Week 9 Section C

The article Sexuality Education and Desire: Still missing after All These Years, by Michelle Fine and Sara I. McClelland evoked mixed emotions in me.  There were statements and viewpoints and I strongly agreed upon and there were opinions that I totally disagreed.  As usual, I couldn't have a strong conclusive opinion at the end.  Simply put that I agree with AOUM (abstinence only until marriage) and disagree with its eight tenets (A through H).  It is worth noting here that the United States consists of people with different religious beliefs and cultural backgrounds.  We (The term we here refers to people in charge of policy making, politicians and teachers and all the people that can make a difference) can not decide on one policy and enforce it on everyone across the board.  But yes, as policymakers we can make attempts at educating teenagers.

The feelings of sexuality originate from a mixture of things as cites in the article.  It arises from living room, TV, internet, movies etc.  There are parents that try to pick appropriate movies for their children.  There are cultures where parents don't overtly indulge in PDA.  There are cultures where talking about sex is a taboo in this day and age.  Even I am not comfortable talking about sex to my daughter but I have a few more years to go since she is not ready to talk about it yet.  So the point I am making is that we need to look at the big picture and come up with a plan that works, a plan that addresses safety and a plan that is not imposing.

Having said that I do have some opinions on different aspects of the article:

• It was a sad finding that there is a direct correlation between women with mental retardation and pregnancy.  One would think that special needs children are protected and taken care of and they don't fall prey to the lust of predators.
• Also there is a direct correlation between high school drop out rates and teen pregnancy.  This points out to the fact that we need to better educate our women, empower them as well as spend money on them.  If government spent more on their health, education and empowerment than perhaps the unintended pregnancy rates can be brought down.
• It was shocking to find out that teen women were involved in crime more than teen men (Fine and McClelland, Page 303)
• I also wanted to point out that I don’t see abortion as a bad thing.  I will not share my personal thoughts but I come from a country where population is high (approximately 1.03 billion) I have heard of a few abortions in my extended family.  It is common and there is no controversy about it.  One thing that is disturbing is female infanticide and selective abortions of female fetuses in India.  There is a ban on ultrasound in major cities in order to prevent this type of genocide. 
• I wanted to share the policy of Republic of China where the government gives incentives for smaller families.  I am supportive of the Marriage Legislation and Promotion policy as described in the article Sexuality Education and Desire page 307.

http://www.unescap.org/esid/psis/population/database/poplaws/law_china/ch_record052.htm   

• I also didn’t feel very sympathetic towards the women that got pregnant.  I can understand if they were raped or were forced into sex.  But it is a common knowledge that you don’t get pregnant if you don’t intend to.  There are several ways you can prevent the pregnancy. In other words if one desires to prevent pregnancy right after intercourse one CAN.  Pregnancy is generally not by accident if you made conscious efforts to avoid pregnancy.  I feel it is irresponsible to treat sex as a recreation and then not clean up after that.  (I sincerely apologize if this caused any pain or hurt to anyone reading this) So this brings me back to education, if we talked openly about safe sex, we wouldn’t have as many cases of unintended pregnancy or abortions.
• I was disappointed by some of the ridiculous remarks in the article regarding AOUM content on page 309 under the section A Closer Look at the AOUM Content.  It is not fair to link nonmarital sex with disease and possible death.  It is terrifying, especially for teens to imagine death as a consequence of premarital sex.  It is also false to propagate the idea that sexual activity is dangerous to health.