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I haven't yet. ;-)
I clicked on this article about the different attitudes liberal and conservative people have toward sex. It's pretty interesting, and right on the money, I think.
It brings up some weird memories for me--memories of the books I read back when I was an adolescent, including at least two published through Focus on the Family. Memories of abstinence-only and "abstinence-plus" education. It's weird how jarring I find some of that information now. I really believed that sex before marriage was always bad, and that abortion was worse. Getting pregnant as a teenager was bad, but mostly only because it meant you'd had sex outside of marriage. I got glimpses of how hard it was to be a teenage mom from a couple of people I knew who had gotten pregnant, but then, they'd had sex, and you weren't supposed to do that.
It's a callous way of looking at teen pregnancy, and I definitely don't think it says much for my ability to think outside of the box at the time.
Conservatives have this idea of, "If you would only listen to me, everything would be fine!" That's what abstinence-only education is. They either don't realize or don't care that people will do their own thing, regardless of what they say, and further, that some people actually hear what they're saying and disagree with them.
I'm not convinced they're convinced teens are people, either. Looking back on my time as a teenager, I'm amazed at what I thought, how I thought about myself, and how much I've changed from that time. Adult Trout would not say the same things or do the same things as Teenager Trout. However, I recognize that I was still a whole person. I had some crazy ideas about love and life and I hadn't really *thought* about some things because they seemed obvious to me, but I generally knew what I was doing.
For too long, the conventional wisdom has been that social conservatives are the upholders of family values, whereas liberals are the proponents of a polymorphous selfishness. This isn't true, and, every once in a while, liberals might point that out.
On the other hand, liberals often think of conservatives as naive, unintellectual people who are just hiding from reality, and I don't think that's true, either. Conservatives don't *like* reality. They have an entirely different set of values, and would greatly prefer everyone else to hold those values, too. After all, if everyone believed the same way they did, wouldn't everyone be better off? Kids wouldn't get conflicting messages about sex--they'd just stay abstinent (because, after all, no kid would experiment with sex if the evil media wasn't telling him to). People wouldn't get abortions, because they'd stay abstinent outside of marriage, and there's no other reason to get an abortion. People wouldn't get divorced, because people...wouldn't get divorced. They'd obviously get along, because God would help them. Or something. Men wouldn't hit their wives, because men never hit their wives unless they live in an evil culture.
I was trying to find the logic here, because I'm sure there must be some here somewhere. Never mind. I give up.
I clicked on this article about the different attitudes liberal and conservative people have toward sex. It's pretty interesting, and right on the money, I think.
It brings up some weird memories for me--memories of the books I read back when I was an adolescent, including at least two published through Focus on the Family. Memories of abstinence-only and "abstinence-plus" education. It's weird how jarring I find some of that information now. I really believed that sex before marriage was always bad, and that abortion was worse. Getting pregnant as a teenager was bad, but mostly only because it meant you'd had sex outside of marriage. I got glimpses of how hard it was to be a teenage mom from a couple of people I knew who had gotten pregnant, but then, they'd had sex, and you weren't supposed to do that.
It's a callous way of looking at teen pregnancy, and I definitely don't think it says much for my ability to think outside of the box at the time.
Conservatives have this idea of, "If you would only listen to me, everything would be fine!" That's what abstinence-only education is. They either don't realize or don't care that people will do their own thing, regardless of what they say, and further, that some people actually hear what they're saying and disagree with them.
I'm not convinced they're convinced teens are people, either. Looking back on my time as a teenager, I'm amazed at what I thought, how I thought about myself, and how much I've changed from that time. Adult Trout would not say the same things or do the same things as Teenager Trout. However, I recognize that I was still a whole person. I had some crazy ideas about love and life and I hadn't really *thought* about some things because they seemed obvious to me, but I generally knew what I was doing.
For too long, the conventional wisdom has been that social conservatives are the upholders of family values, whereas liberals are the proponents of a polymorphous selfishness. This isn't true, and, every once in a while, liberals might point that out.
On the other hand, liberals often think of conservatives as naive, unintellectual people who are just hiding from reality, and I don't think that's true, either. Conservatives don't *like* reality. They have an entirely different set of values, and would greatly prefer everyone else to hold those values, too. After all, if everyone believed the same way they did, wouldn't everyone be better off? Kids wouldn't get conflicting messages about sex--they'd just stay abstinent (because, after all, no kid would experiment with sex if the evil media wasn't telling him to). People wouldn't get abortions, because they'd stay abstinent outside of marriage, and there's no other reason to get an abortion. People wouldn't get divorced, because people...wouldn't get divorced. They'd obviously get along, because God would help them. Or something. Men wouldn't hit their wives, because men never hit their wives unless they live in an evil culture.
I was trying to find the logic here, because I'm sure there must be some here somewhere. Never mind. I give up.
