Condomania in MPS
A committee of the Milwaukee School Board voted unanimously on December 9 to authorize free distribution of condoms in the city's high schools. Students seeking the product would have to meet with a school nurse, who could then offer advice about sexual activity and the prevention of disease and pregnancy.
James R Carlson has responded to this measure in a letter to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, stating "what this irresponsible committee has done is to send a message to minors that sex is OK. .....spend money on the virtues of abstinence..." (1)
On the other side, Joel McNally wrote in the Shepard Express , " When tumultuous hormones have young people's interest in sex at a fever pitch, our primary advice to them is: Don't even think about it!. Fat chance of that!......The strictest,most controlling societies on Earth have never succeeding in preventing young people from discovering sex...or enthusiastically participating." (2)
Who is right? Who is wrong? Both writers agree that transmission of disease and impregnation of teenage girls is high undesirable, but diverge sharply on the best strategy to prevent these consequences of sex among teens. There are three basic alternatives for teenagers:
A. Abstain from sexual activity.
B. Go ahead and do it, but use a condom.
C. Go ahead and do it. Period.
McNally says that if we only preach A, a lot of teens will ignore the message and choose C. A recent poll of Milwaukee Public School (MPS) students indicated that about 63% of them are now engaging in sex, and of those, about 66% use condoms. (2) So, two-thirds of those of those who ignore message A still pick strategy B. He believes that free distribution of condoms will likely increase the percentage choosing B, while having no effect on those who adhere to A.
Carlson contends that the free distribution will undercut message A, which he feels is the only morally defensible message to send to our young people. He is against both B and C, but does not offer any plan to push B over C.
When I was a student at Milwaukee Washington High School, a mere half-century ago, the society in which I and my fellow students lived was not especially strict or controlling. We enjoyed as much freedom as any other society on Earth at that time, and our society was nearly as free as America today (3). The school did not preach abstinence in sex education class, since that class did not exist at all. The "tumultuous hormones" referred to by Mr McNally were coursing through our veins then, just as much as among teenagers now. But there was no pregnancy among Washington girls (and no contraception or legal abortion), so we must have been abstaining from sex. Strategy A ruled!
But why did we abstain? My guess is that most boys of my generation would have loved to "go all the way", but the girls said "No" and meant "No", and that was the firewall against both teen pregnancy and sexually-transmitted diseases (STD's). At that time, a girl who had sex risked unwanted pregnancy and the responsibility for raising a baby without a husband, or even a high school diploma. But even if condoms had been available to us at that time, I doubt that many of the girls would have switched from Strategy A to B. Not only did most of them have religious and moral compunctions about unwed sex, but the stigma of a being known as a "slut" still had deterrent force. ( Even some boys had these compunctions, although a boy who engaged in sex did not face any stigma for it.)
Today the firewall is gone, because way too many girls are saying "Yes" to sex before marriage. The stigma of unwed pregnancy is gone, and in some of our communities it is the norm, not the exception. This is true not only among the non-white majority in MPS, but in the larger American culture and society.
Although I agree with Carlson that the moral case for Strategy A is still right, the real choice for nearly two-thirds of Milwaukee high school students is between B and C. So I agree with McNally that the School Board should do all it can to help B trump C. The condoms will do no harm, and they just might do some good.
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(1) Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Dec. 13, 2009, page 2J.
(2) Shepard Express, December 10, 2009, page 12.
(3) Legal restrictions on adult pornography, non-martial sex and homosexual behavior are gone, so Americans today are freer than they were to engage in those activities. The rise of teenage sex and pregnancy is partially attributable to this greater freedom, so the consequences are not entirely wholesome. We are sailing uncharted waters.
James R Carlson has responded to this measure in a letter to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, stating "what this irresponsible committee has done is to send a message to minors that sex is OK. .....spend money on the virtues of abstinence..." (1)
On the other side, Joel McNally wrote in the Shepard Express , " When tumultuous hormones have young people's interest in sex at a fever pitch, our primary advice to them is: Don't even think about it!. Fat chance of that!......The strictest,most controlling societies on Earth have never succeeding in preventing young people from discovering sex...or enthusiastically participating." (2)
Who is right? Who is wrong? Both writers agree that transmission of disease and impregnation of teenage girls is high undesirable, but diverge sharply on the best strategy to prevent these consequences of sex among teens. There are three basic alternatives for teenagers:
A. Abstain from sexual activity.
B. Go ahead and do it, but use a condom.
C. Go ahead and do it. Period.
McNally says that if we only preach A, a lot of teens will ignore the message and choose C. A recent poll of Milwaukee Public School (MPS) students indicated that about 63% of them are now engaging in sex, and of those, about 66% use condoms. (2) So, two-thirds of those of those who ignore message A still pick strategy B. He believes that free distribution of condoms will likely increase the percentage choosing B, while having no effect on those who adhere to A.
Carlson contends that the free distribution will undercut message A, which he feels is the only morally defensible message to send to our young people. He is against both B and C, but does not offer any plan to push B over C.
When I was a student at Milwaukee Washington High School, a mere half-century ago, the society in which I and my fellow students lived was not especially strict or controlling. We enjoyed as much freedom as any other society on Earth at that time, and our society was nearly as free as America today (3). The school did not preach abstinence in sex education class, since that class did not exist at all. The "tumultuous hormones" referred to by Mr McNally were coursing through our veins then, just as much as among teenagers now. But there was no pregnancy among Washington girls (and no contraception or legal abortion), so we must have been abstaining from sex. Strategy A ruled!
But why did we abstain? My guess is that most boys of my generation would have loved to "go all the way", but the girls said "No" and meant "No", and that was the firewall against both teen pregnancy and sexually-transmitted diseases (STD's). At that time, a girl who had sex risked unwanted pregnancy and the responsibility for raising a baby without a husband, or even a high school diploma. But even if condoms had been available to us at that time, I doubt that many of the girls would have switched from Strategy A to B. Not only did most of them have religious and moral compunctions about unwed sex, but the stigma of a being known as a "slut" still had deterrent force. ( Even some boys had these compunctions, although a boy who engaged in sex did not face any stigma for it.)
Today the firewall is gone, because way too many girls are saying "Yes" to sex before marriage. The stigma of unwed pregnancy is gone, and in some of our communities it is the norm, not the exception. This is true not only among the non-white majority in MPS, but in the larger American culture and society.
Although I agree with Carlson that the moral case for Strategy A is still right, the real choice for nearly two-thirds of Milwaukee high school students is between B and C. So I agree with McNally that the School Board should do all it can to help B trump C. The condoms will do no harm, and they just might do some good.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(1) Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Dec. 13, 2009, page 2J.
(2) Shepard Express, December 10, 2009, page 12.
(3) Legal restrictions on adult pornography, non-martial sex and homosexual behavior are gone, so Americans today are freer than they were to engage in those activities. The rise of teenage sex and pregnancy is partially attributable to this greater freedom, so the consequences are not entirely wholesome. We are sailing uncharted waters.
posted by Gerald S Glazer at 11:18 AM
2 comments
