Category Archives: Life

Sex Without Value

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

February 21, 2005

The large card still stands on my dresser, a sweet remembrance from the man who has shared over thirty years of life with me.  As February winds down, my mind is filled with the many pictures of love

renewed on this past Valentine’s Day.

At one luncheon, going around the table for introductions, we shared special thoughts about the husbands and wives who completed our lives.  From newlyweds to those married over forty years, it was refreshing to see the tenderness used to describe the object of each person’s affection.

Last Sunday, Andrew thanked those who organized this month’s Sweetheart Dinner.  As he talked, sounds of babies surrounded us, until one coo and babble turned more insistent.  Mom bundled up her hungry babe, and headed to the private room in the back.

Sex is at the center of so much loveliness.  It is the intensity of passion, the bond of reconciliation, the playful encounter and…the creator of life…building and sustaining relationships of love, promise and honor.

And then…we turn on the television and see sex purchased with a hundred dollar bill on prime time television during what used to be family hour.  Wives are traded, singles prowl the city in search of sex, and nearly naked ladies sell everything from potato chips to beer.

Computer filters must fight the ever-mutating attacks on family life by XXX fare.  Even public librarians defend the right to provide porn, resisting filters to protect the minds and hearts of children.

Cheap sex is not new.  Modern culture simply puts a new shine on the “world’s oldest profession” and magnifies the ways to profit from sex.  Yet, one sad result of our ability to reproduce sex on stage, television, music and film is the complete disconnect of sex from its greatest purpose and its best expression.

Promiscuity is a concept undone by American marketers and impotent judges.  Still defined by a dusty dictionary… aimless, designless, desultory, haphazard, hit-or-miss, indiscriminate, irregular, purposeless, unplanned…the word promiscuity carries no meaning today because all sex is permissible.

The director of a major metropolitan agency worked to explain the finer points of their sex education program to me.  They taught it all, she said.  They empowered kids to embrace their sexuality.  They reinforced that sex was just a normal part of life, complete with deprovera, cherry-flavored condoms, and “confidentiality,” the promise they will help kids evade the loving supervision of parents who know that sex is not meant for teens.

What about abstinence? I asked.

Sure, she said.

Sure, what?  I asked.

For some kids, abstinence is a choice…until they are ready for sex.  Responsible sex.

Responsible sex?  What would you tell a thirteen-year-old girl in your sex ed class who came to you for your advice about having “responsible sex” with her sixteen-year-old boyfriend?  Could you tell her, since she asked, that you advised her not to have sex of any kind with him…that sex at her age was unhealthy and out-of-order…and even just a teensy weensy irresponsible?

Without a pause big enough to blink, she fired back at me.  No.

No?

No.  We are values-neutral.  We don’t teach values.

Sex without values?

What kind of educator is reluctant to teach our children the immovable healthy boundaries of sex?  This means more than mentioning boundaries…saying that abstinence is a choice…something that some kids will choose…until they don’t choose abstinence.

Sex education is a matter of connecting sex with a nobler, finer purpose than recreating in the backseat of a car with a kid you just met.  And it is a matter of believing in that purpose with enough conviction to commit to it and promote it and counsel for it.

Everyone teaches the value of sex.  It’s just a matter of focus.  Either you link sex to the values that sustain healthy relationships and support the care of our next generation with mothers and fathers who love each other…or you don’t.

Our children learn what we teach.  If they are having sex that is aimless, designless, desultory, haphazard, hit-or-miss, indiscriminate, irregular, purposeless, unplanned…need we wonder why?  Aren’t they doing exactly what we are teaching them?

Sex without value IS a value.

May 14, 2004  Order in the Courtroom!

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I Think I Can’t….I Think I Can’t

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

January 24, 2005

Her question stopped me in my tracks.  “So why can’t you have a baby and go to college?”

I opened my mouth to speak, “Because….”  I stopped.  “Well, it….”

The modern proscription for a successful life in America is rigid.  You graduate from high school, you go to college and graduate, you get a master’s degree, and you begin your career.  Only then are you given permission to settle down and consider having a family.

The promise of “success” hangs in front of our nose, like the hare racing in front of the greyhounds at the track.  We have our life mapped out, no time to waste, and no room for detours.  But why?

It wasn’t always this way.  There was a day not so long ago when diversity was more than a political slogan.  It formed the very fabric of life, a patchwork of possibilities, a life of beauty designed around the varied circumstances of men and women.

Once upon a time, we took life as it came.  We planned.  But we also made allowances for the turns in the road, the detours and side trips that inevitably occur.  They were not evidence that life was over.  They were moments of creativity, unbidden opportunities to incorporate the unexpected into life and call it success.

Love wasn’t rejected until we had our college diploma framed behind the leather chair.  It came in joyful moments of surprise, and it was received as a gift.  Students in love got married.  If children came along, life wasn’t over.  It was extended.

Married students moved into married housing.  And if they became pregnant, the children were welcome.  Life was big enough to have it all.

Not so today.  For all the pride we have in our ability to plan the perfect life, we have created the ultimate rigid path that rejects life’s diversity.  If success is only possible as single men and women without children, then our fate is sealed.  Sex is recreation, relationships are void of commitment, and babies are unwelcome.

Thus, it is quite an easy matter for clinics on college campuses to sell young women the solution to unplanned pregnancies.  Abortion in college is just one more part of the so-called prescription for success.

Abortion counselors don’t counsel.  They simply latch onto our fears and reinforce them.  “Oh, my dear,” they tell young women, “you don’t want to drop out of school.  You’ll never be able to do it.  Here let us fix it for you.”

Sealing their fate, reinforcing the promise of failure, we withdraw support from pregnant women.  If they want acceptance, love, careers, and a future…they have only one path, one narrow path, just big enough for one person to walk alone, no babies allowed.

As a nation we are all caught in the fear of failure.  Parents push their daughters to abortion.  Boyfriends expect abortions.  And women have bought the lie.  They can’t be a woman, a mother, a wife, and a student…because we tell them they can’t.

When did we decide that the best life to be had is the life of a sterile woman?  What justification do we have for preaching the Mother Goddess in feminism even as we demand that she sacrifice the joy of mothering in order to move ahead?

Do you plan joy?  Or does it flow from your ability to accept the unexpected treasures found along the way…love, commitment, marriage, and family?  If humans were created to be parents, what kind of happiness will we find by denying our creation?

Babies are not the enemy…but only if we are willing to believe in the value of life and all that it brings.  What joy have we lost today by pretending that the best of life can be planned?  When did we give up on ourselves?

 

June 5, 2004:  Unplanned Joy

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The Pregnant Elephant in the Room

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

January 17, 2005

It was a shocking statement to hear my friend Joan say, “I personally don’t think sex education is comprehensive enough.”  But she made perfect sense.

“Comprehensive” has come to mean “condoms and birth control” in debates about sex education.  Comprehensive sex educators insist on the necessity of demonstrating condoms and instructing students on birth control.  But condoms and birth control were the last thing on Joan’s mind.

She has spent years counseling women who sought her out to deal with the negative consequences of their abortions.  Their pain is easy for her to understand.  At the age of 19, over twenty years ago, Joan had an abortion, too.

“I was a college freshman when I got pregnant,” she recalls, “and my boyfriend insisted that I have an abortion.  He wanted to finish school and we would get married after that.  I gave in to his desires.”

Like so many young women today, Joan thought love was the focus of their relationship.  “I thought we were in love….I wasn’t disturbed by the pregnancy at all.  I was excited about it.  I really wanted the baby, but he put pressure on me….I didn’t want to lose him.”

Isolated at the time, relying on her boyfriend’s advice, Joan had the abortion.  Only later, after severe medical complications arose, did her parents find out.  But more important to Joan were the severe emotional consequences.

Her boyfriend was unable to handle her emotions and took Joan to see his family psychiatrist.  “His psychiatrist told me that he couldn’t see any reason for my depression and my grief and my regret…that I had done the right thing and I needed to get over it and get on with my life.”  Only two months after the abortion performed for his sake, her boyfriend left.

Not a religious person at the time, and unaware of fetal development, Joan still felt extreme shame and guilt.  “I knew that I was pregnant with a baby I wanted.  And immediately afterwards, I knew that that baby…I would never hold that baby.”

Eventually, Joan married and became the mother of two children.  Her life then was filled with “triggers,” moments when her abortion would come to life, and emotions would flood her.  “When our son was born, I just looked at him and thought, “He’s not your first child.  He’s your second.  And your first you gave back.  You don’t deserve this one.”

Striving to become the perfect, loving mother and to reclaim the pain of her abortion, she began working at a local crisis pregnancy center.  It was there where, working over eight years with pregnant moms and women who had had abortions, Joan found healing.  She learned she was not alone.  Her experiences of abandonment, shame and guilt were common among other post-abortive women.

Joan looks at sex education today and criticizes the failure to discuss the obvious…the pregnant elephant in the room.  “I don’t believe they talk about the consequences strongly enough.”  Condoms have a pregnancy failure rate for teens of approximately 22%.  “I believe,” Joan says, “that if abortion is talked about as a possible consequence to sexual activity. Kids might make a different choice about becoming sexually active.”

Even when abortion is discussed, Joan points out, “It’s been sugar-coated… ‘This is nothing more than a very simple, quick medical procedure, probably not as traumatic as having a tooth pulled.’”

While some educators have begun to change their rhetoric, Joan is quick to challenge their fence-sitting.  “Either it is a horrible heart-wrenching difficult decision with all of the implications of that, with the emotional damage and the reality of what it does to the child…or it is simpler than having a tooth pulled.  Which is it?”

Coupled with the lack of comprehensive discussions about abortions, sex educators offer almost no information on fetal development.  Over 138,000 abortions were performed in 2001 on women age 19 and under according to the Centers for Disease Control.

Often facing an abortion decision in isolation, teens may lack true knowledge about the stage of development of their baby.  Years later, when pregnant with a child they will keep and with intimate knowledge of fetal development, they often experience a delayed and traumatic reaction to their abortion.

Joan speaks openly about abortion these days.  And she calls others to do the same.  There is a pregnant elephant in the room, and we need to start talking openly about what to do with it.

The next time an educator promotes comprehensive sex education to you, ask them if they present the harmful consequences of abortion to young people.  Ask them if they teach young people about the development of a baby in the womb.  And if they don’t, ask them, “Why not?”

Joan is right.  If we’re going to be comprehensive, it’s time to start discussing the pregnant elephant.

 

 June 5, 2004:  Unplanned Joy

December 10, 2004:  The Best Part of Snuggling

 See Archives for past editorials.

 

Teen Pregnancy: What’s the Problem?

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

January 3, 2005

“Did you know? The only 100% foolproof way to prevent pregnancy is not to have sex?”

This is front page news heralded by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy on its website home page.  Recognizing the significance of America’s problem with teen pregnancies, they have set a goal to “reduce the rate of teen pregnancy by one-third between 1996 and 2005.”  This is the final year…a time to measure success…or failure.

The National Campaign website goes to great lengths to explain the urgency of this goal.  “A basic tenet of the Campaign is that reducing the nation’s rate of teen pregnancy is one of the most strategic and direct means available to improve overall child well-being and, in particular, to reduce persistent child poverty.”

Connecting cause to effect, their website points an official finger at the cause of teen pregnancies…having sex.  Ah…well…yeah…mmm…but…well, then what?

So…you don’t have sex?  And you don’t get pregnant?  This is news?

Ah…well…yeah…mmm…but…sex…well…then…what?  You don’t have sex?  Forever?  A lump forms in our throat.  Forever?  No sex?

The problem with the problem of teen pregnancy in America is our reluctance to deal with the solution.  We get as far as telling teens to not have sex…telling them this will prevent teen pregnancy.  But we have yet to settle as a nation on the time when they get to have sex.

If teens are going to be willing to abstain from having sex, we owe them a standard for the defining time when having sex is OK.  When can they start having sex?

There is a long list of answers that have been trotted out over the years…you can have sex…

…when you’re in love

…when you’re responsible

…when you’re mature

…or my favorite…

…when you’re ready…to have sex.

For thirty years, giving teens approval to have sex at the moment when they felt responsible and mature and ready, we pushed teen pregnancy rates to an all-time high in 1990 of 117 pregnancies per 1000 girls ages 15-19.

Then a change began.  In the early 1990s, maverick trend-setting teachers, bucking the “truisms” of sexual “enlightenment,” began to teach students the truth.  Sex causes pregnancy.  And if you take this truth seriously, the only time to begin having sex is when you are ready to bear the responsibilities of being pregnant…giving birth…and raising a child…when you are married.

Doctors and legislators began to connect the dots between the cause and the problem of teen pregnancy.  In 1996, Congress allocated its first small sums of money to encourage innovative educators to find effective ways to teach this truth to students and to help them achieve success in remaining sexually abstinent until marriage.

In 2000, the last year reported on the National Campaign’s records for teen pregnancies, we can be heartened by signs of success.  From the high of 117 pregnancies per thousand in 1990, we achieved a low of 84 pregnancies per thousand in 2000.

Teens are getting the message.  They are responding.  But is this enough?

It is 2005, and we are reaching for the prize.  If we are to reach the National Campaign’s goal of a reduction by one-third in teen pregnancies from 1996 to 2005, we are looking at fewer than 65 pregnancies per 1000 teen girls.

If we truly desire to reach this goal, we must reflect once more with urgency on the messages we give teens about when to not have sex…and when to have sex.

When do we want them to have babies?  When do we want our children raising our grandchildren?  How many of us will feel blessed if our children are lucky enough to be unified with a spouse…together as mother and father, husband and wife…two parents who love each other and are committed to building an enduring relationship for the benefit of their children?

If we want to solve the problem of teen pregnancy, we will have to do more than tell teens when not to have sex.  We will have to set the standards for having sex…abstinence…until marriage…a good choice for this generation…and the generation of babies they will bring into the world.

August 13, 2004:    Only

October 22, 2004:   Bringing Poppa Home

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New Year’s Resolution: Another Kind of Diet

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

December 27, 2004

Is there anything we haven’t eaten in the past week: ham, tamales, potatoes, chocolate, brandy, wine…and…

On the way to eating, there is tasting, munching, nibbling and sipping.  Whatever you call it, the food goes in…and settles in for a long winter’s nap…right around the waist.

One week later, stuffed to the gills, we must face the truth.  A diet is in order.  The belt is tight, and we are too bottom-heavy to lift out of the recliner.  Eating may be natural, but it certainly has its limits.

Guided by New Year’s Resolutions, millions of Americans begin to set boundaries on what we put in our mouth.  We post calorie counts on the refrigerator door, we empty the kitchen of temptation and we carry boxed chocolates to the office.

Indulging at the banquet table comes at a cost.  Anyone laboring to shed a few “holiday pounds” knows the painful and difficult process of “paying for our pleasure.”  Food is only one item on a long list of indulgences…each with a cost.

For the past thirty years, we have winked at sexual indulgences, and our children are paying the price.  An epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases and thousands of children raised by single moms are testimony to the need for a diet of a different kind.

Abstinence education is about more than sex.  It is a diet for the soul.  It is about making the connections for our children between the indulgence and the consequence.  It offers children hope because it tells them they don’t have to pay a price if they can learn restraint.

Abstinence education is about the dreams of our children, about the quality of their lives both now and forever.  It works to give young people the imagination, confidence and tools to fulfill their dreams.  Sex is a part of the dream.  And so is restraint.

Debates over sex education continue to rage.  Millions of dollars are being poured into campaigns to paint abstinence educators as fear-filled, shame-based fools.  After all, one condom-friendly sexpert lectured her audience…sex is natural…like eating.

This was the major point she wanted to make?  A woman with over twenty years experience in teaching our children about sex?

She turned to face an abstinence teacher and lashed out in her most indignant voice.  “We want our children to celebrate sex.  We don’t need them to be fearful and filled with shame.  We want them to feel at home with their sexuality.  After all, sex is perfectly natural.”

She smiled…smugly.  She had trumped any challenge to acting on a sexual urge.  Well…after thirty years of reassuring our children that sex is natural, these sexperts have achieved their goal…and more.

No fear and no shame…this goes a long way to explain Superbowl XXXVIII and its international show of bumping and grinding center stage…pelvic thrusts set to music…complete with one naked breast.  Not to mention MTV.  And this sexpert wants us to believe the most pressing thing to teach our children is that sex is natural?

Eating is natural.  But it is only healthy when it is managed, limited, and held inside the bounds of medical realities by exercising self control.  Eating is not to be feared.  But it is to be restrained.  If not, why bother with New Year’s Resolutions?

Sex, just like dining at a banquet table filled with delectable dishes, is a passion best enjoyed when boundaries are observed.  Natural desires have natural consequences.  This is the truth from which we build New Year’s Resolutions…both for the kitchen and for the bedroom.

No fear.  No shame.  Teaching our children restraint is not about teaching shame.  Restraint is their ultimate liberation from the very real fear of paying a consequence more severe than a few extra holiday pounds around the waist.

Our children need more than the simplistic reassurance that sex is natural.  They need the perfection of nature’s ultimate truth:  Our greatest hopes and dreams are more often than not fulfilled with a simple resolution of self-control made…and kept.

Happy New Year.

April 16, 2004:   One Stop Shopping

April 30, 2004:  Condoms: A Failure to Protect

May 28, 2004:   What If

See Archives for past editorials.