just the anti-choice aspect. However, there's a lot of other material that could be covered without any objections. If they're just focusing on teaching them about abortions, then I can see the problem.
Your post makes me glad I am a conservative American rather than a "conservative" European!
Ed
Trust me, it is not due to our Puritanical origins, the most common explanation for the difference. The areas of the nation where the Puritans had the most influence have very few conservatives.
Conservative Europeans like me (I am married and father of 3 kids) are usually amazed about the amount of emotions that conservative Americans invest into the issue.
American conservatives & Europeans have different expectations, based on the two different directions the Enlightenment took. French Enlightenment went in the direction of the common good, while English Enlightenment was based more on individual rights, with the responsibilities that came with them.
You need to recognize the difference between powers of the state versus powers of the community to see where I'm coming from. As the American state becomes stronger, it has worked to disable powers of the community. What you're seeing among conservative Americans is frustration caused by things we see as state intrusions. As the state works to force a European type attitude about sexuality on the population, the choice to raise our children as we see fit is getting undermined.
I.e. I do not like homesexuals either but I do not care about their way of living as long as they do not affect my own sphere.
This is one of the areas where our government has been intrusive. Our "sphere" in this area is no longer our own, because government actors feel it necessary to teach our children to have a "politically correct" attitude about homosexuality. When your children have been taught you are a bigot to have the attitude expressed in your statement, you might exhibit a certain amount of emotion about it too.
Although I also do not want my kids to have sex with 14, the efforts in America in challenging teenagers and college students to make a commitment to sexual abstinence (purity pledge, Chastity rings, the so called "second chance pledge" etc.) until marriage are rather funny to me.
How would you react to your 14 year old learning that sex at 14 is a matter of personal choice & none of your (parents) business in school? Abstinence instruction is a counter to what our kids are already learning in school.
I would have never ever signed such a notice of intention as a teen, since my classmates probably would have seen me as the most strange and crazy lunatic you can think of.
Your parent's authority probably wasn't undermined by your school.
Furthermore I do not want my kids to sign such stuff since I do not understand why the public is interested into such really private decisions.
The "public" is already interested here & it is giving our children the green light.
Not the sex between young people is a scandal for me but the voyeuristic lust in public confessions that some people obviously must have.
Voyeuristic lust? LOL
I (and many other Europeans) have the impression that the social pressure that is carried out in this field by some groups is just another form of sick perversion.
It's not a sick perversion. Our children are taught ways to get around parental objections, where school counselors will offer strategies to get birth control & abortions if the birth control has failed. Doctors & schools cannot legally tell parents if their minor child is sexually active. Instruction about sexuality is delivered sans morality, unless you include telling kids things to help them have a positive attitude about sex.
Do not get me wrong. I don't want to provoke anybody here, but I feel the widening gap between European and American values and behaviour. Anyway this issue could make a interesting discussion.
I agree, interesting discussion.
Do Europeans have anything to teach us about preserving values? There is something to be said for your point of view, but at least as much to be said for the viewpoint of sexually conservative Americans. Sharing your perspective is fine, but talking down to Americans for having higher standards isn't.
I have two daughters and a son, and it is my sincere hope that all of them make committments to sexual chastity until marriage, either in public or in private. As a Christian I believe that the only responsible sex is between a man and wife. And, incidentally, it's also the best! Woo-hoo!
Back when Ireland was Catholic, their attitudes towards sex was more Puritanical than the USA. That wasn't long ago and they were members of the EU then too!
Rebels are cool in high school. One of the reasons why this sort of works here is because our educational establishment is mind-numbingly anti-Christian and seeks to undermine traditional values every chance it gets it seems. Kids doing this are being rather anti-authoritarian. Also, a lot of what was and, I suspect, is pushed in our schools has proven to be indisputably destructive so there the respect they gain from peers by "speaking truth to power"
Always good to hear from you AB.
This situation is going to change rapidly now that a new religious order is taking over in Europe. By 2020 Europeans will be looking enviously at the "oversexed" Americans as polygamy assures that while high-status men get extra wives, men of hoi polloi will be a "bachelor herd" who will have to resign themselves to never Getting Any.
The article you cited assured adults that 95% of the girls use birth control. I find this horrifying. That means that 5% of the girls didn't. If they weren't protected from pregnancy, then they sure weren't protected form disease.
A typical teen is NOT ready to deal with the physical and emotional ramifications of sex. Period. The boys are too hormone-driven to protect themselves and their partners from premature pregnancy and disease. The girls are naive and believe they can share their bodies with men and not eventually suffer an emotional back-lash.
I seriously do NOT wish to offend, but many Americans think of Europeans as lax parents who either don’t care about their children or are too weak to do anything about their concerns. I think the differences in parenting styles come from differing views of children. Americans typically do not see children as equal with adults when it comes to reasoning and self-control. It seems to me that Europeans give children more credit.
As my mom always says, “The proof is in the pudding.” We’ll see which view was correct in a few generations.
I'm living in the "Bible Belt" (the South, mostly) and I think European perceptions of America are distorted. Your media especially tends to exagerate and skew things here, as if we were different species of human than you. I've spent some time in Germany too...and I don't really think its all that different than the USA, in many ways....but of course that doesn't make news.
On both sides of the Atlantic we hear how strange those people are over there...and it doesn't help our mutual understanding (especially of the real differences that exist).
Even where I am, in a very conservative Southern city...with one Church for every 300 people (full on Sundays....), you don't hear much about "abstainance pledges" or public organizations (or revelations) of teens' sex lives.
Since abortion and teen pregnancy are serious problems though (something like 25%+ of American births are now to single mothers...and 95%+ of criminals come from single mother households too...hence a serious social(not private) problem), Christian groups, usually working from a church have attempted some of the abstainance-pledging programs--but, with other than those who are deeping involved in the church--they haven't been very effective.
Church and especially parental involvement are the only very consistant indicators of low (or none) pregnancies (or presumably sex) among teens, which, I think that result we both can agree is a good thing.
Society, and civilization itself, has shown through history to be not sustainable when its people are mostly bastards....so yes, sex outside of marriage really does become a social, not merely a private, issue.
At the same time though, don't imagine that American religious groups are sickly obsessed with sex...or stopping it. If they were they're not doing a very good job of it!
No surprises here.