September 20, 1995
Education answer, not abstinence
Harmony Monahan's column of Sept. 6 presents a distorted view of sex in American society, a society that has always been fanatical about sex. Monahan is not only fanatical in her advocacy of abstinence rom sex, it is also obvious she does not know very much about it, from either history or from experience.
Furthermore, I dispute any claims that any sex other than her version is inherently sinful.
First of all, Monahan is clearly coming from a religious point of view. Her column is rife with such statements as, "the revolution (is) at hand," and, "commitment to remain sexually pure." You do not find very many people using such phraseology today, yet she uses it freely in an attempt to rally her forces in what she seems to be describing as a war against sex.
And while I cannot make the claim that religion is inherently a bad thing, the whole basis of religion is belief, not facts, creation (un)science notwithstanding. Besides, the tenor of her column changes when she stops talking about teen sex and begins talking about preventing premarital sex, an entirely different proposition.
Besides, since "sexually pure" is a phrase used routinely to describe abstinence until married, does that mean the rest of us are impure, dirty, sullied and/or sinful? Does it mean the rest of us are somehow evil? Or not quite good enough for the rest of society? Or belong to the "lower classes," the great unwashed? What precisely does she mean by this? All of the above, and more, since we do not accept her dogma from anything other than what it is.
The existence of such phrases indicates she is not attempting to really reason with anyone about these dangers, but rather she is hedging her argument by leaving out certain facts.
Fact #1: Teens and adults have always been sexually active, including in the "prudish"; days of the past; it was just never discussed, especially in "polite" society. Ask your grandparents or their friends about these matters, and you will quickly discover the correctness of this.
Fact #2: Further, as anyone who has studied anthropology knows, women have been making use of birth control and abortion for many thousands of years, without telling us men about it.
Fact #3: Ergo, contraception is nothing new.
Admittedly, abstinence is the only 100 percent effective way to avoid these problems. However, that brings up another problem with Monahan's argument.
Since teens (and, for that matter, adults) have always engaged in sex as they desired without necessarily paying any regard to convention, it more or less follows they will continue to do so. It follows, therefore, that the problem here is not in their actions, but in society's response to it. I still contend education is the best way to prevent the problems Monahan describes.
However, we as a society need to commit ourselves to teaching our children everything there is to know about sex, not religious viewpoints. We need to tell them the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Realizing this is a capital crime in any society, I nevertheless claim that our children will then have all possible information upon which to make a responsible decision, which is what adults are supposed to do.
It is the responsibility of the adults in this society to teach our children the facts (all of them) and let children make their own mistakes, just as we did. Otherwise, we will have created a society in which everyone is a child, incapable of making a responsible choice, requiring religion to do it for us.