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you have to admit that abstinence is the ultimate way to avoid getting HIV/AIDS

Death is the ultimate way; although you won't live to not get it.

But abstinence is as much of reality as unicorns; it is a non-starter. You can tell teens till your blue in the face not to do and they will every time.

Avatar 720 wrote:

you have to admit that abstinence is the ultimate way to avoid getting HIV/AIDS

Death is the ultimate way; although you won't live to not get it.

What if someone buggers your corpse?

It could happen.

Ahtman wrote:But abstinence is as much of reality as unicorns; it is a non-starter. You can tell teens till your blue in the face not to do and they will every time.

So we shouldn't try to support ideals because no one will live up to them?

Ahtman wrote:But abstinence is as much of reality as unicorns; it is a non-starter. You can tell teens till your blue in the face not to do and they will every time.

I think some might.

Every time is a bit of a stretch.


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Amaya wrote:

Ahtman wrote:But abstinence is as much of reality as unicorns; it is a non-starter. You can tell teens till your blue in the face not to do and they will every time.

So we shouldn't try to support ideals because no one will live up to them?

I think it's more of a kneejerk reaction to someone saying that maybe having sex with random strangers isn't a good idea. It seems to have been programmed into a large amount of people.

Ahtman wrote:But abstinence is as much of reality as unicorns; it is a non-starter. You can tell teens till your blue in the face not to do and they will every time.

That’s just silly. About half of American teens are abstinent anyway, in the middle of a VERY sexual culture. If you educated people about the benefits of abstinence and you didn’t ostracize those who practiced it that number could be much higher.

I always say just because YOU were not abstinent don’t assume others would not, and haven’t made that choice.

ArtfcllyFlvrd wrote:To second already stated opinions, I think the fundamental flaw in the article is the assumption that Jesus would do his work through the government. Jesus was not a government man. He didn’t use government to further his ministry, and he didn’t use his ministry to influence government. That said, if you believe in Jesus you should use the morals he taught in everything you do, but I think this article takes that a place it doesn’t belong.

In his time, the Priests were a ruling class, and the law was a religious thing. The two were very much intertwined. By trashing the economic structure of the temple steps, that was as much a statement about the state of government and economics as it was about religious corruption, because the two were connected.

ArtfcllyFlvrd wrote:

Ahtman wrote:But abstinence is as much of reality as unicorns; it is a non-starter. You can tell teens till your blue in the face not to do and they will every time.

That’s just silly. About half of American teens are abstinent anyway, in the middle of a VERY sexual culture. If you educated people about the benefits of abstinence and you didn’t ostracize those who practiced it that number could be much higher.

I always say just because YOU were not abstinent don’t assume others would not, and haven’t made that choice.

That's why I'm for both.

Teach abstinence, but also add the whole "If you absolutely can't restrain yourself from that truck stop hooker at least wrap your rascal."

I don't see what the big problem would be.

If you will read the words I wrote, it didn't say every single teen ever would have sex, just that teens as a general group will. Abstinence only doesn't work, it never has and never will. It has the virtue of ignoring reality and teaching humans that something that is normal and natural is dirty and could kill them. The more informed people are on what it means to be sexually responsible the less likely they are to engage in risky behavior. Making it seem like some terrifying event is disingenuous when considering that most for humans sex will be a part of their life in some capacity that.

It is also true that if you never leave your house you can avoid all sorts of problems but that doesn't mean most people want to live that way or that it is generally healthy to do so.

The options on human sexuality are the false choice fallacy of abstinence or risky behavior.

yeenoghu wrote:

ArtfcllyFlvrd wrote:To second already stated opinions, I think the fundamental flaw in the article is the assumption that Jesus would do his work through the government. Jesus was not a government man. He didn’t use government to further his ministry, and he didn’t use his ministry to influence government. That said, if you believe in Jesus you should use the morals he taught in everything you do, but I think this article takes that a place it doesn’t belong.

In his time, the Priests were a ruling class, and the law was a religious thing. The two were very much intertwined. By trashing the economic structure of the temple steps, that was as much a statement about the state of government and economics as it was about religious corruption, because the two were connected.

Sorta, kinda, not really. All real government administration has been taken over by the Romans. And most political activity in the region centered around the Jews relationship with the Romans. If Jesus had really wanted to be a political figure, like some people wanted him to be, he would have directed his teachings at the Roman rulers, which he did not. Yes religion and government were intertwined with the Jews, but Jesus purposefully avoided the hot political issues of the day.

Ahtman wrote:If you will read the words I wrote, it didn't say every single teen ever would have sex, just that teens as a general group will. Abstinence only doesn't work, it never has and never will. It has the virtue of ignoring reality and teaching humans that something that is normal and natural is dirty and could kill them.

It could kill them, or give them incurable diseases that grow warts or itchy blisters on their gubbinz. What you're saying shouldn't be taught is actually true.


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Ahtman wrote:The options on human sexuality are the false choice fallacy of abstinence or risky behavior.

It's not a false choice though.

Any kind of sex is riskier than abstinence. It's mitigated by using condoms and being selective about partners or being in an exclusive relationship or whatever but it's still riskier than abstinence.

Abstinence will make teens explode.

Or so I heard.

When I was a teenager.

After I had to clean the sheets.

Ahtman wrote:If you will read the words I wrote, it didn't say every single teen ever would have sex, just that teens as a general group will. Abstinence only doesn't work, it never has and never will. It has the virtue of ignoring reality and teaching humans that something that is normal and natural is dirty and could kill them. The more informed people are on what it means to be sexually responsible the less likely they are to engage in risky behavior. Making it seem like some terrifying event is disingenuous when considering that most for humans sex will be a part of their life in some capacity that.

It is also true that if you never leave your house you can avoid all sorts of problems but that doesn't mean most people want to live that way or that it is generally healthy to do so.

The options on human sexuality are the false choice fallacy of abstinence or risky behavior.

It's not about making it dirty, it’s about setting in it's proper context. The safest, healthiest, best way to practice sex is to wait until your married and have one lifelong sexual partner. It's best for you, it's best for your partner, it's best for the children you will inevitably have.

I know not everyone will choose that model, it’s their life. But we are doing our kids a serious disservice by not explaining to them what the optimal model is.

Again, you can also get sick from all sorts of things even if you never have sex. Are you also advocating never leaving the house? Telling people that if their only options are a lifetime of syphilis or never having sex is patently absurd.


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ArtfcllyFlvrd wrote:The safest, healthiest, best way to practice sex is to wait until your married and have one lifelong sexual partner.

Been watching the 700 Club have we?

Wow this thread fell into the toilet, but not in the manner I was expecting.

Ahtman wrote:Again, you can also get sick from all sorts of things even if you never have sex. Are you also advocating never leaving the house? Telling people that if their only options are a lifetime of syphilis or never having sex is patently absurd.

I feel badly that I'm reading such a blatant strawman from you, Ahtman. You're better than that.

What is your point, exactly? That you're going to die anyway so do what you want? Sounds like the cavalier attitude of someone explaining why they smoke.

ArtfcllyFlvrd wrote:The safest, healthiest, best way to practice sex is to wait until your married and have one lifelong sexual partner. It's best for you, it's best for your partner, it's best for the children you will inevitably have.

What if it turns out that because neither myself nor my wife have ever had sex that we're both crap at it, we don't enjoy it, and get divorced?

I mean if the metric by which you're judging what is best is "what has the lowest risk" then sure, I guess. Except life is risky. You could die crossing the road. You could die in your house. You could die doing absolutely anything.

Your metric sucks.

Frazzled wrote:Wow this thread fell into the toilet, but not in the manner I was expecting.

Well, we like to keep the mods on their toes and amused at the same time.

Monster Rain wrote:

Ahtman wrote:Again, you can also get sick from all sorts of things even if you never have sex. Are you also advocating never leaving the house? Telling people that if their only options are a lifetime of syphilis or never having sex is patently absurd.

I feel badly that I'm reading such a blatant strawman from you, Ahtman. You're better than that.

What is your point, exactly? That you're going to die anyway so do what you want? Sounds like the cavalier attitude of someone explaining why they smoke.

That you don't know the difference between a strawman and reductio ad absurdem by now also makes me sad. That you don't understand the point makes it doubly sad. The point was not a call for nihilism in any sense, if anything it would be the opposite.

WARBOSS TZOO wrote:I mean if the metric by which you're judging what is best is "what has the lowest risk" then sure, I guess. Except life is risky. You could die crossing the road. You could die in your house. You could die doing absolutely anything.

I thought "what has the lowest risk" was the point of the conversation.


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Ahtman wrote:That you don't know the difference between a strawman and reductio ad absurdem by now also makes me sad. That you don't understand the point makes it doubly sad. The point was not a call for nihilism in any sense, if anything it would be the opposite.

It sure looked like an easily dismissed caricature of my original point, but oh well. Either way, it was a fallacy. I suppose it could have been both.

It also seemed that since you were making the point that you could die at any moment doing any number of things it somehow made fact that abstinence is more effective than any type of safe sex invalid.

Edited for clarity.

Monster Rain wrote:

WARBOSS TZOO wrote:I mean if the metric by which you're judging what is best is "what has the lowest risk" then sure, I guess. Except life is risky. You could die crossing the road. You could die in your house. You could die doing absolutely anything.

I thought "what has the lowest risk" was the point of the conversation.

I'm not saying that if practiced correctly abstinence isn't the safest form of birth control/sti control/whatever.

What it does have is a very high failure rate. I forget the name of the statistic, but I'd be suprised if you hadn't heard of it, where states that taught abstinence only had a higher teen pregnancy rate than states which taught actual sex education.

But this is beside the point, everything in life has a certain level of risk. You might never find someone willing to marry your ass is one of the risks with the approach that Artlksnfnsdfnsd is advocating.

Ahtman wrote:

Frazzled wrote:Wow this thread fell into the toilet, but not in the manner I was expecting.

Well, we like to keep the mods on their toes and amused at the same time.

WARBOSS TZOO wrote:What it does have is a very high failure rate. I forget the name of the statistic, but I'd be suprised if you hadn't heard of it, where states that taught abstinence only had a higher teen pregnancy rate than states which taught actual sex education.

Yeah, that's the thing. I'm not really talking about what is the most likely to catch on. I was just saying that abstinence is more effective than anything else if you can pull it off.

Like I said, I think a combination of both approaches is the best way to go. I can't get mad at someone who thinks that they can come up with a way to effectively teach abstinence though, since I don't want more people getting HIV if we can avoid it.

Ahtman wrote:Again, you can also get sick from all sorts of things even if you never have sex. Are you also advocating never leaving the house? Telling people that if their only options are a lifetime of syphilis or never having sex is patently absurd.


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ArtfcllyFlvrd wrote:The safest, healthiest, best way to practice sex is to wait until your married and have one lifelong sexual partner.

Been watching the 700 Club have we?

I said I was one of the people this article would be targeting . But you are taking a simple, logical argument to ridiculous proportions to try and make it look silly, this is exactly why people get pressured into sex when they may have otherwise remained abstinent. You make the logical option seems ridiculous or un cool and people don’t listen to the logic.

WARBOSS TZOO wrote:
What if it turns out that because neither myself nor my wife have ever had sex that we're both crap at it, we don't enjoy it, and get divorced?

I mean if the metric by which you're judging what is best is "what has the lowest risk" then sure, I guess. Except life is risky. You could die crossing the road. You could die in your house. You could die doing absolutely anything.

Your metric sucks.

The argument that “what if you both suck” is simply a bad argument. First, as a married man I get a lot more practice and chances to improve than any single person. Second, who doesn’t figure out how to be decent at very quickly? It’s not rocket science. Third, if you get divorced because you can’t figure out how to satisfy one another you shouldn’t have been married in the first place.

And it is best for all of the following reasons:
1. You have zero, zero chance of contracting STDs or passing them to someone you care about.
2. You are emotionally invested in your marriage and partner in a way someone with multiples partners just can’t be.
3. Marriage is associated with something good and special, and not just the day to day grind of life.
4. There is zero, zero chance of bringing a child into an uncommitted relationship. Now not every marriage will last, and not every married couple is ready for a child, but two people who at least want to be together for a life time is much better than two casual partners who aren’t sure they want to stay together.

The last one is the biggest reason in my mind. When you sleep with someone you play not just with your life but with the life of the child you could create. Being abstinent until marriage is the best decision you can make for them.

On a serious note I think the 700 club is awesome. I always tune in when im in the States.

WARBOSS TZOO wrote:
Except for how it [abstinence sex education] doesn't work.

Abstinence sex educations works to a lesser degree than comprehensive sex education. Both will delay the age of the first time of intercourse, but abstinence education falls short in preventing the spread of STD's along with teen pregnancy simply because of the fact that children aren't taught about condom usage in abstinence only courses.

I'm all for comprehensive sex education personally, but abstinence only education does have some merit even though its less than comprehensive education.

For sex education we also have to take into account the psyche of the teens being taught sex ed. Most of them are egocentric and think that STDs and Pregnancy won't happen to them. In fact some will even go far as to say that they don't have to wear condoms because they can tell if a person has an STD or not.

ArtfcllyFlvrd wrote:And it is best for all of the following reasons:
1. You have zero, zero chance of contracting STDs or passing them to someone you care about.

a) Unless one of you cheats.
b) Unless one of you contracts an STD without having sex. (Giving CPR to someone positive, for instance.)

ArtfcllyFlvrd wrote:2. You are emotionally invested in your marriage and partner in a way someone with multiples partners just can’t be.

Why does this require marriage?

Further, why can't I be emotionally invested in multiple people? I have more than one friend, after all.

ArtfcllyFlvrd wrote:3. Marriage is associated with something good and special, and not just the day to day grind of life.

Perhaps for those of us who didn't grow up in broken homes.

ArtfcllyFlvrd wrote:4. There is zero, zero chance of bringing a child into an uncommitted relationship. Now not every marriage will last, and not every married couple is ready for a child, but two people who at least want to be together for a life time is much better than two casual partners who aren’t sure they want to stay together.

The last one is the biggest reason in my mind. When you sleep with someone you play not just with your life but with the life of the child you could create. Being abstinent until marriage is the best decision you can make for them.

If you have to be married to want to be with someone for the rest of your life, gays clearly cannot want this in any state in which they can't marry, correct? (This isn't me assuming that you're anti-gay marriage, incidentally, I'm just using it as an extension of your logic.)

Why is marriage a requisite for a stable relationship?

Marriage requirments are a typically american idea, we were founded by protestants and puritans. If anyone says otherwise they don't know their history too well. The New England colonies were puritans who fled England due to religious prosecution, the southern colonies were economic colonies established by some English businesses. (also important to know whenthe english talk about establishing america as a colony because about half of the original 13 states were founded by people fleeing England).

Its also why we have a majority of people who support abstinence only programs.

Even though abstinence guarantees that one will not get pregnant or contract an STD, the issue with it is getting people to go along with it.



The chance of contracting HIV/AIDS from doing something legal( not sharing needles when shooting up for example) is a lot lower than contracting it from blood transfusions, while giving medical aid to someone with HIV/AIDS, etc.

ArtfcllyFlvrd wrote:But you are taking a simple, logical argument to ridiculous proportions to try and make it look silly

I don't have to try and make it look silly. It's silliness is prima facie as well as incredibly biased. There was also nothing simple or logical to it.

ArtfcllyFlvrd wrote: You make the logical option seems ridiculous or un cool and people don’t listen to the logic.

Outside of having a restricted view of human nature and motivations, you also misuse the term logic, like you learned it from Spock in Star Trek.

WARBOSS TZOO wrote:Why does this require marriage?

Further, why can't I be emotionally invested in multiple people? I have more than one friend, after all.
...
If you have to be married to want to be with someone for the rest of your life, gays clearly cannot want this in any state in which they can't marry, correct? (This isn't me assuming that you're anti-gay marriage, incidentally, I'm just using it as an extension of your logic.)

Why is marriage a requisite for a stable relationship?

Obviously you're not married.

biccat wrote:

WARBOSS TZOO wrote:Why does this require marriage?

Further, why can't I be emotionally invested in multiple people? I have more than one friend, after all.
...
If you have to be married to want to be with someone for the rest of your life, gays clearly cannot want this in any state in which they can't marry, correct? (This isn't me assuming that you're anti-gay marriage, incidentally, I'm just using it as an extension of your logic.)

Why is marriage a requisite for a stable relationship?

Obviously you're not married.

Correct. I also don't want to be. Not because I have no-one to marry, incidentally. Also not because I'm a commitment phobe. I simply disagree with the legal obligations that it commits me to in the event that I get divorced.