Professor attends and live tweets sons Sex Education Class. Hilarity Ensues.

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**Peregrine**

cincydooley wrote:
You're welcome to disassociate sex from the "high risk behavior" category; I believe it should be firmly planted there.

And you are wrong. Sex, when done right, is a fairly low-risk activity. Giving out car keys is way more dangerous than the inherent risks of sex. It only becomes high-risk behavior if you ignore the options that minimize risk (like not wearing a seatbelt). And that means that, rather than a futile effort to stop people from having sex at all, education should focus on effectively using those options to minimize risk.

Additionally, from the 2nd article:

The nature of casual sex relationships may, however, present a risk factor in and of itself. These relationships may be particularly likely to be impersonal, lacking in the potential to provide emotional fulfillment. People having a string of these relationships may turn to the self-medication provided by alcohol or drugs. As the authors point out, drinking alcohol to cope with feelings of loneliness and despair can pave the way for later substance dependence.

Definite causation? No. But there's certainly correlation.

Except now you're talking about casual sex, not sex in general. And the issue isn't the sex, it's the lack of supportive relationships. Presumably that same risk of drug and alcohol abuse would apply to someone who has no relationships (or sex) at all.

There was no significant association between number of sex partners and later anxiety and depression. Increasing numbers of sex partners were associated with increasing risk of substance dependence disorder at all three ages.

You're right. You don't see a problem with the 2nd part of the abstract, which I've put in bold....?

The issue is that:

1) It's only evidence that they both happen together. Does sex cause drug abuse? Does drug abuse cause sex? Are both caused simultaneously by something else?

2) It probably doesn't follow a nice linear graph from zero to infinite sex partners and zero to 100% risk of drug addiction. Going from zero to one sex partner, or from one to two, probably has very little connection to drug addiction risks. If the rise in addiction risk doesn't happen until you're talking about a significantly higher than average number of sex partners (going from "we're in a relationship now, let's have sex" to getting drunk at parties and sleeping with random strangers) then it has very little relevance to most people.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

PhantomViper wrote:
Also the original premise was sexual repression vs normal sex life. The alternative to abstinence is not downright overindulgence in sex practices, its having a normal and healthy sex life.

Exactly.

**Hordini**

PhantomViper wrote:
A gentleman by the name of Sigmund Freud (and many, many, many more Psychoanalysts and Psychologists), disagree with you. But I'm looking forward to reading your research on the subject.

You know that Freudian psychology and psychoanalysis is incredibly outdated, right?

**Cheesecat**

Hordini wrote:
PhantomViper wrote:
A gentleman by the name of Sigmund Freud (and many, many, many more Psychoanalysts and Psychologists), disagree with you. But I'm looking forward to reading your research on the subject.

You know that Freudian psychology and psychoanalysis is incredibly outdated, right?

Yeah, Freud is a hack.

**Hordini**

Cheesecat wrote:
Hordini wrote:
PhantomViper wrote:
A gentleman by the name of Sigmund Freud (and many, many, many more Psychoanalysts and Psychologists), disagree with you. But I'm looking forward to reading your research on the subject.

You know that Freudian psychology and psychoanalysis is incredibly outdated, right?

Yeah, Freud is a hack.

I wouldn't call him a hack. He was extremely influential and wrote some very important works. But nowadays he probably has more influence in the fields of German Studies and Literary Analysis than current practices and therapies in clinical psychology. In any case, he doesn't really have a meaningful place in a serious discussion of high school sex ed.

**Cheesecat**

Yeah, you're right I was being hyperbolic.

**Ouze**

PhantomViper wrote:As for the third one, its from the Heritage Foundation and that alone is reasons to disqualify it from any kind of serious discussion.

cincydooley wrote:
...I feel pretty comfortable listening to her as an authority.

I have very little interest in the OP but would like to mention that the Heritage Foundation is a right-wing infographic crap factory and you should seriously reconsider your trust in anything they say. For example, today they sharted out a brief that said that states recognizing gay marriage is likely to increase abortion rates using science numbers.

Unfortunately the current state of science is that it's sometimes a whore who will service whoever leaves the money for the grant on the dresser. After all, the tobacco companies have had scientists looking for a link between cigarettes and cancer for 50 years now, and geez, wouldn't you know, they just couldn't find one.

Nonetheless, what does your common sense tell you about the likelihood of gay couples and how it will impact abortions? If you come to the reasonable conclusion that gay couples are significantly less likely to need an abortion, then what do you then think about the foundation that would commission, fund and then publish such a study - would you consider them to be trustworthy? Does your critical thinking tell you that someone who describes themselves as a conservative think tank is likely to be conservative first in a way that trades heavily in confirmation bias?

Some of the things they say are clearly going to be true but you should definitely look at them with a very skeptical eye.

**MrDwhitey**

Isn't the American College of Pediatrics the one that pushed the idea that same sex attraction is a curable illness?

They sound like good people to listen to.

Actually... reading about their founding being in response to the American Academy of Pediatricians deciding not to be bigots over gay people, I'm liking them a lot more.

**Co'tor Shas**

IIRC, they backed out of that?

**MrDwhitey**

Starting it in the first place given when they were founded...

(after the 90s)

A number of prominent researchers have complained that ACPeds mischaracterized or misused their work to advance its agenda.[1][9] Gary Remafedi, a pediatrician at the University of Minnesota, found his research being cited by ACPeds to argue that schools should deny support to gay teenagers. Remafedi complained that ACPeds had fundamentally mischaracterized his work, saying: "It's obvious that they didn't even read my research. I mean, they spelled my name wrong every time they cited it." The organization refused to correct or retract its assertions, leading Remafedi to state that ACPeds had "deliberately distorted my research for malicious purposes."[1] Responding to claims by ACPeds that same-sex attraction could be "cured", Francis Collins, a geneticist and director of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, denounced ACPeds' use of his work, noting it was "disturbing" to see ACPeds use his scientific work in a "misleading and incorrect" way by taking work from one of his books out of context to "support an ideology that can cause unnecessary anguish and encouraged prejudice" against schoolchildren.[9] Warren Throckmorton, a therapist who specializes in sexual orientation issues, similarly complained that his research had been misused, saying of ACPeds: "They say they're impartial and not motivated by political or religious concerns, but if you look at who they're affiliated with and how they're using the research, that's just obviously not true."[1]

Frank Rich, writing in the New York Times, described ACPeds as a "political organization peddling homophobic junk-science."[12] In an amicus brief, the National Association of Social Workers described ACPeds as a "small and marginal group" which was "out of step with the research-based position of the AAP and other medical and child welfare authorities."[3] PFLAG identifies the American College of Pediatricians as an anti-equality organization, describing the group as a "small splinter group of medical professionals who do not support the mainstream view of the American Academy of Pediatricians (AAP) that homosexuality is a normal aspect of human diversity."[13]

Edit: Holy gak, going around reading more about the ACP, citing them as evidence or whatever is on par with using Alex Jones. Wow. The only time it's worth linking to them it seems is if you want a laugh.

**A Town Called Malus**

Co'tor Shas wrote:
IIRC, they backed out of that?

Well their page still lists their belief that a mother/father household provides the best start for children, with no evidence to back it up.

As to gay marriage increasing abortions, did they think that all of these homosexual men and women were going to suddenly start getting pregnant randomly after they were married?

If anything homosexual couples could be better than heterosexual couples when it comes to children, as the likelihood of them having a child accidentally is slim to none. Which means that when they do have a child they've thought long and hard about it and have had to undergo surrogacy, IVF etc. or passed the criteria to be able to adopt.

**Kilkrazy**

It is like saying that the high coefficient of correlation between drunkenness and car crashes shows that bad drivers are likely to compensate for their inadequacy by heavy drinking.

**Frazzled**

Well their page still lists their belief that a mother/father household provides the best start for children, with no evidence to back it up.

You have to show evidence, its not. All factors BUTgender have to be equal.

**cincydooley**

Ouze wrote:
PhantomViper wrote:As for the third one, its from the Heritage Foundation and that alone is reasons to disqualify it from any kind of serious discussion.

cincydooley wrote:
...I feel pretty comfortable listening to her as an authority.

I have very little interest in the OP but would like to mention that the Heritage Foundation is a right-wing infographic crap factory and you should seriously reconsider your trust in anything they say. For example, today they sharted out a brief that said that states recognizing gay marriage is likely to increase abortion rates using science numbers.

But Healy wasn't associated with the Heritage foundation, and she's the author of the article.

**MrDwhitey**

The Age of Autism anti-vaccine group named her 2008 Person of the Year[2] for her support of the discredited[3][4] hypothesis that vaccines are linked to autism.

Healy became the focus of controversy when she questioned the 2004 finding of the Institute of Medicine that the evidence refuting a link between childhood vaccinations and autism was conclusive. She suggested a government conspiracy against further research in a nationally televised CBS interview with Sharyl Attkisson.[12]

Cool.

**Sienisoturi**

What are we arguing even at this point?

Anyways, just to bring some meat to this discussion I would like to point out, that while saying that correlation = casuation would be silly, equally silly would be to say that correlation is irrelevant, as correlation implies that there must be a factor that either influences both, or that one of the subjects affects the other.

**MrDwhitey**

http://www.tylervigen.com/ is always a fun website to look at.

**Sienisoturi**

MrDwhitey wrote:
http://www.tylervigen.com/ is always a fun website to look at.

That site is just silly. What I was talking about was comparing two different things and seeing their correlation. What that site however does is, that it compares two trendlines, which have a tendency to look like lines if there is correlation, and therefore it is very easy to make graphs like that.

**cincydooley**

MrDwhitey wrote:

Healy became the focus of controversy when she questioned the 2004 finding of the Institute of Medicine that the evidence refuting a link between childhood vaccinations and autism was conclusive. She suggested a government conspiracy against further research in a nationally televised CBS interview with Sharyl Attkisson.[12]

Cool.

So....she questioned a study.

The rest of her record seems pretty sterling....

**A Town Called Malus**

cincydooley wrote:
MrDwhitey wrote:

Healy became the focus of controversy when she questioned the 2004 finding of the Institute of Medicine that the evidence refuting a link between childhood vaccinations and autism was conclusive. She suggested a government conspiracy against further research in a nationally televised CBS interview with Sharyl Attkisson.[12]

Cool.

So....she questioned a study.

The rest of her record seems pretty sterling....

No. She supported, after it was proven scientifically wrong and found that the author had falsified his research, the study which caused the entire Autism-MMR scare.

The author of that study had his medical licence revoked, to put it into perspective of how bad that research paper was.

To then suggest some government conspiracy when your whole argument was proven to be completely without proof is not good science and suggests a complete lack of impartiality.

**Frazzled**

I hate to say but thats a good point.

**Peregrine**

So, what exactly is the relevance of this little tangent about which other beliefs she might have had? The fact that she was obviously wrong about some unrelated thing doesn't change anything about the situation in the OP.

**A Town Called Malus**

Peregrine wrote:
So, what exactly is the relevance of this little tangent about which other beliefs she might have had? The fact that she was obviously wrong about some unrelated thing doesn't change anything about the situation in the OP.

If I remember correctly it was about finding evidence that sexual activity has a detrimental effect on teenagers.

Most of the posted evidence seemed to lead back to similar sources, who were unreliable and some of which had been accused of misrepresentation in the past.

**motyak**

Sienisoturi wrote:
MrDwhitey wrote:
http://www.tylervigen.com/ is always a fun website to look at.

That site is just silly. What I was talking about was comparing two different things and seeing their correlation. What that site however does is, that it compares two trendlines, which have a tendency to look like lines if there is correlation, and therefore it is very easy to make graphs like that.

It was in response, I believe, to this part of your first post;

as correlation implies that there must be a factor that either influences both, or that one of the subjects affects the other

Because you neglected the third possibility, that they both just happened to be acting that way and while variables were impacting upon the numbers of both issues we are concerned with, they are doing so in a way that is unrelated to the other one.