It’s Not Realistic

Back in the 70’s, I had a very brave health teacher who decided to offer her 10th grade class frank and accurate information about sex—both the benefits and the consequences. I recall that my parents had to sign a release form giving me permission to attend this class, which they did, quite happily.

It was in that classroom where I saw my first condom and I learned how men get erections, and learned that women have “little penises” called a clitoris and this tiny bit of anatomy was the key to female orgasm. As I write this I marvel at all the information I was given in this short series of classes. This information later allowed me to challenge much of the schoolyard sexual mythology—such as the “blue ball” myth that guys would practically die if they couldn’t satisfy an erection—and allowed me to protect myself from unplanned pregnancies and act as my own advocate when I was ready to go beyond first base.

I mourn for the generations of men and women who didn’t get this information, or got it too late. I speak not only as a childless by choice woman but also as a mentor of young women. More than once I’ve had to explain to a young woman, as my teacher did, why you can’t use a condom twice, or confirm that it is possible to get STDs from oral sex. Too many go out in a world, where 30 percent of American teens have sex before they are old enough to drive a car, unarmed and misinformed.

This is why I have always resisted the notion of abstinence-only education. I fear that by limiting sex education in schools we rob children of critical knowledge that will keep them safer, and I feel it is grossly naïve to think abstinence-only education can reduce premarital sex. Sadly, my fears were confirmed in a recent article titled Abstinence-Only Education: Just As Much Sex, But With Less Condom Use written by Melanie Altar citing a study by Janet Rosenbaum, a researcher at John Hopkins, which found that “teenagers who pledge to remain virgins until their wedding night are just as likely to have premarital sex as those who do not. Moreover, pledgers in the study were less likely to take precautions against STIs and unwanted pregnancies than a peer control group with similar backgrounds who did not make a pledge.”

Rosenbaum’s findings were echoed in Greta Van Susteren’s interview with Sarah Palin’s daughter Bristol, a new teen mom. Although her mother is a proponent of abstinence-only education as Governor of Alaska, Bristol, when asked how she felt about contraception, said, “Everyone should be abstinent or whatever, but it's not realistic at all.”

From the mouths of babes to our ears.

VP Pick Leaves Me with No Choice

I’m childfree, and I am an independent, because I like the luxury of choice. Party, shmarty—just give me a candidate who can get the job done—red or blue, or green, or violet. I don’t care.

I’ve always admired McCain. I like his party outsider status. As the Senator from Arizona, he was the guy you could count on to reach across party lines and kick ass and take names. I like Obama, too. He’s smart but he’s not an egghead, he knows what’s doable and what’s not, given the resourses. He knows where his priorities lie, but he’s not an idealogue.

So I was happy with the presidential candidates, both were a welcomed departure from Dubya, so I was anticipating an interesting campaign season, where the outcome was uncertain. I was the Bachelorette, in the final episode. I was on the edge of my seat. My vote still to be wooed, I was looking forward to the final courtship process. The bended knee.

Then came Sarah Palin, leaving me with just one choice.

It wasn’t hate at first sight. I was pleased there was a woman VP candidate. We shared a few things in common. Born in Edmonton, Alberta, I could be found warming a seat at the hockey rink; my father was a hockey coach, he spent fall weekends hunting moose; there are family movies of my grandmother in a cap with ear flaps dragging a dead moose out of the woods.

So it wasn’t the pitpull with lipstick, frontier hunter/gatherer chick thing that turned me off. It was three simple things:

1. Under her watch as Mayor of Wasilla, victims of rape were expected to pay for their own rape kits.
2. She appears determined to defend abstinence-only education, despite direct and compelling evidence that an alarming number of young people who vow to stay virgins until married abandon ship like rats on a sinking ship, without life vests (read: condoms).
3. She hadn’t travelled outside of the United States and Canada until 2007 when she was Governor, having applied for her first passport so that she could visit Alaska-based troops in Iraq and Kuwait.

If Palin was the candidate for mayor in my hometown, I might overlook the passport thing, but I would be very concerned about the other two. But she’s not running for mayor, she’s running for Vice President, next in line to someone who, if he gets the votes, will be the oldest elected first-term president in our history.

I shudder. I imagine some factory in China doing double shifts trying to fill the next container full with Sarah Palin masks. It will be the scariest thing I see at my door this Halloween.