Category Archives: Media

Worst-Case Scenario

August 21, 2006

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

This is the time of year when students head off to school.  From kindergarten through college, anxious parents wave goodbye to their children as they relinquish the ever watchful parent control and trust the fate of their children to outside forces.

The newspaper reporter called me.  She was writing a story to help parents of college students…to give them help and reassurance.  How could parents guide young men and women in dealing with the sexual pressures of the college campus?

We spoke about the precautions, the sex talks, the fears, and the boundaries.  We considered the coed dorms, the student health centers, the drinking, the parties.  And we strategized.  Parents had tools to open dialogue with their students, even if these college freshmen were breaking loose from the day-to-day oversight that had guided their first 18 years of life.

Hopes were balanced with fears.  Precautions were checked with risks.  Good and bad possibilities were in a battle for influence over their students.  The obvious question had to be asked.

“Yes, parents can do a lot,” the reporter said.  “But what happens, in the worst-case scenario?”

The worst case scenario.  Her words spoke volumes to me.  After ten years of working in the field of preventing adolescent sex, I was fully aware of the worst case scenario.  Like the mythical head of Medusa, it was a simple phrase that erupts into many tentacles of bad consequences.

Worst case scenario?  Was the reporter thinking of the student who calls mom and dad to tell them they tested positive for AIDS?

Perhaps the reporter was thinking of the one in five adults who are now infected with genital herpes.  Even with a lifelong prescription for Famvir, this infection will control the lives of millions of people with regular outbreaks that can only be treated, not cured.

Maybe the reporter, as I have, has spoken with ob-gyns who have treated women as young as eighteen for cervical cancer.  A new vaccine Gardasil has been introduced to the market that prevents HPV infections, a sexually transmitted disease (STD) responsible for over 97 percent of cervical cancer.  What do parents tell their  daughters?

Or maybe the reporter had personal experience with someone close to them who had undergone an abortion in college.  My own friend was overcome with regret and depression, amplified by the boyfriend who “loved” her during sex and promptly abandoned her after the abortion he wanted.

These stories are just the tip of the iceberg.  So many stories of worst case scenarios, personalized to the individual who has to live out the scenario.  I am friends with a pregnancy counselor who prevented a post-abortion suicide.  I attended the trial of an abortion doctor who walked away from a woman patient and let her bleed to death.

Speaking with the reporter, an unexpected pause let a flood of worst case scenarios fill my mind.  I told the reporter, “I’m trying to figure out what would actually be the worst-case scenario.”

She joined me in brief silence.  “Gee, I guess there are a number of possibilities, aren’t there?”

Of course, I knew from experience that the worst case she most likely had been referring to was a phone call from college, “Mom, I’m pregnant.”  But considering this question and the many people I know who have dealt with this scenario, I could see only life and hope.

“I am old enough,” I told her, “to remember the college housing for married students and families.  Children and marriage at one time were not hostile barriers to future happiness.  Maybe discipline and patience were required.   But life was big enough for it all.”

One dear friend gave birth to her unplanned baby and chose adoption to bless the lives of a mother and father who could only wait for her generous gift.  Today, she is much more at peace with her “scenario” than those I have spoken to who regret their hasty abortion decisions made under pressure and isolation.

When did babies become the enemy?  When did they define the “worst-case scenario” for American culture?

As our children leave home, and as we continue to parent them from afar, perhaps the best gift we can give them is an understanding of the wonderful joys that come from sex that produces life.

Four years in college is a slice of their life, a time when they set the stage for their future…not just careers…but lives as mothers, fathers, parents.  The best-case scenario is a dream they can catch, if we take the time to build it.

Our fears and our hopes both have the ability to capture our mind.  Which will it be for our children?  The best-case scenario…or the worst?

 

July 11, 2005 – Medically Accurate Cowards

April 2, 2004 –  Sex Education: Spinning the Truth

 See Archives for past editorials.

How Young Is Too Young?

July 10, 2004

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

I think she still holds it against me. As a teen today, it’s absolutely ludicrous to think that my niece Katie needs to hold my hand while crossing the street.

But way back when, when Katie was just three, our battle of wills produced fierce tears.  On a shopping trip, I, her aunt, was entrusted with her safety.  All was going well…until the moment I grabbed Katie’s hand before we crossed the busy parking lot in front of the store.

Katie, jerked her hand away from me.  Hearing a car’s motor on the left, I reached out to catch her hand again.  It took us a full minute to establish that she was going to hold my hand as we crossed the street.  And, if today she still holds it against me, I must confess…I’m not sorry for insisting on winning the battle.

Life is like that.  One minute we’re too young to be entrusted with a task.  And then we aren’t.

Life is like that.  One minute we’re held back.  And then, crossing the line in the sand, we are suddenly old enough to be trusted with new responsibilities.  It’s a simple principle.  And yet, it’s a principle some want us to ignore in the most significant area of life for American teens today.

Today, we are embroiled in a national debate about how to handle sexual behavior related to teens and adolescents.  In a surprising upheaval of logic, there are “sexperts” who cannot find any line in the sand at all to dictate a time when sex is absolutely, unequivocally and irrevocably inappropriate for young people.

Instead, these “sexperts” have declared this the “Age of Consent.”  If you can get or give consent, then you are old enough to have sex.

Ignoring the health implications for teens who are sexually active, these “sexperts” wag their fingers in the face of abstinence educators, rejecting any attempt to set a line in the sand.  Who is “ready” for sex, you ask?  Anyone who “consents” to have sex, they answer.

Embracing the philosophy of Kinsey, all sex is good sex…if you can dream it up, if you can manage to perform it, and if it is consensual…then it is good sex.

Like all ideas, pushing to the extreme, we eventually must come to terms with the insanity of insane ideas.  Consider the case of the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA).  According to Wikipedia, it is “a New York City and San Francisco-based unincorporated organization that opposes the use of age as the sole criterion for deciding whether minors can legally engage in sexual relations.

“NAMBLA defends what it asserts to be the right of minors to explore their sexuality on a much freer basis. It has resolved to ‘end the oppression of men and boys who have freely chosen mutually consenting relationships.’”

Checking out the NAMBLA website, disturbing evidence exists of adults promoting sex between grown men and young boys.  You can order a newly revised copy of Boys Speak Out on Man/Boy Love, promoted with a picture of a grown man dancing with a boy barely taller than his elbows.  Chapters include “It Shouldn’t Be a Crime to Make Love,” written by Bryan, age twelve and a half.  An interview with Thijs, age eleven, declares “I’m Not Going To Be Kept Away from Him.”  How about it, “Sexperts?”  Is consent considered justification for this type of adult/child sex?

Or what about a 2002 book written by Judith Levine, Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex?  Widely promoted as a book to challenge “widespread anxieties” about pedophilia, Ms. Levine was toasted by national media and given every opportunity to convince Americans that science supports positive benefits for sex between adults and children.

Publisher University of Minnesota Press called Levine’s book “a radical, refreshing, and long overdue reassessment of how we think and act about children’s and teens’ sexuality.”  James Kincaid, author of “Erotic Innocence: The Culture of Child Molesting,” called it “a crusading book that is also kind, a very rare phenomenon, and it comes down always on the side of trusting not only our kids and their pleasures but our own.”

Taking up the banner of “consensual sex,” most recently the Journal of Adolescent Health stated that “…there are no scientific data suggesting that consensual sex between adolescents is harmful.”  Seeking to justify their assertion, they pointed to the “many positive mental health consequences” of adolescent sex.

Finally, and most sadly, the Centers of Disease Control has now joined in the chorus of “sexperts” protecting sex for adolescents.  At their 2006 National STD Prevention Conference in Jacksonville, Florida, the CDC had a chance to draw a line in the sand.  And they failed.

At the CDC conference, standing before a crowd of national experts on STDs, Dr. Patricia Sulak sought to find common ground between the “sexperts” and abstinence educators.  Surely, she challenged them, we can agree on this one thing.  Can’t we agree on an age too young for sex?

NO! the room erupted in unison.  After all, this is the age of consent.  If sex is consensual, that’s good enough for them.  If you are wondering what the CDC has to say about this…so am I.

How about it, CDC?  How young is too young when it comes to children and sex?

 

July 11, 2005 – Medically Accurate Cowards

November 19, 2004 – Kinsey: Brave New World?

See Archives for past editorials.

Kaiser Embraces Abstinence Education?

June 5, 2006

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

Well, maybe the word embraces is too strong to describe Kaiser Network’s publication of a summary of the recent Washington Times article on sex education.

Then again, embraces abstinence pretty well sums up the impact of Kaiser’s summary posted on their Daily Women’s Health Policy Listing, reporting positively on the Times article that “examines ‘holistic’ approaches to preventing teen pregnancy.”

Perhaps I’m wrestling with the language a bit because I doubt Kaiser realizes that it has its arms locked around abstinence education in a big ol’ “I Love You, Man” kind of bear hug.

This is a very big deal for those familiar with Kaiser Network’s traditional editorial bias opposing abstinence education in favor of programs willing to promise teens condoms will provide saf-er-er-er sex.  Hence, we take the liberty of saying that Kaiser, a major national health network, perhaps unintentionally, now embraces abstinence education.  They do.  They really do!

The Times story reported on two “holistic” approaches to preventing teen pregnancy in the U.S.  Based on information from the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, these “holistic” approaches finally acknowledge that it is not enough to focus on “managing the health risks of sex.”

The big news for Kaiser is that these “holistic” approaches include “relationship skills” in their sex-education programs.  “Teens hear about biology and body parts,” Kaiser quotes, but they are also learning the importance of “how to achieve responsible and respectful relationships.”  Psychologist Michael Carrera advises Times readers “that the best way to prevent teen pregnancy is to ‘move from fragmentation…to wholeness.’”

The bigger news for Kaiser should be that this is not new news.  This is the foundation and core of the many quality abstinence curricula developed over the past 15 years, since founders of abstinence education declared that the “body parts” approach to sex education was inadequate at the least…and irresponsible at the worst.

Of course, those attacking abstinence education have been fundamentally opposed to abstinence programs for precisely this reason…that they teach teens the importance of “how to achieve responsible and respectful relationships.”

Hopefully, Kaiser is also taking note of mounting evidence demonstrating the need to teach young people about healthy relationships in the context of healthy marriages.  A recent Gallup poll finds that nearly all U.S. adults – 91% – either have been married or plan to get married one day.

Meanwhile, a survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention involved more than 12,000 men and women and investigated their attitudes about marriage.  Survey results released in May show that men (66%), even more than women (51%), agreed that “it is better to get married than go through life single.”  Moreover, men (76%) and women (72%) agreed that “it is more important for a man to spend a lot of time with his family than be successful at his career.”

This is good news for the children of married parents.  The CDC survey also found that among fathers in their first marriage, 90% live with their kids.  They are involved with their kids…from feeding to bathing to helping with homework and taking them to activities.  Other major research consistently proves that children living with their biological fathers are less likely to engage in risky behaviors…including teen sex.

Commitment to marriage and families is also good news for married men.  On June 1, UPI reported on a study in Denmark that found “the death rate among divorced men in their 40s is twice as high as it is for other men in the same age group.  Alcohol and suicide accounted for many of the deaths, and one-fourth were caused by heart disease.  “Rikke Lund, a senior researcher who was in charge of the study, said that given the findings, Denmark should do more to keep marriages together.”

Well, Kaiser, the good news for all of us is that abstinence education has and continues to bring all of this medical and relational information together into a “holistic” message of wellness for adolescents.  One curricula cited in the Times article, “Love U2” has been on the Arizona approved list for years for use in abstinence programs.

Marlene Pearson, founder of the LoveU2 Program, also teaches social science in Wisconsin.  She finds teens eager to hear more about love, intimacy, and ethical consequences of sex.  She tells the Times, teens already know “a messed-up love life can certainly mess up other parts of your life.”

Adults, says Pearson, need to tell teens there’s a “simple formula” that can help them fulfill their goals in love.  This “sequence for success” is to “graduate from high school (at least), don’t have a baby until you are married, and don’t marry during the teen years.”

Well, Kaiser, it’s encouraging to find you sharing this important message about “holistic” approaches to sex education with those interested in health care.  Fortunately, you will be reassured that this is what the many nationally recognized abstinence curricula and programs in existence today are all about…the holistic message…healthy body, healthy mind, healthy spirit.

It’s taken a long time for this to happen.  But, whether they realize it or not, Kaiser Network has finally embraced abstinence education.  Yahoo!

 

FOR MORE ABOUT HOLISTIC SEX EDUCATION

Read Last Week’s Column

May 29, 2006  – Why Condoms Will Not Save Us

 See Archives for past editorials.

CDC: One Eye Closed

May 22, 2006

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

“Unprecedented!” screamed Bruce Trigg of the New Mexico Department of Public Health.  “Shocking!” lamented William Smith of the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States.  “Astounded!” wailed Jonathan Zenilman of the American Sexually Transmitted Disease Association.  “Pure Politics!” reported Rob Stein of the Washington Post.

Earlier this month, the CDC was roused from a one-year slumber.  The minute they opened both eyes, accusations started flying.  Reporters, following Stein’s lead, couldn’t type fast enough to get their own ten column inches in print.

News stories reported last minute changes to a panel at the 2006 National STD Prevention Conference in Jacksonville, Florida.  Originally, William Smith was slated to appear and address the question, “Are Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Programs a Threat to Public Health?”

Thankfully, people who care about the integrity of public health policy shook the CDC by its shoulders and woke it up.  A threat to public health?  Sexual abstinence until marriage?  Imagine!  Someone is threatening the health of our children by teaching them the medically accurate facts supporting sexual abstinence as an intelligent and desired standard of behavior?

The CDC woke up and took note.  Recognizing the pure political propaganda in the title of the panel, they took steps to bring the focus of the panel back to science and medical health.  You would have thought the CDC had shot the family dog.

Pure politics, Mr. Stein?  You are right.  But your reporting missed the very essence of what is astounding.  In truth, politics form the very heart and soul of business as usual for Mr. Trigg, Mr. Smith and Mr. Zenilman.

Consider William Smith, one of the original members removed from the panel.  He works for SIECUS, a key player along with Planned Parenthood, the National Abortion and Reproduction Rights Action League, the National Organization for Women, the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network and the American Civil Liberties Union…all of these organizations united in attacking sexual abstinence as a positive health strategy.  SIECUS, Planned Parenthood, NARAL, NOW, GLSEN and ACLU.  What part of this alliance is not considered political?

And Mr. Smith’s personal expertise?  According to an Internet bio, at one time he was working to complete a doctorate in political philosophy.  And that’s not political?

Consider Henry Waxman (D-CA), who is also critical of abstinence programs and who weighed in against the CDC action.  Would you be surprised to know that Waxman receives a 100 percent rating from Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and NOW?  No?  Good.  He does.

“On the votes that the Planned Parenthood considered to be the most important from 1995 to 2001,” says Vote-Smart.org, “Representative Waxman voted their preferred position 100 percent of the time.” And that’s not political?

Thankfully, the organizer of the original panel, Bruce Trigg of the New Mexico Department of Public Health told Stein, “I have nothing to fear from a balanced program.”  Good deal, Bruce.  That’s exactly what the CDC took steps to ensure.

First, the name change:  “Public Health Strategies of Abstinence Programs for Youth.”  Gone was the fear-based language promising a threat to public health.  Next, the CDC took steps to remove the student of political philosophy from the panel.

Who took his place?  None other than a board-certified ob-gyn.  More than that, Dr. Patricia Sulak “is the director of the Scott & White Sex Education Program. Her responsibilities include overseeing curriculum content and conducting sex education seminars for parents, teachers, healthcare professionals and various civic and community organizations.  And…

“On May 6, 1999, she was presented with the “Heroes for Children” award by the Texas State Board of Education. Dr. Sulak is a Professor at the Texas A&M University Health Science Center College of Medicine, Temple, Texas and the Director of the Division of Ambulatory Care in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Scott & White Memorial Hospital and Clinic.  And…

“Dr. Sulak is board certified by the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology, a Fellow of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and a Board Examiner for the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology.”

Reporters were half right.  With the CDC asleep at the wheel, this was a panel originally convened for the sake of “pure politics.”

Thankfully, the CDC was roused from its sleep.  It opened both eyes.  And for the good of our children, it took steps to restore integrity to the panel with a “balanced program” that included the contributions of leading medical experts in the field of adolescent health.

For that, they deserve our thanks.  Thanks!

 

May 2, 2005  –  Who is SIECUS?

May 9, 2005  –  SIECUS Redefines Humanity

June 6, 2005 –  Planned Parenthood’s War Against Choice

See Archives for past editorials.

CDC: Centers for Disease Confusion

May 15, 2006

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

There is no doubt that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is involved in heroics on a daily basis.  At the mention of the CDC, the mind conjures up pictures of people in white body suits racing across the world to halt the Ebola virus, sweeping Congressional offices for anthrax spores or carrying dead birds to the lab for studies on the mutations of the bird flu virus.

Click on the CDC Special Pathogens Branch web page, and you will find a long list of deadly and dangerous viruses ready to assault your body and do serious harm.   Filoviruses, Hendra Virus, Hantavirus, Nipah Virus…you get the picture.  We are lucky to have the CDC.

However, like all people and all organizations built on people, the CDC is not perfect.   It is courageous, yes.  And it is political, yes.

The Ebola virus is deadly.  Thankfully, though, it is an equal opportunity attacker.  An Ebola virus can spy any rather ordinary person just walking down the street…and attack.  Suddenly you have an epidemic.  No politics are involved.  We, in turn, attack the virus with full vigor:  quarantines, isolation wards, protective gear complete with masks and goggles.

The HIV virus is deadly.  Unfortunately, though, it doesn’t need to attack.  Instead, it enters the body with a special human invitation through sexual acts that send shivers of ecstasy through a person right along with the virus.  Most unfortunately, using sex as its entry portal, the HIV virus …and the long list of over 25 other sexually transmitted infections…is political.

From the very beginning in the 1980s when the HIV virus was first identified, politics took control of the CDC and healthcare system’s strategies in fighting AIDS.  The CDC was beset from all sides.  Panic gripped the nation.  How would we stop this deadly disease?

Many mysteries surrounded the virus, making the formulation of a public health policy difficult.  Yet one thing was crystal clear.  Men practicing homosexual sex were at risk and in danger.

In the 1980s, the CDC chose a course of action partly medical and largely political.  To avoid offending gay activists, it did not invoke its prerogative to close down gay bath clubs and condemn promiscuous and clearly risky sexual behaviors.  Instead, it held out its departmental hand with a truckload of condoms, coining the clearly non-medical nor non-scientific term, safe sex.

This satisfied the desires of a country weaned on free sex from the 60s.  It also placated a main stream media that was busily crafting the finer points of politically correct news writing based on redefining and outlawing words that offended liberal sensibilities.  Best yet, it delighted free sex advocates who touted the first billboard for Trojan condoms as a modern benchmark of enlightenment.

Twenty years later, we are struggling to deal with a major health crisis that has taken hold of our children.  The effects of the free sex revolution have finally forced the CDC to retract promises of safe sex.  Yet, the retraction is half-hearted and imbued with politics.

The same main stream media that sharpens its teeth on the bones of right-wing, radical, religious, fanatical victims it has been throwing to the lions for twenty years cannot be trusted to illuminate the dialogue on sexual behaviors with truth.  Even today, journalists continue to describe risky sexual practices with the medically inaccurate term safe sex.   “Enlightened” journalists have repackaged promises of safe sex in ambiguous (and politically safe) terminology such as safer sex and protected sex.

Why is this important for the average citizen to understand?  Because it is the foundation for confusion based on the use of politics to script a medical response to the medical crisis facing our children.  Adolescent sex.

What is the politically correct method of talking sex to our children?  Unfortunately for our children, the lead agency in politically correct medicine today is an agency that has every reason to know better…the CDC.

Copyright © 2006 Jane Jimenez         

 

Next week:  CDC: One Eye Closed

 

September 26, 2005  – The Gift of Fear

See Archives for past editorials.