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Of the choice between abstinence-based education and comprehensive sex education, there can be no doubt that abstinence offers a superior approach to our young people. There has been a see-saw battle of statistics on both sides of the issue. To say the least, the landscape is a statistical mess. While abstinence is the better approach, if all it boils down to is “Just say no,” then it’s going to be largely ineffective.
The very terms abstinence v. comprehensive suggest that abstinence is lacking in completeness. Indeed, too often it is.
In reality, true abstinence is the approach that is most comprehensive, as it requires discipline and a strong internal locus of control which manifest in all areas of life. Age fifteen is not the time to begin the talk about self-control. If there are not longstanding habits by the time puberty arrives, the climb is that much steeper.
It starts in the toddler years. It begins with the lessons in obedience, with parents imposing the framework of routine. Part of the routine are the daily habits of caring for one’s body and living space; putting away toys after using them, daily bathing, etc.
In childhood, the habits increase and extend themselves to taking control of personal hygiene, doing homework in a timely manner, getting 8-10 hours of sleep per night, exercise and eating properly. Prayer and faith formation become integral at this phase in life, as do service to family and community.
A life in balance.
Self-love is essential to developing love of God and neighbor. In all that children do, they need abundant praise, even if they do things imperfectly. They need to understand that they are loved and lovable, that their bodies are the tabernacles of their souls and of the Holy Spirit. Having grasped the importance of their bodies through the diligent care they take of those bodies, they are then primed to understand the use of their bodies as gift. That gift is also tied up in the very idea of fidelity.
Everyone values the idea of fidelity, and not just sexual fidelity-but fidelity in every area of life. Fidelity is not some charism that appears on one’s wedding day. Fidelity is the fruit of self-discipline, which is faithfulness to self. It is what Shakespeare meant in Hamlet when he wrote:
“To thine own self be true,
and it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.”
In this light, abstinence ceases to be a “no” to self, a dying to pleasure, and becomes a yes to the fullness of life and joy. In being true to self, a self rooted in its identity with God, one is preserved from being false to any with whom they would be intimate.
In focussing too narrowly on waiting for marriage, one may miss the mark as badly as those who would encourage condom use. Waiting is not some prison term to be endured until the wedding day. It is a period of active growth and preparation for marriage. If unencumbered by the powerful emotional bonds created by sex, it also remains a period of clarity and discernment in choosing a mate, allowing one to arrive at the altar free of diseases and their sequelae, free of cynicism and sex-related emotional trauma, free of any basis of comparison between one’s spouse and past lovers. It is the period of education and establishing oneself in a trade or career. It is anything but static and quiescent.
This period of abstinence is necessary, as it is the period of character formation. It is the period of courtship where character being formed is character which needs to be discerned through the lens of objectivity. That lens becomes clouded by the subjective experience of sex. The value of this period in life has been artfully described by former U.S. Senator Dan Coats.
“Character cannot be summoned at the moment of crisis if it has been squandered by years of compromise and rationalization. The only testing ground for the heroic is the mundane. The only preparation for that one profound decision which can change a life, or even a nation, is those hundreds of half-conscious, self-defining, seemingly insignificant decisions made in private. Habit is the daily battleground of character.”
Next week, the data on abstinence.
Coming Home 
Effectiveness aside, the problem with taking this out of the home and church and into the public school system is that the message “wait until marriage” fails to acknowledge that many couples choose not to marry or are not legally permitted to marry.
the last bolded quote is really spot on…
Habit it the daily battleground of character.
Abstinence is a way of life that begins when a child is young. It’s a way of looking at your body and your sexuality. It’s seen as a gift to be given to someone very special someday within a committed marriage relationship.
A child’s modesty is at first protected by the parents.
The children are taught to respect their bodies and others bodies.
Then as children go through puberty, sexuality is portrayed as a gift. Instead of being given ALL the information at once, they are given only what they need for their age. For example, a 10 year old girl needs to know how her body will change in the next few years and why it is changing. She doesn’t necessarily need to know all the graphic details of sexual intercourse, which can be traumatizing, frightening.
As always sexuality is placed in context of the whole body person.
Without this frame of reference, sexuality becomes distorted and leads to many problems later on.
It’s too bad, this seems so hard for manypeople to understand. 😦
Having been a teen-ager at the time the so-called “sexual revolution” was just rearing its cheerful head, and finding logical sense in lyrics like “we don’t need no piece of paper from the city hall…” I have learned as much from watching the results for others, as from my own experience, that its not entirely true. However, as a student of history, I know that there has NEVER been a golden age when all young post-pubescents waiting chastely for holy matrimony, then remained true to their spouse for life. A large portion of every generation has experimented, or yielded to passion or temptation, and some cultures have even accepted that, without abandoning marriage as the ideal.
Incidentally, from what I’ve read recently in biology, and perhaps Gerard can clarify this, one thing we are dealing with is that the age of physical puberty is getting younger, at the same time as the age of political and economic independent is being deferered later. It was at one time common for girls to marry at 15, and boys to be supporting a family at 17, but now girls are hitting puberty at 12 or younger, while neither men nor women can support a family very well before 22.
Sex education should be multi-layered, like life. First, there are good reasons to save sex for marriage, and these are not heard to present. Second, in every generation, some have lived up to this ideal, and some have not. You are not doomed forever if you don’t. But even if you cross this line, try to retain a sense of respect for your partner. Have more in common than a quick urge. And, use contraception.
One reason sex education wasn’t so needed when most people lived in a rural agricultural environment is that children from a young age saw horses, cows, chickens and pigs mating, not to mention sheep. Also, houses weren’t very well insulated, certainly not built to modern code, and children had generally peeked through cracks in the floorboards from the loft at what mommy and daddy were doing, or stumbled upon older brothers and sisters somewhere in the hay. It wasn’t such a remote mystery. We don’t have to accept anyone’s ideological motivation, or the latest fad in grad school, to recognize that it takes more than the immediate family to give children a framework that will build character before the moment of crisis arrives.
True. And so many women become embittered after moving in and playing house, only to have Wally Wonderful take off after some fresh meat once the novelty is gone.
It comes back to seeing one’s whole person-mind, body, soul-as a priceless gift. That was the point of my post entitled “Of Bridal Veils and Little Girls”
One needn’t be religious to appreciate the destructiveness of cohabitation absent a covenantal commitment
Siarlys, you are correct that puberty is hitting earlier on average…it’s tied in with childhood obesity. I’m on a parenting forum where most of the women have noticed that menses has started once their daughters have hit 100 lbs. or so.
A major part of abstinence training, too, is discussing what the purpose of dating is. It has come to be considered a normal recreational activity among children as young eleven or twelve. And we wonder why someone who had their first “serious relationship” at age 12 starts engaging in sex by 14, 15, or 16?
After seeing how much emotional/physical baggage they brought into their marriage due to recreational dating, many parents are teaching their kids that dating is something you do when you feel emotionally, physically, and financially prepared for marriage and parenthood. This eliminates a lot of issues for parent and especially for the teen, as he/she blossoms into adulthood.
“After seeing how much emotional/physical baggage they brought into their marriage due to recreational dating, many parents are teaching their kids that dating is something you do when you feel emotionally, physically, and financially prepared for marriage and parenthood. This eliminates a lot of issues for parent and especially for the teen, as he/she blossoms into adulthood.”
Personally I find it sad for the children that their parents, based on their own bad experiences, are being so extreme . Teaching (or worse, not allowing) your children to not date until they are totally ready for marriage keeps them from a whole lot of social development and interactions, not to mention fun during high school and college.
One needn’t be religious to appreciate the destructiveness of cohabitation absent a covenantal commitment”
Hey, it’s a free country. Adults can make their own decisions. I had several very rewarding “cohabitations” before my marriage. Quite sure my cohab partners felt the same way.
What? what was uncivil about that Gerard? Mentioning that you would have difficulty with the message “wait until marriage” in public education where homosexuality and cohabitation are considered acceptable?
Or mentioning that there are some good marriages and bad marriages just as there are some good cohabitations and bad cohabitations?
Or was it my saying hi to Hal?
I honestly do not know what it could be.
Pick one monniker and stick with it please., not alternate spellings and letter cases.
Hal,
No one is disputing the freedom of the country. It is the right use of free will that is being discussed here. Plenty of people find immense satisfaction in their fornication. That doesn’t make it moral, nor does it prevent the coarsening of sensibilities in all too many, often not perceived as such.
Nor does the pleasure make it immoral Gerard.
And neither is cohabitation considered immoral by everyone.
Sorry Gerard. That capital s was unintentional.
Now, can you please explain to me what I did wrong in that missing comment?
So you replicated it here?
Yikes! Stupid iPhone! I just fixed it. Sorry.
except that you are no longer together with these women Hal, and have made a societal statement that commitment and marriage don’t matter
you have made a statement for serial monogamy which benefits the man mostly and is harmful to women and children…
indirectly by your actions and example, whether you want to admit it or not, you have played a part in helping destroy marriages, in contributing to the situation of single parenthood, the abandonment of children by their fathers (mostly), the disrespect of primarily women
MC,
I agree with all that you say. I would hasten to add that women bear equal culpability in their plight when agreeing to play house.
well first off, it depends upon what you mean by “fun”
fun means alot of girls ending up pregnant at 15, 16 and 17 because they started out “dating”
Secondly, to state that young teens who don’t date lack the same social development and interactions as those who do is about on par with your racist statement on the other thread.
I know teens who go to proms and dances as a group. There is no pairing off and no dating.
These same kids are active in alot of other social events, including a lot of charity work.
The focus is on the development of their personality and their skills.
The focus is not on looking “hot” for their immature date.
The focus is outward and not inward.
And they don’t have to deal with emotional crisis after crisis when they are dumped by boyfriends/girlfriends who change partners at the rate of lightning strikes.
you might be surprised to learn that not dating is very kosher with the “in” crowd in some high schools
absolutely I agree to an extent Gerard.
However, with the advent of OC, many women feel compelled to become sexually active with a man and equally compelled to live with him.
If they pass on these “choices”, he goes in search of fresh meat, as you so eloquently put it.
I have personally had this experience. 😦
“you have made a statement for serial monogamy which benefits the man mostly and is harmful to women and children”
When children are involved in a cohabitational relationship and that relationship fails, it can be harmful to children. Similarly when a marriage fails and there are children involved it can be harmful to them. It happens in both cases.
Furthermore, aside from the fact that women often end up being the primary caregiver after a realtionship ( marriage or otherwise) fails, how are women “harmed” more than men Mary Catherine? How do men benefit mostly?
first off your statement makes the assumption that cohabitating relationships are exactly the same as marriage
They are not.
cohabiting relationships last on average about 18 months with some longer, some shorter
it is this instability that generally benefits the man – he often leaves shortly after children come into the picture and with no commitment he feels he can leave at any time
at least in a marriage the couple usually makes a public commitment to one another before friends family and often God
secondly, children often bear the brunt of the abuse in cohabiting relationships.
usually the man is not keen on taking on responsibility for the children from another relationship
this can result in dysfunctional family life, abuse and even murder
these rates are much higher for cohabitating relationships
The single most important predictor of marriage break-up is cohabitation prior to marriage.
Well said Gerard. Women and men both are culpable for failed relationships, marriage included. We should be careful not to put all the blame on men. In your example above where Wally Wonderful leaves for “fresh meat” it could be his wife/partner that is the one leaving for “fresh meat”.
And Mary Catherine, I can assure you that many women feel compelled to become sexually active and to live with a man because it’s what they themselves want to do. They choose to do this over marriage or waiting for marriage. I have personally had this experience and have ABSOLUTELY no regrets!
I might ask you to justify your racist remark earlier:
Teaching (or worse, not allowing) your children to not date until they are totally ready for marriage keeps them from a whole lot of social development and interactions, not to mention fun during high school and college.
prove this wild statement. What social development skills do these teens lack?
What interactions do they miss out on?
Why is not dating, not fun? Asitiss/AsitisS/Asitis
no regrets in this life AsitisS
you assume your actions have no spiritual consequences….
I beg to differ
It’s also not the experience of many women and men who wish they had waited or not had so manysexual partners
Sure some made bad choices. Other didn’t. But I’m happen with mine . 🙂
Being an agnostic I have no worries about going to Hell for having had sex before marriage.
Like I said, no regrets.
Oh, I do believe you and I have been round and round on this one before a long time ago!
I’m so glad I don’t have an iphone. I’m too old to want to be completely connected at all times. I expect a youth backlash against being overconnected in another twenty years or so. Radical bands of young people will be smashing blackberries and running out into the woods to seek solitude and peace.
The cohabitation question is more complex than most slogans recognize. To borrow an analogy, one of the reasons some high schools have instituted random drug testing for extra-curricular sports and other programs is that it gives students who don’t REALLY want to a plausible reason to reject peer pressure. “Oh, I can’t take a chance, they might test me and I want to stay on the team.” One unfortunate result of the widespread availability of birth control is that young woman who used to say “Oh, no, I don’t want to get pregnant,” but really meant, no, I’m not ready for that, don’t have such an easy time saying no. Peer pressure is real, and it doesn’t always work to put the burden on the lady in question that she should just say she has no interest.
It is true that many people have cohabited without finding it degrading or demoralizing or coarsening. It is also true that many people have cohabited and found that it WAS degrading or demoralizing or coarsening. A freely offered moral code, which individuals are free to accept or reject, and which individuals can return to if the alternatives prove to be destructive, is about the best balance we are likely to achieve.
Because it is legal doesn’t mean it is the right choice. Because a church says so doesn’t mean it is the only way to be. But, what a church teaches just might be right, at least for many of those who hear it, and it should be a clear, firm voice available in the public square.
My comment at 6:24 was directed at your 6:11 comment by the way.
“What social development skills do these teens lack?
What interactions do they miss out on?
Why is not dating, not fun?”
First let’s establish: It’s not really teens we’re talking about. We’re talking about mature adults because that is what you would be by the time you are “emotionally, physically, and financially prepared for marriage and parenthood”. Now think about it again, what a twenty something year old who has never been on a date, never asked a girl out, never had a relationship (and I’m not referring to sex) might be lacking in terms of social skills and compared to someone who has?
I didn’t say that not dating isn’t fun. But dating is and they would be missing out on that. But hey, that’s not to say chess club, prayer groups, and a variety of other youth and adult group activities are not fun.
And btw, what racist remark?
Mary Catherine, leave children out of it for a moment as was the case in Hal’s relationships.
How are women harmed more than men?
“Personally I find it sad for the children that their parents, based on their own bad experiences, are being so extreme . Teaching (or worse, not allowing) your children to not date until they are totally ready for marriage keeps them from a whole lot of social development and interactions, not to mention fun during high school and college.”
oh wrong.
you yourself used the word “children” inreference to dating.
I’m not bothering anymore to argue with you .
You are a troll
Mary Catherine, my comment was clearly directed at Barbara’s comment which clearly referred to no dating until being ready for marriage. Clearly she wasn’t talking to children. I further made it clear what what age we were talking about by referring to what would be missed in high school and college.
Obviously when I used the word “children” I was not referring to
age, but rather their relationship to the parent. Children, as in offspring. I don’t know about yours, but my mom still refera to all of us as her children though we are all grown up with children (and some with grandchildren) of our own).
If you don’t wish to argue, that’s fine by me!
I’m not bothering Asitis. You can have this discussion with yourself since you keep changing the parameters of the discussion as has been apparent on other threads.
BTW, in case you haven’t noticed, teens are still legally children and parents ARE responsible for helping their children know good choices from bad to use a modern colloquialism.
Excuse me? I keep changing the parameters? Where have I done this?
I realize teens are legally children. But college students are not. And certainly when you are “emotionally, physically, and financially prepared for marriage and parenthood” you are far from being a child….. even if your mom still calls you one.
“Like I said, no regrets.”
ah spoken like a true libertine! 😉
you demonstrate a deep lack of parenting knowledge my dear
Even Barbara was talking about teens….
STOP changing the parameters of the discussion and then accusing people of doing the same
STOP thwarting meaningful discussion on this blog.
Really Mary Cat? Maybe you should go back and read her comment. She specifically said no dating until they were completely ready for marriage. In my mind that’s not teens.
Perhaps you do think teens are ready for marriage?maybe that why you keep insisting she isn’t referring to no dating through college and/ or establishing a career of some sort. That would be the only nice explanation. And I promised Gerard Id be nice 😉
If you read books about bio-chemical and hormonal development, most people do not reach full physical/mental maturity until their early twenties. Even if laws say that an 18-year-old is an adult, from a biochemical standpoint they are not yet fully formed. Furthermore, their development can be retarded by developmental factors (drugs, abuse, etc) that put stress on their brains. So, it is important even for young adults to receive a certain amount of protection. (Never mind that most people don’t blink an eye at parents continuing to financially and physically protect and support their young adult children, but get their knickers in a twist at the suggestion of parents interfering in a young adults romantic/sexual relationships.)
Unfortunately, most of the dating and marriage “advice” that children receive is from movies and television, and then we wonder why so many marriages end in divorce.
And dating can be fun…at least until people start being real with each other and things start going sour. Then it tends to be not so much fun for either party when it comes time for the break up and even for months after as the dumpee deals with his/her feelings of hurt, rejection, and anger (which they then bring into their expectations for their next relationship…and then the next one…and the next one…) My husband has a whole lecture he gives in his sociology class going over the many horrible ways of dumping someone that have been classified by sociologists.
I once had a boyfriend lament that any woman in the world can get laid anytime she wants to. All she has to do is walk into a bar and she can eventually find some man who will be willing to go home with her. He later dumped me because I wouldn’t put out (sound familiar, Mary Catherine?).
After awhile, I kind of found my commitment to virginity until marriage empowering…it helped me separate the sheep from the goats if you will. Promiscuity is held up as liberating for women, but when really the opposite is much more so.
Barboo77, an excellent post.
“After awhile, I kind of found my commitment to virginity until marriage empowering”
Barboo, clearly that was the right decision for you. And you found liberation in that. I am glad that you had the self-awareness and self-esteem to know what you wanted and to insist on it.
I am also glad that I did not live in a time when women were not free to make choices regarding their sexuality and how they would live their lives.
Speaking of children getting their education from movies and television… a lot of the explicit content is justified on the ground that life and events are being show “realistically.” I was thinking about that after watching the movie version of Jiummy Hoffa’s life. Every other sentence he used a ten letter curse word best abbreviated cs, the one I hear white thugs use all night long on a Greyhound, while black thugs use mf.
I believe that Hoffa, in private conversation with male cronies, used such language routinely. However, I am pretty certain that he would NEVER have used it around women and children, nor to an audience of 300 in an auditorium. Putting that language into a movie take the conversation out of its original context, and makes it something very different, which of course gives the audience a different message as to what is acceptable and even desirable.
Ditto for exposing children to “realistic” sexual scenes.
I agree SJ. I am constantly turning off the radio because of rap lyrics that are unsuitable for my sons. And they are teenagers. In fact, I find them unsuitable for an age.
How I miss the eighties!
“I am also glad that I did not live in a time when women were not free to make choices regarding their sexuality and how they would live their lives.”
Strange that is the EXACT scenario most young women face today – except that they feel the must make the “choice” to be sexually active.
Otherwise they are looked upon as weird and they are ridiculed.
I don’t think things have improved much for women today.
Most women are expected to go on the pill, and to have multiple sexual partners – at risk to themselves and the children that result from such behaviour.
Meanwhile, the men just walk away.
At least in the past, there was some societal pressure on men to support the woman.
Not any more.
I agree SJ. I am constantly turning off the radio because of rap lyrics that are unsuitable for my sons. And they are teenagers. In fact, I find them unsuitable for an age.
that might be right for you but maybe not for me!
😉