When myths fill in the gaps

April 4, 2008

When conservatives are successful in replacing comprehensive lessons on sexual health with abstinence-only, young people fill in the gaps with myths. (via Jessica and Amanda)

Some Florida teens believe drinking Mountain Dew or smoking marijuana will prevent pregnancy and that swallowing a capful of bleach will prevent HIV/AIDS.

One reason those dangerous myths have spread is the state’s reliance on abstinence-only sex education, say advocates of a bill to require a more comprehensive approach in Florida’s schools.

The measure narrowly won approval from a Senate committee Tuesday. Under the proposed legislation, schools would still be required to teach abstinence as the only sure way to prevent unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases, but they would have to teach more about sex.

It would require, for example, teaching about condoms and other methods of birth control and disease prevention.

Bleach? Mountain Dew? Oh my.

If we want more pregnant teens and STDs among young people, keep up the abstinence-only lessons.

This is just unbelievably stupid! Why do some people want their children utterly in the dark about biology? Bleach? Mountain Dew?

  • Most teens I talked to did not realize that males can leak sperm during intercourse and believed that “pulling it out” before ejaculation would prevent pregnancy. These conservative bitch about abortions but then refuse to teach kids how to prevent pregnancy or the truth about birth control methods or disease prevention. It’s like giving children money without teaching them about denominations or how to make change. What the hell do you think is gonna’ happen when they try to buy something.
    Victorian fear.

  • Don’t expect anything better from McCain.

    On Tuesday, McCain’s return to his old high school in Alexandria, Virginia, was not welcomed by all.

    A student in the crowd asked him, “We’re told this isn’t a political event, so what exactly is your purpose in being here?”

    McCain shot back, “I knew I should have cut this thing off. This meeting is over.”

  • Anecdotal evidence. How old are these teens? Are they in special-ed?
    Can they cipher? Can they read? Are they fluent in any languages?

    Otoh, the bill is great idea, of course.

  • Hey, some of the best lessons in life are life lessons. What better way to teach kids the dangers of getting pregnant than letting them get pregnant. They won’t make that mistake again, I can assure you…unless they do, but that just means the first lesson wasn’t good enough. And just think how stupid some girl will feel after she goes through the trouble of drinking bleach or (bleh!) Mountain Dew and then still getting pregnant. How embarrassing.

  • If I might be permitted a bit of gallows humor, drinking a bottle of bleach is at least a surefire way to avoid dying of HIV.

  • If American boys of today peddle the same myth that Polish boys of 45yrs ago did — that having sex regularly will cure zits — then I’m not surprised those girls think it’s worth drinking bleach…

  • The righties and fundies take some glee in the urban legends like drinking bleach to avoid pregnancy because the damage caused is a punishment for the “sinful” ways. But the kids affected aren’t only someone else’s children it is also their own children that are affected by this toxic misinformation. How can you claim to love your own children and allow ignorance to cause so much damage? It’s the maliciousness behind the forced ignorance that I can’t stand, but these guys do prefer behavior modification through fear rather than knowledge, just like with all their terror talk.

  • Not to play devil’s advocate but where are the parents who years ago set you down and discussed the birds and bees with you? Sex-Ed back in the sixties sort of augmented that discussion and cleared up any misconceptions (no pun intended) they might have passed along to you. It was not exactly comprehensive but it sure was better than “don’t do it”.

  • Bleach? Mountain Dew?

    Ewwwww. I’ll have a crab juice.

    Most teens I talked to did not realize that males can leak sperm during intercourse… -joey

    I do hope this is for your line of work or counseling of some sort. You’re not just talking to random teens about sex, right? 🙂

    Drinking bleach to cure/avoid HIV is only one step removed from the prevelant myth in some African nations that raping a virgin will cure HIV.

    Why am I not surprised it’s Florida? 🙂

  • I heard if you blow smoke up your keister you can’t contract an STD from anal intercourse

  • #14, would that include the government screwing us in said fashion?

    Maybe THAT’s what McCain’s ad was all about, hmmm?

  • Danp. @ 12,

    I wouldn’t know. I wasn’t nice and liked them better once they were past the zit stage themselves.

  • Sadly, here in New Mexico many girls are told similar myths. I have heard of where the girls are told if a boy drinks Mt Dew and/or if she douches with Mt Dew right after sex then she can’t get pregnant. Or the real sad case of one girl who was told that if she had sex with a boy only once then she couldn’t get pregnant – so she had multiple partners and, as you can guess, she got pregnant. (Friends of mine work in the school district and I get to hear horror stories all the time – makes me glad I don’t have any kids.)

    And the people who want to teach sex education in the schools want to do the abstinence-only route. One of the “teachers” goes as far as to tell girls that premarital sex will lower their self-esteem and make them depressed and suicidal, like it did her.

    While I can intellectually agree that abstinence-only is a laudable goal, I’m very much a realist. Kids should be taught how to prevent STDs and unwanted pregnancies with the facts, not myths.

  • we always said (40 or so years ago) that the only birth control pill approved by the catholic church was a st. joseph aspirin held tightly between the knees.

  • If we want more pregnant teens and STDs among young people, keep up the abstinence-only lessons.

    Yes. The teen pregnancy rate has gone up 30% in the past two years after 8 years of decline up to 2000. Last week the CDC reported that 26% of girls between 14-18 have tontacted a sexually-transmitted disease.

    But John Cleese has it right when we want to discuss why these Taliban scum wan to promote this sort of idiocy:

    “It has struck me that people who aren’t getting enough sex are always very fascinated by it, even if the fascination takes the form of them being very very cross that other people are getting some.”

  • That bleach thing reminds me of one of the cures for snakebite in eastern Nicaragua if a fer-de-lance bit you: drink gasoline. It was very effective in keeping people from dying of snakebite, as you can imagine.

  • If we don’t teach sex ed is school, where exactly are people going to get this information when they become adults ? They always ask kids the questions, let’s start asking the adults the same questions. Then people might truly understand how problematic their policies are.

    I suspect the myths Kinsey wrote about 50-60 years ago are still floating around as truths. Good meaning parents could be passing bad information to their children.

    My health teacher (football coach) scared the crap out us with his ‘football player who pulled out and still got the girl pregnant’ story. According to coach, he lost his scholarship, she put off college and they didn’t live happily ever after. I have no idea if it was true, but I can say this, every time I was thinking about going in without my safety gear, coach’s story was right there reminding me of the consequences.

    So when Obama speaks of a teenager being punished with a baby, I agree and if the god damn christians would get off there pulpits and teach kids that it’s not a blessing at 16, they just might scare some of those kids enough to avoid some un-wanted pregnancies.

  • Look… this isn’t our parents world anymore. That said, MOST… IF NOT ALL PARENTS teach their own children sex education starting at a VERY YOUNG AGE, because they want to protect them – I think it is fine for schools to teach abstinence, and when I was a kid, we learned about condoms, the pill, and STD’s… SO WHY DID THAT CHANGE??? Only 2 girls got pregnant in my school, and they both WANTED the babies… because of emotional delusions that made them believe they would be loved now. MAYBE THE PROBLEM IS NOT SEX EDUCATION, BUT THE LACK OF LOVE AND ATTENTION THESE KIDS ARE GETTING. Maybe, schools should add a course on HOW TO LOVE YOURSELF AND WHO YOU ARE AS A PERSON!!! AND focus less on “how to have sex” and more on providing information to protect your MIND AND YOUR BODY in their sex ed lessons. BY THE WAY, have ANY OF YOU ever read “SONGS OF SOLOMON”… AS AN ADULT? Be honest with yourself, and really think back to how the first time you had sex and HOW IT EMOTIONALLY CHANGED YOU!!! Suddenly you made decisions based on irrational thought patterns, because you were afraid to be hurt or embarrassed if “things didn’t work out” with your “first”. Maybe you went from being an outgoing person full of life to being grumpy and on the prowl for your next fix or just dropped off the social scene while you consumed yourself with your “sex-partner”… Do you really think this is a healthy thing to do for a teenager who should be enjoying “freedom from responsibilities” and experiencing things you won’t have time to do when you “grow up”? SEX EDUCATION STARTS IN THE HOME. IT CAN BE EXPANDED IN SCHOOLS AND SHOULD BE, TO AN EXTENT THAT IT IS FOR THE GOOD OF THE CHILD AND “NOT POLITICAL GAIN”!!! By the way, I do have children… and we talk about this subject as much as my child can take it – in other words, until he gets embarrassed, and then we know we can stop there and pick up again later when he is emotionally ready to understand and learn. My daughter is only 3 and just started talking, so we haven’t discussed the topic with her yet. But my son is 12 and we started teaching him when he was in 2nd grade… only what was appropriate for his age. I think parents should be the ones to decided when and what that should be. OTHERWISE THEY ARE NOT BEING PARENTS!!!. GET OVER IT AND DISCUSS IT!!!

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