5 ms·

This runs counter to the belief that many have that when given higher access to contraceptives, teens will have more sex. Another knock against abstinence-only

This runs counter to the belief that many have that when given higher access to contraceptives, teens will have more sex. Another knock against abstinence-only sex ed!

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
eru 11y ago
Perhaps wider access to contraceptives still encourages more sex, but there were other forces even stronger in the other direction?
- dangerlibrary 11y ago
  Mathematically, sure, that's fine. Empirically/theoretically, you've dug yourself into a hole that is difficult to get out of. You're going against Occam's razor so now you've got a lot of 'splainin' to do.
  - valvar 11y ago
    It's not clear to me how (and if) Occam's Razor should necessarily be applied in this context. We are not choosing between a very simple, and a vastly complex alternative. Rather we are choosing between an unintuitive and probably complex option (contraceptives are causing less copulation - this does not sound at all like a simple suggestion to me), and admitting that our models and data may not be complete. Either way we need more research to be able to more clearly identify the root causes.
    - kristianc 11y ago
      And Occam's razor is really more of a 'which one should we test first' kind of criterion, rather than 'this one is automatically true as it's the simplest.'
    - pdpi 11y ago
      Teens are known to be rebellious and to like toeing the line By making things more accessible and banal, you remove the urge to do it just to spite authority. That simple argument justifies that teens who can sample alcohol at home are less likely to binge drink, and that kids who have ample access to sex ed and contraception are less likely to go and have sex both logistically and emotionally unprepared
      - valvar 11y ago
        >teens who can sample alcohol at home are less likely to binge drink That's patently false. Cf. http://www.jsad.com/doi/abs/10.15288/jsad.2015.76.212 http://www.jsad.com/doi/abs/10.15288/jsad.2015.76.212 So far I find the argument far from convincing.
  - mistermann 11y ago
    > You're going against Occam's razor so now you've got a lot of 'splainin' to do. Where did this idea come from?
  - andyjohnson0 11y ago
    Occam's razor is a heuristic, not a law.
    - Lawtonfogle 11y ago
      When found in the wild, it is more a fallacy than anything else.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- rmc 11y ago
  Or: Teens are having more sex, but contraceptives are stopping more pregnancies.
  - wernercd 11y ago
    Or... Contraceptives are stopping some pregnancies... And teens being too busy texting and not comfortable enough actually engaging with others are having less sex... Or religion... or being busy feeling #TheBern... or stopped having sex after feeling #TheBurn... Or are too fat... Or...
  - fizgig 11y ago
    (this is not meant to me inflammatory, but rather an honest rumination) Keeping the feminism/SJW/manosphere shenanigans in my peripheral vision, there's been a huge backlash rallying against single mothers in recent years. There's even some anecdotal evidence in dating sites/posts that single mothers are increasingly more open of their demanding that men "man up" and accept another's child/children as part of the package. Shaming single mothers for being on state assistance or child support only seemed to increase feminist resolve, but a tangible impact in reduced desirability in the larger dating pool may be pushing women to be more responsible.
    - jandrese 11y ago
      I thought there were fewer single mothers because we have been decreasing the prison population. Lots of mothers were single because our Nixon era drug laws were aimed at locking up as many minority men as possible.
      - fizgig 11y ago
        For all I know, that could be the primary factor. I'm not well versed enough to speak with any authority. I just tossed an idea out there based from my sphere of online observations over the past 5 or so years.
    - pavel_lishin 11y ago
      > There's even some anecdotal evidence in dating sites/posts that single mothers are increasingly more open of their demanding that men "man up" and accept another's child/children as part of the package. If you're going to seriously date a single mother, what other option do you have? I'm not suggesting that you meet the kids on the second date, but if you're seriously romantically involved with someone for six months, you're not going to be able to continue that relationship with the single parent without having some involvement with the kids, too. It seems crazier to me to have the option of opting out of the kids in this scenario. Do you just live separately until they turn 18?
JulianMorrison 11y ago
What bugs me is that if abstinence only sex ed pushers are going to defy the obvious, they should at least make their claims more entertaining. Virginity will grant you the ability to fly and speak to birds. Contraception causes vampires. Having sex outside of marriage will make your skin split and a 20-foot tall bright red demon will emerge from your fleshy husk. Kissing gives you polka-dot leprosy. I mean, if you're going to be unbound by facts or reality, why be boring?
- ajuc 11y ago
  > I mean, if you're going to be unbound by facts or reality, why be boring? To be more persuasive.
- raverbashing 11y ago
  Well they do that with Global Warming as well, so But it is unfair to blame only that group for "magical thinking"
criddell 11y ago
My kids get abstinence-only sex ed and it makes me laugh. If abstinence-based education was effective, they could eliminate the problem with childhood obesity by just telling kids to ignore their urges to overeat. To avoid dealing with bullshit from parents, the school hires an outside company to teach sex ed. Sometimes they failed in funny ways. In my daughter's class, they handed out a few Skittles and told kids to pass them around as the class went on. After a while they stopped to talk about the candy that had been handled by everybody and asked who would want to eat the now sticky, gross candy. They underestimated how picky kids are when it comes to Skittles - all were eaten.
- newjersey 10y ago
  > To avoid dealing with bullshit from parents, the school hires an outside company to teach sex ed. Sometimes they failed in funny ways. In my daughter's class, they handed out a few Skittles and told kids to pass them around as the class went on. After a while they stopped to talk about the candy that had been handled by everybody and asked who would want to eat the now sticky, gross candy. They underestimated how picky kids are when it comes to Skittles - all were eaten. Reminds me of this time at my Baptist (yes, the upper case C christian kind) university where someone did the same thing by biting a cookie. I ate the half-bitten cookie just out of spite. People are not cookies!

This runs counter to the belief that many have that when given higher access to contraceptives, teens will have more sex. Another knock against abstinence-only sex ed!

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

eru 11y ago

Perhaps wider access to contraceptives still encourages more sex, but there were other forces even stronger in the other direction?

dangerlibrary 11y ago
Mathematically, sure, that's fine. Empirically/theoretically, you've dug yourself into a hole that is difficult to get out of. You're going against Occam's razor so now you've got a lot of 'splainin' to do.
- valvar 11y ago
  It's not clear to me how (and if) Occam's Razor should necessarily be applied in this context. We are not choosing between a very simple, and a vastly complex alternative. Rather we are choosing between an unintuitive and probably complex option (contraceptives are causing less copulation - this does not sound at all like a simple suggestion to me), and admitting that our models and data may not be complete. Either way we need more research to be able to more clearly identify the root causes.
  - kristianc 11y ago
    And Occam's razor is really more of a 'which one should we test first' kind of criterion, rather than 'this one is automatically true as it's the simplest.'
  - pdpi 11y ago
    Teens are known to be rebellious and to like toeing the line By making things more accessible and banal, you remove the urge to do it just to spite authority. That simple argument justifies that teens who can sample alcohol at home are less likely to binge drink, and that kids who have ample access to sex ed and contraception are less likely to go and have sex both logistically and emotionally unprepared
    - valvar 11y ago
      >teens who can sample alcohol at home are less likely to binge drink That's patently false. Cf. http://www.jsad.com/doi/abs/10.15288/jsad.2015.76.212 http://www.jsad.com/doi/abs/10.15288/jsad.2015.76.212 So far I find the argument far from convincing.
- mistermann 11y ago
  > You're going against Occam's razor so now you've got a lot of 'splainin' to do. Where did this idea come from?
- andyjohnson0 11y ago
  Occam's razor is a heuristic, not a law.
  - Lawtonfogle 11y ago
    When found in the wild, it is more a fallacy than anything else.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
rmc 11y ago
Or: Teens are having more sex, but contraceptives are stopping more pregnancies.
- wernercd 11y ago
  Or... Contraceptives are stopping some pregnancies... And teens being too busy texting and not comfortable enough actually engaging with others are having less sex... Or religion... or being busy feeling #TheBern... or stopped having sex after feeling #TheBurn... Or are too fat... Or...
- fizgig 11y ago
  (this is not meant to me inflammatory, but rather an honest rumination) Keeping the feminism/SJW/manosphere shenanigans in my peripheral vision, there's been a huge backlash rallying against single mothers in recent years. There's even some anecdotal evidence in dating sites/posts that single mothers are increasingly more open of their demanding that men "man up" and accept another's child/children as part of the package. Shaming single mothers for being on state assistance or child support only seemed to increase feminist resolve, but a tangible impact in reduced desirability in the larger dating pool may be pushing women to be more responsible.
  - jandrese 11y ago
    I thought there were fewer single mothers because we have been decreasing the prison population. Lots of mothers were single because our Nixon era drug laws were aimed at locking up as many minority men as possible.
    - fizgig 11y ago
      For all I know, that could be the primary factor. I'm not well versed enough to speak with any authority. I just tossed an idea out there based from my sphere of online observations over the past 5 or so years.
  - pavel_lishin 11y ago
    > There's even some anecdotal evidence in dating sites/posts that single mothers are increasingly more open of their demanding that men "man up" and accept another's child/children as part of the package. If you're going to seriously date a single mother, what other option do you have? I'm not suggesting that you meet the kids on the second date, but if you're seriously romantically involved with someone for six months, you're not going to be able to continue that relationship with the single parent without having some involvement with the kids, too. It seems crazier to me to have the option of opting out of the kids in this scenario. Do you just live separately until they turn 18?

JulianMorrison 11y ago

What bugs me is that if abstinence only sex ed pushers are going to defy the obvious, they should at least make their claims more entertaining. Virginity will grant you the ability to fly and speak to birds. Contraception causes vampires. Having sex outside of marriage will make your skin split and a 20-foot tall bright red demon will emerge from your fleshy husk. Kissing gives you polka-dot leprosy. I mean, if you're going to be unbound by facts or reality, why be boring?

ajuc 11y ago
> I mean, if you're going to be unbound by facts or reality, why be boring? To be more persuasive.
raverbashing 11y ago
Well they do that with Global Warming as well, so But it is unfair to blame only that group for "magical thinking"

criddell 11y ago

My kids get abstinence-only sex ed and it makes me laugh. If abstinence-based education was effective, they could eliminate the problem with childhood obesity by just telling kids to ignore their urges to overeat. To avoid dealing with bullshit from parents, the school hires an outside company to teach sex ed. Sometimes they failed in funny ways. In my daughter's class, they handed out a few Skittles and told kids to pass them around as the class went on. After a while they stopped to talk about the candy that had been handled by everybody and asked who would want to eat the now sticky, gross candy. They underestimated how picky kids are when it comes to Skittles - all were eaten.

newjersey 10y ago
> To avoid dealing with bullshit from parents, the school hires an outside company to teach sex ed. Sometimes they failed in funny ways. In my daughter's class, they handed out a few Skittles and told kids to pass them around as the class went on. After a while they stopped to talk about the candy that had been handled by everybody and asked who would want to eat the now sticky, gross candy. They underestimated how picky kids are when it comes to Skittles - all were eaten. Reminds me of this time at my Baptist (yes, the upper case C christian kind) university where someone did the same thing by biting a cookie. I ate the half-bitten cookie just out of spite. People are not cookies!