Category Archives: Birth Control

Celebrating Failure

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

October 3, 2005

Yahoo!  Young women lead the way in tearing down sex taboos!  Another sex study.  And another news report.

Yahoo!  Feelings of guilt plummeted, especially among young women. 

Yahoo!  Sexual practices that were frequently reviled by earlier generations – especially oral sex – were becoming far more acceptable and widespread. 

Yahoo!  Oral sex has become so popular.  In previous generations, oral sex was considered disgusting.  Now young people see it as another way of being sexual.

Yahoo!  It’s also part of the general trend of sexual behavior moving away from marriage and reproduction.  Yahoo!

Once again, eager Yahoo.com reporters rush out to herald “a landmark new report by researchers.”  And with the thoughtlessness of lemmings content to march off the cliff, if dying produces a two-inch headline, they report on the state of teen sex in America complete with confetti and fanfare.

Do any of these Yahoo reporters bother to read their own news reports?  Are any of these reporters parents with sons and daughters?  Are any of these reporters suffering from infertility, herpes outbreaks, or cervical cancer?  Would these be the examples of “pleasure” linked to rampant sex?

Americans are literally schizophrenic about sex.  In January, we wring our hands over the rising rate of unwed teen parents.

In February, we celebrate Valentine’s Day by handing out red flavored condoms that fail to prevent infection by the humanpapillomavirus (HPV), the cause of over 97 per cent of cervical cancer.

In March, we bemoan college spring break trips to Florida and Mexico, where thong bikinis, alcohol and tanning oil make sex nearly unavoidable.

In April, we buy magazines with nearly naked models on the cover in the latest summer thong bikinis.

In May, headlines cry out about the dangers of prom night.

In June, a new “landmark report by researchers” reveals that television is more sexual than ever, and…because of that… that kids are more sexual than ever, too.

In July, doctors announce they are treating increased number of teens for gonorrhea of the throat, the result of oral sex in junior high school.

In August, a lawsuit is settled out of court by parents who discovered their thirteen-year-old daughter was sold an abortion in violation of state law without their knowledge.

In September, SIECUS rejects abstinence sex education as “fear-based.”

And now it’s October.  Yahoo!  Teens are having more sex at younger ages for more fun.

Do we really need more reporters and researchers counting and reporting the number of teens having sex and the ways they are doing it?  Do we really need more magazine surveys that solicit intimate details from people about their every little sexual practice?

What does it say about a culture struggling to find ways to keep porn off the Internet and out of the hands of children at the same time it is celebrating when we learn that North American sexual taboos are out of fashion?

With so much research and so much news, we have learned so little.  If we truly understood the news we read, this week’s story would have been heralded with a much truer headline.   Young women lead the way in ignoring sexual consequences. 

Sadly, that is nothing to Yahoo about.

Copyright © 2005 Jane Jimenez         

 

January 3, 2005 – Teen Pregnancy:  What’s the Problem?

September 10, 2004 – Duh

The Gift of Fear

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

September 26, 2005

What do you fear?  Who can’t identify with Indiana Jones who looks up from the deep pit he must descend into, a pit writhing in motion, and grumbles into the camera, “Snakes.  I hate snakes.”

Movies have made millions from cultivating fear of stalkers coming out of the dark to attack the unsuspecting.  This makes a great plot line, but in real life we have little to fear.

Gavin De Becker in his bestseller The Gift of Fear dispelled the notion that human beings are defenseless against random acts of violence.  Fear, he explained, was actually a set of “survival signals that protect us from violence.”

De Becker is one of the nation’s leading experts on predicting human violence.  As a three-time presidential appointee, he has advised many of the world’s most prominent media figures, corporations and law enforcement agencies on predicting violence.

Casey Gwinn, San Diego City Attorney, says, “De Becker moves the reader from victim to victor as he identifies the God-given abilities we all have to avoid the risks we face from our society’s predators.”  The key to De Becker’s protection plan is fear…welcoming fear as a tool of prediction and protection.

Using Kelly’s real-life story of nearly losing her life after a rape, De Becker leads the reader through key moments where Kelly ignored her intuition that she was in danger.  The man who appeared silently out of nowhere, the man offering her help she didn’t need or ask for, the man’s excessive charm, his persistent conversation laden with incredible details…all of these were clues Kelly buried in her subconscious, refusing to believe this ordinary man fit her vision of a rapist.

Ignoring the signs of danger and suppressing her gift of fear nearly cost Kelly her life.  Only by using extraordinary courage and cunning, did Kelly manage to slip out of her apartment to safety.

Signs of danger surround us in every aspect of our life.  We know to trust our pets when they perk their ears and become agitated.  In Arizona, an eerie dead calm in the air can signal an approaching violent summer storm.  Years of smoking tobacco should put a person on guard for cancer or emphysema.  Fear of intruders, storms and cancer may engulf us.  But if fear is used as a gift, we are in a position to save ourselves.

So, what about sex?  And what about sex education?  Most importantly, what about fear-based sex education?

The conundrum needs explaining.  If one supports fact-based medically accurate information about sex, then we must face many unwelcome facts about sexual liberation.  The facts tell one simple truth.  We are not liberated from the consequences of sex.

Yet, the very people who claim expertise on sex, SIECUS and its allies, are the first to decry programs that tell the truth about the consequences of sex.  While SIECUS and its allies promote condoms like an all-purpose band-aid for cuts, broken legs and severed arteries, the truth about condoms requires a complete presentation of their limitations.

Condoms are not going to be the savior of sexually active teens.  Facts about the limitations of condoms are supported by research and medical experts in fully documented reports readily available to the public.  Conscientious teachers have a duty to tell students about incurable viral STDs, infertility, cervical cancer, and AIDS.

Yet, SIECUS continues to shame such educators with charges that they are promoting fear.  Education based on medically accurate facts is fear-based?  Shame on you, SIECUS.

Fear, if properly used, is a gift.  It calls our attention to the dangers around us and gives us the opportunity to avoid those dangers.

Fear is a call of accountability to those who hold the power of information.  It requires our attention to detail and our full evaluation of all facts on hand.  Crying “fear-based” in the media is no more responsible than crying “fire” in a crowd.

De Becker says it well.  “Denial has an interesting and insidious side effect.  For all the peace of mind deniers think they get by saying it isn’t so, the fall they take …is far, far greater than that of those who accept the possibility.  Denial is a save-now-pay-later scheme, a contract written entirely in small print, for in the long run, the denying person knows the truth on some level, and it causes a constant low-grade anxiety.”

Sex and fear?  Not if you are armed with the truth and respect fear as a gift.  We owe a debt of thanks to the educators who respect fear as an opportunity to talk truth with the children we love.

July 11, 2005 – Medically Accurate Cowards

 “Condoms: What’s Still at Risk?” brochure available from The Medical Institute

www.medinstitute.org

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Oral Sex: The Big Surprise

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

September 19, 2005

Oral sex is a leading story this week.  The Centers for Disease Control announced last Thursday that oral sex is a common practice among U.S. teens.

Once again, this report has spawned a public response filling column inches in newspapers and hours of air time on talk radio.  Evaluating the rate of oral sex among teens, Kristin Moore, president of Child Trends, declares to The Washington Post that, “…these numbers indicate this is a big concern.”

Indeed, radio talk show hosts are concerned.  They have picked up the story and are talking with listeners around the country.  Their listeners are concerned.  We are all concerned.  But are we surprised?

Not anymore.  One decade earlier, oral sex was a term largely confined to medical journals and sex-friendly publications.  It was a term limited to descriptions of private adult relationships.  Never did people link this behavior to adolescents.  Today Professor of Pediatrics Claire Brindis tells The Washington Post, “…we’re talking about a social norm.  It’s part of kids’ lives.”

If there is any surprise left about teens and oral sex, it is the surprise that so many adults and authorities on teen sex now consider oral sex a normative behavior for teens.  It is surprising to hear a radio listener tell Michael Medved that he would rather have his child  engage in oral sex than sexual intercourse.  “Is your child a son?” Medved asks.

“Yes,” the caller admits.  Medved pursues.  Would the caller sanction oral sex if his child were a daughter?  “No, I guess not.”

Dr. Brindis thinks we should give teens a stronger message about the risks of oral sex.  The surprise here is what she considers the stronger message.  “Maybe we need to do a better job of showing them they need to use condoms,” Brindis advocates in The Washington Post.

Meanwhile, the poster man and woman for oral sex are making news half way around the world.  As reported on Independent Online, “a rubber company in China has begun marketing condoms under the brand names Clinton and Lewinsky.”

Spokesperson Liu Wenhua of the Guangzhou Rubber Group, in a pre-sale promotion, was handing out 100,000 free Clinton and Lewinsky products.  Eventually, when sold in southern China, a box of 12 will cost $3.72 and $2.35 respectively.  Liu, obviously a clever marketing strategist, points out, “The Clinton condom will be the top of our line.”

The big surprise of the CDC story on oral sex and teens is that there is no surprise.  As we tally up the news stories and commentary, the real surprise is that we appear to have lost our resolve to consider oral sex a blight on the sexual innocence of our children and a threat to their health and welfare.

A father endorses oral sex for his son because it can’t cause pregnancy.

A health expert and professor declares our best strategy to counter the fad of oral sex is to do a better job of teaching teens how to use condoms for oral sex.

And our nation’s highest officer, known around the world as a proud proponent of oral sex as a method of avoiding “sexual relations” and adultery, now has his own name on a line of condoms in China.

Where, in all of this, is the clear and authoritative call to teens, “STOP!”?  Clearly, we have lost our ability to be surprised.  But have we also lost our ability to cry out to our teens with absolute concern for their emotional and physical health?

Have we sunk so low that we assuage our pain at seeing young people engage in risky behaviors by helping these teens justify the risks as manageable and preferable to making a baby?

Preferring the path of least resistance, we have abandoned our children because it is just too much trouble to hold the line of defense for their protection.  The big surprise about teens and oral sex is that there is no big surprise.

 

September 10, 2004 – Duh

October 29, 2004 – Food for the Brain

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Succeeding at Failure

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

September 5, 2005

Timken High School in Canton, Ohio, has succeeded in setting a new record.  Sixty-five of the girls attending Timken are pregnant.

This record is matched by another startling local statistic.  According to the Canton Health Department, out of 586 babies born through July at local hospitals, 104 of the babies had mothers between the ages of 11 and 19.

Nationally, last week, radio and television talking heads picked up this story and ran with it.  Outrageous, they shouted.  Outrageous!  What a dismal record of failure!

Failure?  Really?

Think about it.  Timken girls and boys have succeeded at one thing.  They have succeeded in absorbing the messages of modern American culture and incorporating those messages into their lives.

Reality television validates casual sex between “consenting” guys and gals.  So Timken guys and gals consented.

Popular entertainment idols jump in and out of bed so fast that we lose count.  So Timken teens played like they are stars of the silver screen.

“Sexperts” insist that teens are incapable of resisting sexual temptations.  So Timken teens didn’t.

“Sexucators” go into classrooms and use false promises of “protection” and “safe sex” to downplay the true failure rates of condoms.  Sex is fun, not risky.  So Timken teens reach for promises of good times.

Rap and sports heroes brag about the number of women they conquer…and leave.  So Timken males fade into the background as the girls are counted by statisticians.

And sadly, American culture runs away from defining marriage as an expected standard for raising children.  So Timken teens will be unmarried parents.

If you consider what we are teaching our children, it appears that Timken teens have simply excelled at learning what they have been taught.  They are not alone.

Stella is a pregnant teen who doesn’t attend Timken.  She and her boyfriend were really “serious.”  So they had sex.  Now he’s gone and Stella is pregnant.

Sure, her feelings are hurt at being dumped by her boyfriend.  But Stella likes being pregnant.  She looks forward to being a mother and having a baby to hold.  And maybe, just maybe, her boyfriend will come back.

Next week, Stella’s friends and family are throwing her a baby shower.  Her aunt has brought over a baby bed and stroller.  And everyone is getting excited, anticipating her approaching due date.

Statisticians will count Stella as an unfortunate unwed pregnant teen.  But in the real world where Stella lives, she is making a family using the pattern she has been given.

She had sex because she was serious with her boyfriend.  And she is having a baby because she is pregnant.  Stella has grown up in a world where babies enter our lives as casually as new cars and prom dresses.

If you talk with Stella and her friends…and I suspect the young girls of Timken high…they have the same eternal dream of women going back thousands of years.  They long to be mothers and raise children.   And they are.

They have learned what “sexucators” have been teaching.  Babies are no longer the expected product of a married couple committed to each other for life.  Marriage, sex, love, infatuation, fun, babies and families…all of it is up for grabs…depending on the mood of the day and the luck of the dice.

Is it failure when 65 girls at Timken High School are pregnant?  Not if they have succeeded in learning what we have been teaching them.

 

October 29, 2004 – Food for the Brain

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Planning to Have an Emergency

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

August 29, 2005

It is called emergency contraception.  By any other name, Roget’s Thesaurus calls it a crisis, a highly volatile, dangerous situation requiring immediate remedial action.

We’re all familiar with emergencies.  The water pipe that breaks and floods the house…

…the car brakes that fail, sending you sailing through the intersection right under a red light…

…the flames erupting from the skillet on the stove, burning oil popping onto wood cabinets and kitchen curtains…

…the category four hurricane bearing down on your coastal home…

…the tight chest pains making you collapse onto the snow bank you’ve been shoveling…

…all of them…dangerous situations requiring immediate remedial action.

It used to be called emergency contraception for a good reason.  It implied that thoughtful, careful people were going about their lives, following prudent actions, taking care to avoid emergencies…when all of a sudden…an emergency happened…totally out of the blue…unexpected…unanticipated…and outside of our control.

Emergency contraception?  Where is the emergency?

The campaign to provide emergency contraception over the counter to all women, and the girls who would one day be women, belies the very essence of its name.  The Morning After…in the light of day, with both feet on the ground, when it comes to mind that we had an emergency last night…there’s a better remedy for this type of emergency than taking a little pill

The remedy for the morning after is engaging the brain on the night before.  Yet, the biggest fans of emergency contraception are those who oppose abstinence education, who reject the idea that children should learn sex is best inside marriage.

Repackaging “the morning after pill” as emergency contraception is a public relations game of the first order.  Sheila, the director of a pregnancy clinic, attests to this.  As the media blitz first put emergency contraception on the front page, calls to her clinic skyrocketed…calls from men.  Over three-fourths of the questions for Sheila about using the “emergency” pill came from men.

Like professional hucksters, proponents for over-the-counter access to emergency contraception point to the married woman whose birth control failed.  They point to rape victims.  Yet for these emergencies, we can create effective access to emergency contraception.  It doesn’t require putting this pill in easy reach of teen girls.

Truth is, if you think you might be planning to have an emergency, there’s a better way.  Plan to not have an emergency.  Plan sex for the right time and with the right person.  The Centers for Disease Control says the healthiest time for sex should be in a lifelong, monogamous, faithful relationship.  Mom and dad call it marriage.

Plan B, for emergencies, works best when we know what a real emergency is.  And anyone who wants to give us a plan for emergencies owes us the best plan of all…a plan for avoiding them.  Plan A.  Abstinence until marriage.

 

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

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