Teenage 'virginity pledges' are ineffective

http://esciencenews.com/articles/20...ges.may.help.postpone.intercourse.among.youth

I felt like posting the above, because many posters on this thread give the impression that virginity pledges only apply to teen girls.

 

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bells i compleatly agree with you. Firstly this is WORSE than useless as far as preventing both unplaned teenage pregancy (the UNPLANED is the most important part of that sentace i must add) and the transmission of STD's. I also agree that the whole thing is creepy. Discovering your sexuality is the apsolute most important developmental change in adolessants and at best all this does is delay that. I wonder how many people who do this end up marrying the first person they want to get into bed with and then get stuck in really stupid relationships

 

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I wish I did this pledge but now it is too late.

 

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what do you mean? can you define white?

 

Teenage pregnancies are nothing new, but in the past, more of those teens were actually married.​

Uh, that's largely how they acheived lower rates of out-of-wedlock pregnancies. An option we have largely forgotten. Can't many people just marry younger, and more provide for the proper reproductive outlet for powerful reproductive urges? Not fight so much, but embrace the natural flow of human life.

Notice, they weren't worried about "teenage" pregnancies, as those appear to have been common long before now. But to married couples. So in the moral sense, teenage pregnancies don't count for the negative, if they are wed teens, as there's a father sticking around to help with the children.

 

What about drunken mistakes, sexual abuse, casual sex? I don't see how some ceremony will solve all our teens' problems.

Only if you have a warped and selfish moral compass. Besides, I think you'll find we aretalking about teenage pregnancy here.

 

To be frequently "great with child," should be no more embarrasing, than to show natural boob bulges.​

Like what? Somebody gets drunk, "Oops! Did I just get married?" Don't drink, don't do sexual abuse, don't do casual sex. Sex is serious business, it has the potential to drastically enlarge the world population. Which is a good thing, but we need for so many of the people to be living in good stable families to insure we adapt to the population growth more readily. Contraceptive pushing has encouraged the idea of casual sex, which I don't agree with. I believe in helping people pair up, marry, and enjoy their proper moral outlet for their powerful reproductive urges, and to keep the door to life open, let babies happen as they happen.

Obviously, not all teens are ready to marry while still younger. But some are, and out of respect for those who are, there should be some emphasis upon younger marriage, at the very least, as an alternative to people engaging in sex outside of wedlock. Throughout much of the world, the numbers of women of childbearing age continues to grow, which means a growing need for sexual activity for more and more people. That's a great thing, but there's a proper way to go about it, that is stable families, building the proper family nest, letting babies come along as they naturally can.

I disagree with society redefining "adulthood" until one is 25, 35, or too old to party like a pagan anymore. Adulthood actually begins in teenage years, and with people spending more and more time in classes and schooling, it's distinctly quite possible that adulthood, marriage, and school can tend to overlap, and so it should be quite to-be-expected to see proudly visibly pregnant students in class, especially in college. They are adults, know what makes babies, and actually quite old enough to actually be married. Unless they want to quit school to be full-time parents, actually a good idea for Stay-At-Home Moms, I can see how some people may end up doing both, simutaneously.

The problem of teenage pregnancies has been distorted and exxagerated. There is much room in society for actually, far more teenage pregnancies, if people would go about it the right way, commit in marriage first, and make responsible pro-family decisions. Teenage pregnancy is a very confusing term, for it does not imply unmarried, and yet people react to the matter, as if it did. To properly debate issues, it does help to have more consistant, less ambiguous definitions of terms. Also, they say the world now has a billion teenagers, many of whom are growing up in traditionally very large families, so I say there's some pressure there, for teenage pregnancies to naturally increase.

 

God you're naive - you think you can forbid something and the problem is solved? I'm afraid you cannot force your morality on promiscuous teens any more than they are about to force their morality on you.
You're not living in the real world here: all we can feasibly do is educate and inform so that young people will make the decisions they can knowing and accomodating for the risks. People become adults at 18 (or perhaps 21) for a reason.

Teens are able to marry from the age of 16, yet most choose not to. Why do you think that is?

You mean, people react to teenage pregnancies the way YOU react to pregnancies out of wedlock?

 

Forbid excessive forbidding. I am for expanding proper moral options for further growing the already "huge" human race.​

So why do we have "laws" and rules to begin with? Since they are just going to be ignored? What do you propose? Anarchy, leading to tyranny?

I promote personal responsibility, rather than more senseless "laws." I suggest a moral out, or yet another option, not excessive restrictions on people. If younger people insist that they just gotta have sex, Are they ready then to commit to marriage? I say, assure society you are ready to take responsibility for any children than result, by making your marriage official, and I don't have a problem with enlarging the numbers of breeding parents throughout the world, to include more young people, since the additional children will likely be provided for.

Now maybe you have to be 18 or 21 to vote or drink alcohol, but not everybody need to right away vote or drink alcohol. But it seems clear enough, that either nature or God, does not agree that everybody must wait until age 18 to have a baby, as puberty now comes far earlier, even before age 13 in some cases. Many states allow marriage as young as age 13, which doesn't mean that everybody should marry so young, merely that it is "allowed" for those who choose to do so.

And what's the deal with these liberals who object to moral standards, and then try to impose "moral standards" of their own, say like forbidding "unrestrained" or "out of control" world population growth? I don't forbid such things, contrary to the apparent wishes of so many parents. I have long advocated that human populations grow naturally, setting no arbitrary "cap" on population size that can only serve as to possibly soon become breached by continuing growth. In the name of freedom and personal responsibility, I have long advocated the natural expansion of the human race, population accomodation only, never "control."

I think many haven't fully explored their options. Had I known who I was to marry, at a young age, I likely would have married young. I would much prefer the companionship, the powerful reproductive urges proper outlet, and to enjoy having potentially an unusually large and "unplanned" family size by now.

Also, because most teenagers are smart enough, to realize they don't have to have sex right away, haven't yet found the one they want to commit to lifelong marriage with, or because our culture now encourages people to excessively postpone marriage, leaving young people with decades of waiting for sex.

Probably most people don't. I think most people have sense enough to realize, "Oh you are married? Must be okay to be having the babies then." I think it's some of the educrats and population control freaks, that would still insist upon opining about the "problem" of teenage pregnancies, in the case of already being married. I would think a growing world of people, society so obsessed with sex, should want for there to be rising numbers of teenage pregnancies, within marriage, but of course. More and more people in the world, means growing need for sexual relief among more and more people. So should it be any surprise, that many people may actually like to marry, while yet teenagers?

 

Unsurprisingly, you failed to recognise and/or respond to the point. Your personal morals and what is dictated by law are two very different things. Put in very simple terms, what we are forbidden to do by law is based on the collective morality of society. YOUR views, YOUR morals are not something anyone is required to adhere to.

What if they say: I want to have sex with someone I love, but for many reasons including my financial and physcological position, I do not want to get married. We are not cavemen anymore - sex is more often an activity of pleasure, and not with the intention of reproduction. 'Evil' contraception saw to that, and there's nothing you can do about it.

Although I fully recognise that your scientific knowledge is unrivalled

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, can I just point out that the body is not designed to have babies as soon as it reaches puberty. Puberty is preparation for this end, true, but it takes quite a few years for the female body to be ready to bear a child without causing her perhaps lasting harm.

What do you mean by that? That if they had of done they would want to get married? Are you suggesting that children, because they are still children, need to explore not only themselves but the nature of others before they get married? Well then I might just agree with you.

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If the Church hadn't become so liberal about allowing promiscuity-promoting contraception, I think you would understand my position better.​

No, that's not how "law" is too often passed these days. In the past, our "law" used to be more Biblical and Constitutionally based, but has become under increasingly the influence of liberals and activist judges. Look at the Proposition 8 in California. Didn't the people already rule, in approving that marriage shall not be redefined by liberals, but is to remain what it is? And yet, more court cases. "The will of the (moral) people be dammed?"

What was the point exactly? Anyway, the "law" doesn't forbid sex (not yet), but it does include certain responsibilities of sex, say like child support.

That is not a very morally defendable position. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Flee fornication. Do Biblical morals have no sway with you? People should not be so carnally minded. I know the number of human penises and vaginas throughout the world, is rising, and so too then, is the need for sexual activity. But I have never much agreed with separating copulation from procreation, as it is contrary to nature and morality. (I think that may be an argument for when-alone masturbation, which we probably don't even want to discuss in "polite company.") Anyway, sex outside-of-wedlock, is not made okay by contraceptives. It's made okay by marrying the person they impregnated.

Human nature being what it is, no doubt some people are going to prefer to start pushing out the babies, soon after reaching the physical maturity to be able biologically to do so. People want to have sex with the person they love, and next thing you know, the semen is flowing, their love overflowing, and babies are coming to life. I do not believe in population "control" upon humans, so I have no objection to people starting to have babies at or around the age of puberty, provided they have committed in marriage, and are building their suitable family nest. As the numbers of women of childbearing age grows around much of the world, surely that's very good reason to accept that babies should be welcome to be added to the planet, faster and faster. Anybody who is willing to go about procreation in the proper moral way, should be welcome to enjoy the blessings of growing their families, regardless of concerns over the growing population.

I meant exploring the neglected option, of maybe getting married younger, if that might serve their interests. I do accept that the need for sexual relief is growing, as the world population grows, and so we should expect for there to be quite much sex going on. I have no interest in limiting the amount of sex or babymaking going on, but merely to constrain it to the sort of proper marriage/family relationship, likely to insure to society that the children will be properly taken care of, which of course is helped along, by welcoming the prospect of more people marrying younger, should they choose to. I am not at all suggesting promiscuity, but rather people marry younger, if they can't contain themselves, and then feel free not to have to, and let the babies naturally push out as they come.

 

Contrary to nature? Why do you care so much? Clothes are contrary to nature. Education is contrary to nature. Medical care is contrary to nature. Hell, *marriage* is contrary to nature.

As for morality, it's not your business to decide that something that 2 consenting individuals do and that harms no one, is immoral.

 

Oh, while I'm in here...

That's one of the most irresponsible things I have heard on here. You think it's ok to just expand the population indefinitely? It's really not. More humans, more need for resources, more raping the planet to obtain said resources. More people using up electricity. More people indirectly shitting carbon into the atmosphere because we don't have or at least refuse to use non polluting sources of energy. You think that's ok?

 

Can't we still live a bit more naturally and simply, in a post-natural populous world?​

I'm not suggesting that Big Brother government spy upon what people do in the privacy of their own bedrooms. Rather, I think when people bring their private immorality, into the public sphere in debating public policy, I have place to comment upon it.

Contrary to nature? Why do I care? I am bothered by the increasingly "artificiality" of society. The ugly tattoos. The bizarre body piercings. The direct body polluting shoddy contraceptives. It's as if humans increasingly have little or no respect for how God created us, rushing to make unreasonable modifications to their bodies.

I don't like contraceptives, because they seek to prevent the conception of actual real human lives. And because they are sold upon so many false claims and pretences.

Clothing is unnatural? Well why do you think I often don't wear a lot of clothes then, when I am at home? But society has standards and it's often cold outside, so I gladly wear reasonable clothing in public.

Education is contrary to nature? Not really, for God created us with minds, to learn. Also, I suspect that our increasingly highly populous world, may add some prudent reason, for people being highly educated, if for no other reason, than to keep governments accountable and under control. Poor education + people voting for their elected representatives, do not make an ideal mix.

How is marriage contrary to nature, when God started humans, Adam & Eve, as the first "marriage?" Eve was made for Adam. Even many animals tend to be monogamous. Choosing suitable mates is not always so easy. Sex wasn't supposedly to be about hedonistically just getting one's jollies.

Medical care is contrary to nature? Where did the idea of aenestesia (spelling?) of putting people to sleep, before a medical operation come from? Some doctor thought there should not have to be so much pain. Straight from the Bible, where God put Adam into "a deep sleep" when removing his rib, to make Eve.

Now I know Big Pharma often goes overboard, at pushing their overpriced drugs. But clearly, many people do benefit from medical care, and supposedly, better public sanitation and medical care, are largely responsible for the recently longer lifespan of humans, and also for the major global population accumulation we have seen especially during the latter half of the 20th century. Deut 30:19 says to choose life that thou and thy seed may live. So we humans should intervene, when we reasonably can, to promote and prolong human life.

 

The point we've reached in this discussion

I don't wonder at all, personally. And I think the problem goes beyond the failure of the pledges. It is not, in psychological terms, a healthy relationship when the parents are so deeply invested in the emotional and sexual development of the children.

Meantime, I'm grinning a little smugly. This ownership issue is one I've been making note of for, quite literally, years. I can't find all my references to it at Sciforums over the years, and while I won't claim credit for people's sentiments, it is gratifying to see that I'm not the only person who finds the ownership standard of the patriarchal nuclear family unsettling.

• November, 2004
• December, 2004
• August, 2007
• October, 2007​

Those are just a few of the Sciforums' links, and they've mostly fallen on deaf ears. (Or is it blind eyes?) At any rate, it's time to haul these people out of their glass-walled closet (can an exhibitionist be truly closeted?) and call them to answer for these affecting, even defining, familial sexual experiences.

 

News flash! Most people still do not believe in imposing population "control."​

Yes, it's okay to encourage human populations to go right on growing and growing. I see no better alternative. Trample upon the rights of billions of potential parents? With more people than ever now alive, the need for more sexual relief (procreation) is growing. I look at somebody's animated avatar, on another forum, of a lady jiggling her breast cleavage showing through the top of her shirt. Because it's an animation, it just keeps going and going and never stops. Or like a heartbeat, 4 or 5 babies are born a second worldwide, just keeps going, never stops. Why does anybody think as if this was a "force of nature" we could reasonably "control?" Somebody I have debated, keeps trying to tell me, that it's "selfish" to have more than 2 children, in a world with resource concerns, that I'm supposedly having more than "my share." Nonsense, for although there be so much a myriad of supposedly contraceptive "options," that still doesn't mean that they aren't all shoddy, nor that we should now be obliged to regulate our birthrates. And if even I might be persuaded, which I am not even though you have my ears, still world population would grow and grow.

So many of the breeders, no make that "parents," say "Look all around, there's lots of places all around to put more people." What does that really mean? That they would much rather populate denser and denser, than be told how many children they may have. I agree. I see lots of places all around, for my children, and of course, everybody else's children. The only real answer to that assertion, is to go ahead and fill up those gaps between all the people, with still more people. I do not believe in imposing population "control" upon people, because among most all the creatures, we are the most adaptable towards our ever-rising numbers. I believe in welcoming the natural flow of human life, letting babies happen as they happen.

Now I do believe people are obligated to make certain minor changes, as may become necessitated by rising populations or rising density. Highly populated regions do not need to use condoms at all, but may need to start putting indoor flush toilets in their homes, if they are going to be so dense. Much of the "modern" technology, technically is more for better accomodating vaster and denser populations of humans. And naturally-growing cities are a mild form of population arcologies.

 

YOU think they're ugly. YOU don't like them. Others do. Some self awareness and dissemination of self from the general world would not go amiss.

And what is so wrong with preventing births? One, there's enough of us on the planet. Two, people's bodies belong to them, if they don't want to have kids, it's their business.

As for the rest?

You keep referring to God. There's your problem. You don't know that God exists or that he made those rules, you just believe.

With no thought for how we would eat up the planet's resources?

You can't keep on expanding. Sooner or later you run out of resources.

And when there's not enough room in schools for all those kids? When there's not enough to feed those massive hordes of humans?

 

VI, maybe you should remind him that our closest relitives the bonbons or whatever the fuck they are called use sex to bind the tribe ALOT more than they do for procriation. Further more the fact that the clitoris exists PROVES that nature intends sex for more than procriation, we are one of only 3 species (from memory) that get physical pleasure out of sex (certinally male incects dont, especally the ones who lose there heads

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). The other two are dolphines and chimps and all have comparitivly long infancy which means nature needs a way to keep the parents "together" in order to give the offspring the best chance. Nature INTENDED us to have ALOT more sex than we do children

 

Getting back to the natural flow of human life.​

In Star Trek 4, there was some asuming line, about how San Francisco I think it was, going back in time to about the present time, the people trying to dress different, looked so bizarre and so much alike that "We could have just wore our normal Starfleet uniforms and blended right in."

I think there is something wrong with people, when they are so insecure as to who they are, that they do bizarre things to their bodies to "look different." How then, do they "look different," from all the other crowds of people seeking to look different?

I already consider myself to be very unique from other people, and yet when in public, or in some crowded place, I am often quite content to "blend in" and look pretty much like everybody else. I prefer my natural skin and hair colors, like how God created me, no matter how many billions of people they say there are on the planet, many of whom may happen to look similar to me.

Yeah, I like personal expression, when it involves wearing something superficial, easily removed, and it says something I actually want to say. But still, simple and tactful, not ugly and classless.

No, there's not enough of us on the planet, for we must make way for everybody's progeny to come along as well. Only in a few respects, are there "enough" people. Enough for the minimal number to staff some socialist society machine, as mere pawns or cogs in a sick globalist world-manipulation game.

And for humans to turn fairly cheap organic matter or food, into additional human bodies of immense worth, is a completely natural and proper process. A major purpose of human life is to make more human life. The purpose of reproductive organs is reproduction. And to let babies come out from between women's legs, is like letting people eat or breathe, or letting their hearts go on beating. We would want to do those things?

Now if people's bodies belong to them, then so too, would their right to have "unlimited" babies. Of course people's bodies do not belong to them, but to God. To deliberately sabotage the body's reproductive system, to hinder its performance, is contrary to nature and of the natural flow of human life. Why not throw out all the shoddy Big Pharma contraceptive potions and poisons, refuse the direct pollution of our bodies, and respect the body's natural reproductive rhythms, and welcome babies that happen as they happen?

Some liberals or feminists may try to claim that how many children they have is nobody's business but their own. If ever this was true, it isn't anymore. What if everybody had large families? Wouldn't society be forced to populate denser? My point is, that the effects are largely positive, so it is society that should encourage large families. But everybody is affected, so it's not a "private matter" even if it still be largely a private decision to welcome "all the children God gives." As human populations naturally grow, more and more people come alive to benefit, so it's very much in the interests of the populous many, to go right on growing.

What's wrong with preventing births? Well for one, it's not really so easy as the contraceptive pushers have made it sound. "Good" Catholics aren't allowed to use "artificial" methods. Okay, so there's side effects, I agree with at least that part. Don't want side-effects, don't want the dulling of sensation of condoms. But then the world balks at more "natural" methods such as rhythm, saying that they require too much self-control. I also agree, so that leaves discussion the many virtues of the "no method" method of "family planning." I also disagree with most of the cited excuses for having smaller families.

Even nature tells us that we ought to be reproducing, especially if married and enjoying sex. The natural function of sexual intercourse, is of course, naturally expanding the size of the human race.

But human numbers are not to blame for that, since with more people, more people benefit from living. If there's really a problem with resources, it must be mitigated without attacking the natural growth of human numbers.

And improving technologies suggest that in the future, humans could be able to "eat" the planet far more efficiently. Consider "food replicators" from Star Trek. Not only do they eliminate huge areas of land wasted upon agriculture, but they convert matter directly into food. Far more efficient way to "eat" the planet, for a world having got so densely populated as to not have enough room for agriculture anymore anyway.

I am well aware of all the ridiculous extrapolations. But in fact, we can keep on expanding, well into the forseeable future. Of course, if you happen to be a hermit or a xenophobe, you may not like too much, the prospect of fewer and farther places in-between, of much solitude. Of course if you like big cities, you're in luck.

Keep on having children regardless. Overcrowded schools are no excuse. What did they think would happen, if the crammed all the children of an entire city, into a few government monopoly buildings? Well duh, they get "crowded," especially at the hands of the chronic mismanagement of resources by the government. The obvious answer isn't to blame the children, but to expand to more buildings, the places where education can occur, more like how it used to be. Church buildings, more home-schooling.

Oh, but there will be plenty of food. Haven't you heard? There's another curious "overpopulation" theory, that we have "too much" food, which fuels "wild" population growth, at least in the animal kingdom.

 

Uh, I think that's more why humans are able to enjoy sex during pregnancy and after menopause. It's not that sex shouldn't be enjoyable other than for procreation, but rather, as a natural incentive towards procreation. So the door to life should be left open. There should always be left, the natural prospect of pregnancy, as children a blessing to welcome, not merely a "burden" to fear. See how far the world has departed from Biblical moral standards?

They say what populates the planet is extremely pleasurable. (Probably for some profound reason.)