How sex ed harms girls' health

WorldNetDaily.com ^ | November 16, 2007 | Ashley Herzog

[HerzogAEH]

This is an excerpt from a column I wrote for WorldNetDaily.com last week. It is about how politically correct sex education is harming girls' health. The full version can be reached through the link above.

As an intern at the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute, I’ve been working with our Senior Fellow, Miriam Grossman, M.D., author of the book Unprotected: A Campus Psychiatrist Reveals How Political Correctness in Her Profession Endangers Every Student. Dr. Grossman has garnered media attention because she exposed the fact that health educators often risk students’ well-being in order to promote a particular ideology -- usually a combination of feminism, androgyny, and “anything goes” liberalism.

In the upside-down world of politically correct health care, the main priority is to never make “moral judgments” about a patient’s behavior, and factual information is suppressed if it threatens political agendas.

I’ve been researching sex education and sexual health care for Dr. Grossman’s columns and articles. I’ve browsed health websites, “sex ed” manuals, even teen magazines like CosmoGIRL and Seventeen. Although much of the health information is politicized, the advice offered to young girls on sexual decision-making is downright scandalous.

“There is no right time to have your first intercourse. This is a choice you make,” declares GoAskAlice.com, a popular health Web site. This canard is repeated ad nauseum in sex education programs and magazines geared toward middle and high school students, such as Seventeen (don’t let the name fool you – most of its readership is under 16).

“There is no correct age at which you are ‘supposed’ to have sex,” declares the health Web site coolnurse.com. “Everyone has to make a very personal decision about what is right for them.”

Really? What if a girl decides sex is right for her at age 12 or 13?

[puroresu]

Welcome! Glad to have you aboard here at FR!

[Paleo Conservative]

Innnocent!

[goldstategop]

Tell that to the skank generation. Not all of them have the attitude women just exist for men's amusement. Wendy Shalit, Ariel Levy and Ashley Herzog have a different take on it. Just as decent men are men who respect women from the waist up, thoughtful women like the above writers think its adds to rather than detracts from a woman's femininity when women respect themselves. I call the return to modesty not as a refutation of sexuality but the enlightened expression of it with style and a feeling of grace. Before the 60s, our parents had no difficulty expressing themselves without the coarseness and lack of restraint so apparent today. The sexual revolution that followed simply allowed men and women to both behave like pigs instead of people endowed with the equipment of manners. That is what is missing today from our culture.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[Islander7]

Conservative babes are Ssooo hot! Not like the libs who don't bathe or groom themselves.

[Larry Lucido]

Not guilty.

[mountainbunny]

You wrote: Curious name for a website. "Go Ask Alice" is the (true) diary of a young girl who "choose" to be a drug user and what her life was like as a drug user.

No, it is not a true diary of anyone. "Go Ask Alice" is a work of fiction. In my experience, kids are often shocked and deeply dismayed and feel lied to when they discover that the book is not autobiographical, but was written by Beatrice Sparks, the purported "editor".

It is best not to lie to kids (not you, the publisher). The simple truth works just fine: that the story is fiction, but that the events in it do happen to people who do drugs.

See: http://www.snopes.com/language/literary/askalice.asp

[keats5]

Wow. How did you get a photo with Newt?

[Jaysun]

The so-called womens’ movement has benefited only unscrupulous men who are looking for free sex without commitment, and destroys women. The movement is concerned only with its own power.

It's a movement that will eat itself alive. These feminist will wonder what happened to them when 60 Christmas have gone by and after several divorces they're alone and bitter.

They can't get along with men because they want to power over them. No man will have that. So they're left with being lesbians or alone. What a life.

[Vigilanteman]

Very nicely summed up. Marriage is an ideal time to have your first intercourse. This is the right time and this is a choice we made.

Our reward is that we're still together after 23 years and our kids are well-adjusted and committed to saving themselves for marriage. And yes, we know other families just like us in this respect, even in 2007.

Everyone of us makes Planned Parenthood less relevant and less wealthy.

[sit-rep]

Indeed...

But I think they still need a good spanking!

[Mrs. Don-o]

Let's figure out a way to challenge fraudulent language and take the term "sex positive" away from the people who are promoting junk sex.

People who say sex is healthy, holy, natural, marital, sensual, significant, meaningful, spousal, tender, passionate, sacramental, fertile, frisky, and fun should claim the term "Sex Positive."

People who say sex is temporary, impersonal, insignificant, triflin', sterile, shallow, prophylactic and skanky, should be termed "Sex Morons."

That's my contribution to the Keep It Real Dictionary.

[Mrs. Don-o]

The right time to start having sex:

• Look at your left hand. Do you have a gold band on your ring finger?
• Look at the person you want to have sex with. Does he have a ring, too?
• Do you have the same last name?
• Do you remember marrying him?
• Are you someplace nice and private?
• You'll figure it out. You can do anything that makes the two of you feel wonderful. You've got all the time in the world.

[Army Air Corps]

"A woman who is communal property is beyond individual interest."

BUMP!

[Grizzled Bear]

God bless you Ashley. Thanks for your efforts!

GB

[Army Air Corps]

Like Anne Coulter says, the beautiful women are on our side. Especially since “our” women have both kinds of beauty.

[Army Air Corps]

Thank you for your contributions! Keep fighting the good fight.

[philetus]

What if a girl decides sex is right for her at age 12 or 13?

They will applaud her “choice”, but tell her it would be better with a same sex partner.

[gondramB]

Based on outcomes, sex ed and birth control availability correlate with lower STDs and lower teen pregnancy and thus less abortions.

thus I support sex ed and birth control availability

[Mrs. Don-o]

"Based on outcomes, sex ed and birth control availability correlate with lower STDs and lower teen pregnancy and thus less abortions."

I doubt this. California, which pushes, promotes, and provides contraceptives to singles all over the state via student health and counseling staff, county health offices, subsidies to Planned Parenthood and other providers, and a constant drumbeat in the schools, has skyrocketing STD rates.

Furthermore, recent negative evaluations of abstinence programs have had serious methodological flaws, as you can see HERE. And I have seen other, quite detailed analyses of the research, citing many of the same difficulties:

• The study looked at only four programs, all of them very small, very minimal (sometime sconsisting of just a couple of lectures to 6th graders!) and none of them utilized the extensive socially interactive, and factual content-rich methods used today in abstinence ed programs;
• In those programs, the teaching of abstinence ended in middle school, rather than being reinforced in high school, when it really counts.
• All four programs were designed in the early days of abstinence education. The programs did not involve any coordination with other curricula, e.g. with health, biology, or media-awareness classes, which is now considered an essential factor for a successful program.

So what "outcomes" do you want to document for us?