News at 11: Americans have Pre-marital sex
From Focus on the Family’s Citizen Link:
But Linda Klepacki, analyst for sexual health at Focus on the Family Action, said the motive behind the Guttmacher report is suspect, especially given the group’s close affiliation with Planned Parenthood.
“This is the condom cartel’s attempt at normalizing out-of-wedlock sexual behavior,” she said. “This is one in a series of documents that is designed to set the battle lines for January’s congressional battles over (funding for) sex education.”
Glenn Stanton, senior analyst for marriage and sexuality at Focus on the Family, questioned the method used to collect the data.
“These numbers seem a little high to me,” he said. “Additionally, what they don’t tell us is how active people were before marriage. Were most of these encounters among people who were engaged or were they simply casual hook-ups? We don’t know.”
More than anything, though, Stanton is distressed by the author’s implication that since so many people are doing it, it must be fine.
“What did each one of our mothers tell us?” he asked. “Just because everyone is doing it doesn’t make it OK.”
What are they complaining about from Guttmacher?
This is reality-check research. Premarital sex is normal behavior for the vast majority of Americans, and has been for decades,” says study author Lawrence Finer, director of domestic research at the Guttmacher Institute. “The data clearly show that the majority of older teens and adults have already had sex before marriage, which calls into question the federal government’s funding of abstinence-only-until-marriage programs for 12–29-year-olds. It would be more effective to provide young people with the skills and information they need to be safe once they become sexually active—which nearly everyone eventually will.”
The federal government is spending money to keep people abstinent until 29 years old. Seriously. No, no, I mean it. It’s like the Handmaid’s Tale without the mass infertility.
I’m concerned about oversexualized teens and higher rates of sex during the teenage years for kids, but better sex education should help that more than telling kids to abstain. Just say no isn’t an effective strategy.
When it comes to adults I have a different view. It’s called, they are adults get the hell out of their sex lives. When people got married at 18 telling people to wait made some sense–though many still did not despite the urban legends of how pure society once was. The key difference now is that we have this great thing called contraception that is an universally accepted practice so someone can have sex and not get pregnant and hence, not ‘have’ to get married because they are pregnant.
This sort of rewriting of history by Focus on the Family and others as well as their tendency to pretend society agrees with them when it demonstrably does not would be funny, but the press takes them seriously.
Dobson and gang will insist the Guttmacher study is controversial when it is not. It’s pretty consistent with other findings and done by generally reliable techniques. The press will report Dobson and gang as serious people even though they are not. The entire discussion will take on some level of importance because some serious people said it, even though the issue has been settled by the American people for decades by the American people’s behavior.
Focus on the Family is filled with anti-women, anti-sex loons who get away with seeming reasonable because no one pays attention to how far out of the main stream their ideas are. Worse–they are providing many of the appointments to government programs overseeing these areas.
December 21st, 2006 at
A few years ago I read that as many as 1/3 of all brides in the US during the 1800′s were pregnant at the time of their marriage. Wish I could remember the source on that.
Ms. Klepacki–you’re busted. Mom knows. It’s over. Now go get a hobby and get out of everybody else’s business.
December 22nd, 2006 at
“This is the condom cartel’s attempt at normalizing out-of-wedlock sexual behavior,”
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It is normal. It may not be healthy or smart at all times (and the same can be said of marital sex), but it’s normal. What is abnormal is expecting the entire human race to change its behavior to conform to your religious doctrines about the One True Way to have sex.
December 28th, 2006 at
Try again.
Roll back the clock say 175 or so years. A healthy group owned slaves, did that make it right? Was it good for society?
Statistics on the number of people who engage in premarital sex tell you… the number of people who engage in premarital sex, that’s all. It does not show you whether it is or is not good for society.
December 28th, 2006 at
Bambenek, you are perhaps the dumbest man on the planet. You just compared slavery to pre-marital sex. Brilliant analytical skills.
The assumptions underlying the Focus on the Family point is that there was some great moral period in history when pre-marital sex was rare. This is simply not the case. Pretending it is as an excuse to try and justify programs to keep people celibate until the age of 30 is silliness.
What interest does the state have in keeping people celibate until 30? What business is it of the state whether adults are having sex?
Now, your idiocy concerning evolution was hysterical, but your idiocy here outdoes it. How do you compare two adults having sex to someone owning another person–how exactly is this comparable?
January 2nd, 2007 at
[...] Of course, some would compare premarital sex to slavery. [...]
January 2nd, 2007 at
[...] Beyond that other warning signs are John’s comparison of premarital sex to slavery. I have some sense he’ll be an advocate, whether it’s in his ‘platform’ or not, for abstinence only education instead of a comprehensive program based on medically accurate information. Abstinence only has shown virtually no promise in reducing teen pregnancy and STD prevalence, but yet many still insist on it instead of abstinence plus medically accurate information about contraception and safe sex. [link] [...]
July 11th, 2007 at
Hmm I really want a steak, a nice juicy steak with some A1 sauce on it YUMMY~NESS, but wait […] Dinner is 2 hours away =( I’m hungry NOW~!! I think if I have a hamburger right now, and later I will enjoy my steak (boy, I sure am smart).
This is the argument I find from people that condone sexual relations outside of marriage. The fact of the matter is. If you eat the hamburger u’ll ruin your appetite, and sorry, you wont enjoy the steak.
At the moment I say the 70’s and the big sexual revolution took all the sacred wonderful things of this world and turned them into shit. It made sex cheap, where liars and cheats could sneak into bed and spoil the virginity of sweet God fearing women… What are u afraid of? Commitment? Oh no wait your led by your penis in all actions big and small aren’t you..
Sex is the smallest word that causes the most problem. And if you don’t believe me look up the statistics of children born to single mothers in New York, and oh wait what about abortion?
Truth is we are making a nation of sex crazed retards who seek only sex anywhere they can find it, and they don’t care who they harm, who’s reputation they destroy, or who’s character they diminish..
There are those of you who might be saying.. that you have morals and blah blah blah.. To u I say shut the eff up.. We all go up and down in our lives (no pun intended).. And there are times when we find ourselves with our reason temporarily suspended. Take for instance you loose your job, go out for a drink or two. Find that your life is headed down the shitter, and you take a look at the next door neighbor. Who to this point you have hither to avoided, and despised, and all of a sudden without your judgment (cuz your drunk) and without reason (cuz u lost your job). She looks mighty tasty. And tho your head is screaming at you to stop, you are beyond hearing at that point. Your sad and want to feel better and u will spend the night with her.. and regret it in the morning.. And God forbid she gets pregnant (and this is where u start to pray isn’t it?) How much would u regret it then huh?
I’ve heard many stories from people who have waited, they tell me that it was the best decision they made in there lives. And on the contrary I’ve heard people who didn’t wait, and when they got married it was nothing special (just a continuation of already established patterns) And don’t refute this as nothing. Passion= trust. And what is a relationship besides trust?
March 27th, 2008 at
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February 19th, 2009 at
they’re lying about that. those woman who married and said it was the best decision of their lives..they’re lying! They don’t know that woman can even have orgasms because they’ve never masturbated in their lives.
February 19th, 2009 at
OH MY GOD, WOMAN MASTURBATE?
November 23rd, 2009 at
Hi. Stigmata, you are an idiot. That example about the neighbor has to be one of the dumbest things i have ever heard in my life. Not all cases of sex before marrige are that extreme. In fact, most probably aren’t. And maybe that supposed one night stand let to an actual relationship..it’s happened before. And clearly people who save sex for marrige will think it’s the best decision they’ve made because they having nothing to compare it to..basically stigmata, your argument was pointless.