Aby The Liberal

Aby April 14th, 2007

In the recent years abstinence-only-until-marriage programs and virginity pledge movements like True Love Waits have proliferated a lot in the area of sex education in a few countries like USA, UK, etc. The programs have been designed to control sexual behaviour of youths and teenagers by instilling guilt, fear and shame facilitated by misleading and statistically inaccurate information. These programs are mainly based in religious beliefs which portray premarital sexual activity as immoral and universally harmful. Unfortuantely the current Republican government of US are in favour of such programs which have statistically shown to have high failure rates.

The methodology of such programs is using a misleading and inaccurate data to ‘prove’ premarital sex as inevitably harmful. They rely on biased and often inaccurate information about HIV/AIDS and present condoms and contraception only in terms of failure rates, often exaggerating condom failure rates which is in fact 1%. One family structure where a married couple raising children is shown as perfect, other systems shown as troubled often using inaccurate examples and data. The responsibility of setting sexual limits in placed on girls as they are the easiest targets for their programs at pregnancy can be used to instill fear and abortion as a guilt complex. In the real world such pledges do not do much to ensure chastity or virginity till marriage as hoped by the perpetrators.

A Humorous 19th century postcard, commenting on the consequences of sexual ignorance.

From a religious standpoint of religions especially in Abrahamic (Judaism, Islam and Christianity) religions sexual abstinence was and is prescribed for unmarried individuals for the purpose of chastity. The way chastity is perceived is different for different individuals and societies they live in. For example in some societies, having sex with females captured as spoils of war is considered chaste, but consensual sex between unmarried lovers is considered to be a breach of chastity. And example of such a society is the Muslim society in western countries where such an attitude has lead to sexually frustrated Muslim boys blowing themselves up in public places for the cause of Jihad. The biggest temptation is 72 eternal virgins in heaven which is a fantasy compared the the denial and abstinence on earth.

From the cultural point many cultures such as Victorian Britain or the rural areas in the modern United States, which formally place a high value on abstinence until marriage, actually have a large amount of pre-marital sexual activity in which there is no actual sexual intercourse and which preserve a state known as technical virginity. Such activity includes oral sex and other non-penetrative sexual activities. With the conclusion of the Second World War, the societal importance of abstinence declined swiftly as marriage ages have been pulled back to from the teens to the early twenties and advent of oral contraceptive pills made sexual activity to be seen more as an act of pleasure rather than instrument of procreation (birth).

A humourous cartoon on how sexual frustration is used a terrorism tool. (By jesusandmo.net)

Teens and youths who have a weak sexual desire and few opportunities for sex may be able to maintain themselves as virgins till marriage, those with stronger desires and more opportunities would find it difficult to abstain from premarital sex. The non availability of the correct and factual information about sex and sexuality including contraception options would lead to HIV/AIDs, STDs, unwanted pregnancies, high risk behaviours and various emotional conflicts which will be psychologically harmful in the long run.

For the healthy physical, mental and emotional development of an individual, a factual and comprehensive sexuality education is required which helps young people develop a healthy understanding of their sexuality. This will help them to make responsible decisions regarding their sexuality. With the pushing back of marriage age to the late twenties or early thirties and career concerns in the competitive world, it would be naive to expect young people to maintain sexual abstinence till marriage as sex is a strong driving force. Abstinence programs and virginity pledges do not change anything at best and do more harm than good at worst.

• World Culture , Sexuality
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