Do Lord, O do Lord, O do it in the Hay
A new government report was just released that says that some 97% of Americans have sex before marriage and that this percentage has not changed much since the golden age of morality (1950s). Today, 75% of young people have premarital sex before they are 20 years old. Let's just say for argument's sake that 50% of Americans are either Protestant/Evangelical or Catholic. If this report's figures are accurate (and they seem plusible to me) and we assume that all 3% who refrain from Aphrodite's pleasures are Christians (which is a ridiculous assumption, but stick with me), this would mean that a minimum of 94% of Christians in the US have had pre-marital sex. In other words, Christians aren't just at church or on hay rides singing Do, Lord, O do, Lord; rather, O Lordy, they're busy in the hay doin' it. No big surprise there; evolutionary urges will trump social engineering any day of the week and twice on Sunday. It's just so absurd that Christian leaders today are dictating our public policies on sex and health (i.e., abstinence programs) based on religious mores that few people have actually ever followed.
Labels: Americans Sex
posted by Paul @ 11:35 AM
3 Comments:
So I'm advised by a friend to look at Emery's cute picture.
But then something catches my eye involving a "government" report. About SEX. Holy crap - how's come this is the first I'm hearing of this?
Oh. Maybe it's because the Guttmacher Institute, whose stated goal is "advancing sexual and reproductive health worldwide through research policy analysis and public education" is not really the government. Nor is it very sexy. (But, really, isn't the phrase "Guttmacher Institute" the least sexy two word phrase ever? Nothing else really comes to close. "Products Liability," maybe. But not German enough.)
Still, I read on. And then Paul started in on his sermonizing and I was reminded of a passage from Herzog that was something like "be careful when syphlitics start preaching chastity." I think Bellow would have been just as wary of academics preaching pre-marital sex.
I suspect that the thimble-full of collective knowledge that the male nerds who read and write this site possess started accumulating mostly after their twentieth birthdays. (I except Paul from this, of course.) I also assume that such lack of amorous experience had less to do with moral compunctions than it did with answering the question "what's your major?" with "Classics" or "Political Theory."
So the idea that 75% of Americans have had sex by age twenty seemed to me laughable - and, again, not for any reason related to religion or faith. Just for the regular old reason.
So I decided that I should actually read this "government" report myself. And boy was I in for a shock.
Did you know that fully 10% of 13 year olds have had sex?
(Where did they conduct this survey, Mary Beth Letourneau's class?) I mean, holy crap - all of Randy Williams' locker room talk was actually true? Ten of the hundred people in my sixth grade class were taking care of business?
By age 15, according to the Guttmacher (Lex Luthor screaming: "Miss Guttmacher!") that number triples. TRIPLES! Again - holy cats - where was I and why was I not in someone else's bedroom? I was on the football team. I was good looking. Close to one out of every three of my friends was gettin busy and I was - what? - watching Mtv, I guess. I have to say, all those 15 year old friends of mine were sure discreet.
Or could it possibly be, in the grand tradition of targeted social 'science,' that this whole report is crap?
I know all you people hated me when I used to comment on this blog, but don't you ever get tired of slurping each other's unchecked BS? I mean, honestly, why would a half-true report from an underfunded teutonic sex institute be used as an excuse to crap on Christians some more? The report doesn't even mention Christians. (Is the site's non sequitur alarm off all of the sudden?)
And why would a room full of critical thinkers like yourselves not think to ask how it is that Paul apparently thinks the American public sphere lacks sexual content? I mean, for God's sake, how long has the man been out of the country? Come home already, dude - peruse a magazine rack. Watch the CW. See Brit-Brit's hoo-hoo on E!.
The censors you're so afraid of have lost.
Don't seem so surprised Curatasaurus. Paul's been on sexual amorality tack for a while. Remember this classic (no pun intended)?
"So I guess what I’d like to know is, what new benefit(s) do you think that the Church and Christian teaching has/have brought to marriage and sexuality for society as a whole? Do Christian teachings about homosexuality, bisexuality, prostitution, or adultery stand up to rational inquiry any better than virginity? I think not."
Welcome back Lex -- long time no rant. We missed you. FYI, while the report was authored by L.B. Finer of the Guttmacher institute, it is being published in Public Health Reports 122.1 (2007). From this journal's web page we find:
Public Health Reports (PHR) is a journal of the U.S. Public Health Service. Since 1999, Public Health Reports has been published by the Association of Schools of Public Health (ASPH).
PHR is a peer-reviewed journal bi-monthly--six issues offering articles in three main areas: public health practice, research, and viewpoints/commentaries. In the past five years we have tackled such topics as tobacco control, teenage violence, occupational disease and injury, immunization, drug policy, lead screening, health disparities, and many other key issues. The Journal's authors are on the front line of public health, and present their work in a readable and accessible format.
In addition to these articles, each edition offers recurring guest columns such as NCHS Dataline, ASPH From the Schools of Public Health, Law and the Public’s Health (introduced in 2003), Public Health Chronicles (introduced in 2004), and new in 2005 there will be a section introduced dedicated to Academic Public Health.
PHR has been one of the Public Health Community's key information resources in the public health field for over 125 years. On behalf of the staff of ASPH and PHR appreciate your past support of PHR, and would like to take this opportunity to encourage you to continue your subscription to the Journal.
So it is a peer-reviewed journal of the U.S. Public Health Service, but if that does not qualify as a government report by your exacting standards, then I'd be happy to rewrite my opening line as "A new report that appears in a peer-reviewed US government-sponsored journal..." As for the figures they quote and which I find plausibly accurate, I suspect they are far more scientific than the results of your pubescent locker-room surveys. Apparently, Lex, it never occurred to you that your peers and friends may not have always told you the truth about all their sexual encounters nor do they represent the full spectrum of 13-year olds in the US. But I forgot, your friends and your circle of acquaintances are more meaningful and accurate pools for statistics than those surveyed by contributors to peer-reviewed academic journals.
As for your other comments -- you ever hear the one about not seeing the forest for the trees? Well, in this case I think we're talking about leaves. The basic point of my post was that Christian ideology about sexual practices, which a majority of the US population do not abide by (whatever figure you want to list), are dictating public health policy in the US. I can sort of extrapolate from your post how you feel about this overall point I made, but as I read and reread your post, you never address this point directly.
As for your comments, Stephanie, it's nice that you can bring yourself to quote me, but quoting what another says does not constitute any form of a counter argument. You seem to think that what I said was so crazy that just quoting it would prove to anyone how stupid a comment it was. Well, I stand by the quote and would be happy to answer any real arguments against it.
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