Wednesday 16 May 2007

Informed Kids = Tools of Satan

After enough years of exposure to the seemingly endless paradoxes and vagaries of life on this planet, it's not uncommon for members of our species to start seeking answers to the fundamental questions of life, such as: "Why are we here?", "What is the purpose of life?" and "What's it all for?" Now clearly, from the philosophical point of view, there's no clear-cut answer to these kind of questions, but from the biological viewpoint the answer is perfectly clear; we're here to procreate; to spread our genetic material ... as often as possible ... and as far and wide as possible.

Given this biological imperative, it's not surprising that nature has maximised the time frame during which we are able to produce offspring. Well and truly before they are fully grown, humans are sexually mature, and if nature had it's way they'd be succumbing to their natural instincts as frequently as possible from that point until either death, or failure of the sexual apparatus called an end to the proceedings. Unfortunately for nature however, many modern societies have imposed value structures on the sex act, which can substantially thwart the regular, lifelong production of offspring. The application of these value structures takes the form of a spectrum, not unlike the left-wing/right-wing political spectrum, whence, ironically, the 2 extreme positions; promiscuity on the one hand, and puritanism on the other, both have similar effects in terms of the production of offspring.

The promiscuous, on the one hand, believe that since sex feels good, they should have as much of it as they possibly can, and take precautions so that their ability to source a constantly varying array of sexual partners remains unimpeded by the sudden, unwanted arrival of children. The puritanical, on the other hand, believe that since sex feels good, it must be bad, and therefore they should have as little of it as they can (consequently limiting the production of children). A fundamental difference in the application of these extreme views however, is that while the promiscuous generally do not seek to impose their view on others, inevitably the prudish do.

Since humans of secondary school age generally acquire the ability and the inclination to spread their genes, many educators have expressed the opinion that some form of education should occur in the classroom in order to present young people with the likely outcomes of unprotected gene-spreading (including unwanted offspring and unwanted medical conditions), and to offer them some alternatives to these outcomes. As mentioned above, certain other people believe that because sex is enjoyable, it must the work of Satan and these people argue that educating young people about sex will encourage them to have more of it, and that the only real way to dissuade people from having sex is to not tell them anything about it. Since by not telling them anything about sex they will not want to have any of it, they will therefore be safe from the unpleasant consequences of sex. In short, no sex is preferable to protected sex.

On the surface, while this argument may appear sound to some, it is not supported by statistical evidence.

According to a 2001 UNICEF report, the United States has the highest teenage birth rate in the developed world at 52.1 births per 1,000 women aged 15–19. The lowest teenage birth rates in the developed world are those of Korea and Japan, with less than 5 births per 1000 women under 20. The report cites the extreme social stigma and associated social difficulties for the teenage mother as the primary deterrent in these countries. Following these 2, the countries with the lowest teen birth rates are overwhelmingly Northern European. Switzerland, The Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and France are all situated in the top 10 with teen birth rates of less than 10 in 1000. According to the report there is a strong correlation between these statistics and the:
"conscious and apparently successful efforts [of these countries] to prepare and equip their young people to cope with a more sexualised society [including] school-based sex education".

It is interesting to note that as the developed nation with by far the highest rate of teen births in the world, the United States is currently also extremely prominent as a nation with a powerfully ascendant conservative faction led by a President who publicly opposes school-based sex education and instead encourages ignorance and abstinence as actual strategies. During his term in office Bush has spent more than a billion dollars of public money on his abstinence campaign but the latest surveys indicate it has had no effect whatsoever on the predilection of young people to engage in sex.

So maybe it's time for parents who say they care about their kids to accept that the drive to spread ones genetic material, that most primal of all human drives, may just resonate with a randy teenager a tad more than a message from Uncle George about how he'd like us to keep our flies done up. Maybe if those parents really cared about their kids, they'd instead say "yes" to letting a trained professional teach them how to save themselves from the potentially devastating consequences of unprotected sex.

Or maybe they don't really care as much about their kids as they do about hanging onto those stupid damn puritanical values.

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