Vows of Chastity

Off Topic
63

Re the Sweden-US comparison, ther are a few things to consider:

  1. The number of divorces has been stable around 20000 since the mid 70’s, The total number of married couples is 1.56 million.

  2. The average age for marriage for the woman in Sweden is 31 years old. It is common for a couple to already have children before they marry.

  3. Teenage abortion rates are twice as high in the US as in Sweden, teenage pregnancy rates are 5.5 times higher in the US.

There is clearly a delinkage between sex and marriage also for adults in Sweden, where marriage serves as a confirmation of a stable couple rather than as the initial step.

Assuming that Swedish kids are just as stupid and horny as American ones and that participation levels are equal, sex education and the use of contraceptives does serve to minimize the consequences of sex by between half, if you use the abortion rate as an indicator of an unwanted pregnancy, and 80%, if all teenage pregnancies were unwanted.

Given that many Americans do get voluntarily married in their teens and start families, the real number is probably closer to the lower end.

What gives pause for thought is that the US approach of attaching a moral significance to abstinence, rather than a practical, can only be said to have badly backfired. A frightening thought is than many af the pregnancies that went to term in the US resulted from kids hiding their pregnacy from their parents, or worse not even realising it.

TQB

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[quote]T Ham wrote:
Mike Benfield wrote:

I don’t know why this may be significant. Once average marriage age is in the late 20s, things are already a little screwy. I’m not talking about comparing, say, the US and France. I’m talking about comparing the US and traditional Hindus in India, or Europe a few hundred years ago, or what have you.

Aren’t arranged marriages/promising still relatively fairly prevalent in India, pushing the average marriage age down?

And, what is wrong with a marriage age in the late 20s? People can travel, go to school, go to school some more, get a decent career, and then date for a while, and finally get married. Not saying that is the path for everyone.[/quote]

Nothing is wrong with it. Someone earlier talked about divorce rates being high. And they certainly are. But divorce rates are lower among couples who wait to get married till they’re older.

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This ceremony, if useful at all, should be done with males. It is teenage guys who convince girls that it’s ok to have sex and that they love them. The power of some vow made years ago is de minimus compared to a persistent boyfriend. I still think safe sex is the way to go, and stressing the importance of safety.

I think it’s fine to stress that abstinence is the only 100% foolproof method of preventing STDs and pregnancy and these abstinence vows aren’t so bad. SO LONG AS this abstinence ideal doesn’t take one iota of emphasis away from stressing the importance of safe sex and teaching teenagers to be safe. Because pre-marital sex is the reality for most people in this country.

66

[quote]Mike Benfield wrote:
lizard king wrote:
Could be that the past you are envisioning is more an idyll than reality.

Guys, we don’t have to speculate about this stuff because the data is readily available. People record this information. Births to unwed mothers have gone from around 20 (unwed births per 1000 young women) in 1940 to around 70 today. The rate has more than tripled.

The divorce rate in the US today hovers around 50%. In societies that emphasize traditional sexual values, such as some Hindus in India, the divorce rate is around 3% or 4%.
[/quote]

Divorce is certainly a problem. For many reasons. It’s become TOO socially acceptable. And people don’t work at relationships. Too often they just take the easy way out. But things were not necessarily better 50 years ago when a divorce was a scandal and could result in social ostricism. Many of those marriages were unhappy.

What’s better? An unhappy, loveless marriage that lasts for 50 years or a divorce? People need to get married to the right person for the right reasons. And understand that everything won’t always be perfect and be willing to work to have a good relationship and face obstacles together when times are tough. A return to a de facto prohibition on divorce is not the answer.

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[quote]nephorm wrote:
tom63 wrote:
The reason for teaching abstinence first often has a different meaning when you have kids. It’s not theory, it’s the real world.

And I’m telling you that in the real world, this kind of approach causes problems. I know many children who have taken various pledges, and I know what the results tend to be.

I have no problem with abstinence, and I don’t have any problem with parents teaching it to their children. I just don’t think this is the proper means.

A father could hit his child every day to cleanse him of impure thoughts - that might keep the child abstinent. But that doesn’t mean that the means are justified, or that it is the best way.

And while we’re at it, I think there are lots of wonderful things that can be accomplished by ceremony and rites of passage. My guess is that if one would take the ceremonial aspect of this, divorce it from pledges and abstinence altogether, and instead make it simply a bonding experience between family, church, and child, that much more benefit would be seen.

But please don’t insult me as if I do not have eyes to see what has transpired in the lives of my students and my peers.[/quote]

So with your vast experience in raising kids you know it doesn’t work? It does work. We don’t teach only abstinence, but telling kids it’s best to wait does work. Especially if you have built a good relationship with them and regularly talk to them.

I’m teaching my son shooting now. Real stuff with guns. it’s amazing how he can absorb these lessons and listen with firearms, but you seriously think he won’t be careful with sex? We’re not all impulsive animals that drop our pants at every opportunity.

68

[quote]pushharder wrote:
Tom63, I’m with you on this issue. This should not come as a surprise to those who have read my posts on teenage sex.

Those of you who think this “ceremony” and its intent is some diabolical plot by banjo strumming pervert dads to brainwash their daughters into a dastardly cult of insidious debauchery are full of shit.

I’d bet a fair amount that if one were to poll the posters on this thread you’d find that most of those lampooning and blasting this teenage abstinence vow concept are childless teenagers and twenty-somethings and those supporting it are DADS and moms.

Funny thing about perspective, ain’t it?

[/quote]

Exactly push. It was amazing that me a teenager waited until I thought I was ready. I knew how to use condoms. I didn’t get a girl pregnant, herpes, or other nasty crotch diseases. I didn’t have to deal with the emotional turmoil of being 16 and a dad to be.

I teach my kids that life will give you enough problems to handle, so why do stupid stuff to make more?

In my last post I talked about teaching my 12 year old boy shooting. We hunt and shoot, so he needs to learn safety, along with everything else.

Money thing, he’s more likely to cause himself chaos with his dick than with a firearm. And I have started to teach him about dick chaos, hahaha. Herpes doesn’t go away. Warts are another mess. So is pregnancy.

And yes, you can teach kids to delay gratification, possibly the best thing you can teach them. This will help them with school, relationships, money and health.

And no, we’re not all mindless animals that chase every impulse. Except for you felows that have never got any. guess what, you’re abstinent. Funny thing is that the married guy with kids that has a great sex life and the swinger guy with kids and a great sex life thinks kids should wait, but the childless probably not getting any crowd thinks it won’t work.

It seems to be working pretty well for some here.

69

[quote]jsbrook wrote:
This ceremony, if useful at all, should be done with males. It is teenage guys who convince girls that it’s ok to have sex and that they love them. The power of some vow made years ago is de minimus compared to a persistent boyfriend. I still think safe sex is the way to go, and stressing the importance of safety.

I think it’s fine to stress that abstinence is the only 100% foolproof method of preventing STDs and pregnancy and these abstinence vows aren’t so bad. SO LONG AS this abstinence ideal doesn’t take one iota of emphasis away from stressing the importance of safe sex and teaching teenagers to be safe. Because pre-marital sex is the reality for most people in this country.[/quote]

I have hear of ceremonies with the boys also. And yes, I agree that all things about sex should be taught. First delay the impulse, second these are the contraceptives and here is how to use it.

Funny thing, I think the teaching of abstinence while maybe not foolproof, might have the kids delay the urge enough to actually use contraceptives properly. I’d much rather have my kids wait until they got contraception than just diving in.

71

[quote]tom63 wrote:
So with your vast experience in raising kids you know it doesn’t work? It does work. We don’t teach only abstinence, but telling kids it’s best to wait does work. Especially if you have built a good relationship with them and regularly talk to them.[/quote]

Have you read my posts at all, or are you just criticizing my position reflexively? I specifically pointed out the importance of setting down boundaries and expectations for a child - abstinence is not excluded from that. My problem is with “pledges” and “vows.” If you’d read my posts, you’d probably have realized that. I have never once said that teaching abstinence was bad or wrong.

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I’m not allowed to talk about women’s rights issues because I’m not a woman.

I’m not allowed to discuss Israeli policies because I’m not Jewish.

I’m not allowed to argue with affirmative action or progressive reforms because I’m not black.

I can’t talk about children because I don’t have any.

Push, I respect you. But I see a lot of parents (and others) making arguments from authority (specifically, because I’m X, only I can talk about Y).

I respect the expertise of parents and on most child-rearing issues (especially technical aspects) I will of course defer to those who have done the hard work of raising a child.

It is both infuriating, insulting, and lowers the whole discourse to dismiss people simply because they do not meet some qualification… especially if their arguments themselves are not refuted.

73

[quote]Mick28 wrote:
Mike Benfield wrote:
What so many people miss when they talk about this stuff is to look at what the situation was when this culture actually stressed abstinence before marriage and in other cultures which still do.

Obviously things were never perfect and never will be. But 100 years ago, when virtually everyone stressed that people, especially females, should not have sex before marriage, out-of-wedlock pregnancy and spread of STDs were much LOWER. So were divorce rates, which are connected in a way I won’t get into now. It’s ironic that now that everyone has easy access to birth control and condoms and are educated in school about them, unwanted pregnancies and STDs have gone way up, not down.

It’s also about more than just unwanted pregnancies and STDs. Most women will find little comfort in casual sex. Not that it won’t feel good; obviously women enjoy sex. But it won’t ultimately be a satisfactory experience. And it will often leave them emotionally messed up. Not all women. But most. 100 years ago everyone knew this. Today we indoctrinate girls to believe it’s not true. But increasingly people are having to admit that they were wrong that women could have sex indiscriminately without consequence. Surveys are revealing that young women going to college and indulging in the casual sex culture they find often end feeling empty and scarred. Even many of the physiological mechanisms that cause this to happen are understood. People release a hormone after sex that causes them to become emotionally attached to their partner. Women release it in greater quantities than men; also in men testosterone tends to dull its effects.

Anyway, I just think a quick glance around at what’s happening with unwanted pregnancies and divorce rates compared to the way things were in the past should be a pretty big flashing indicator that maybe modern ideas about sex aren’t working out so well.

This is by far the best post on the thread.

And I think that many of the posters who disagree with you only need have a daughter to understand it a bit better.

We live in a sex obsessed culture. Granted the pledge thingy is a bit off the wall. But then again when sex is pushed in your face at such a young age at every turn maybe this wacky pledge idea is just the ticket to maintain some sort of balance.
[/quote]

Very true, and it’s just the point I’m trying to make. We don’t only preach abstinence, nor do we preach from a sin perspective. but i don’t care why people or were people come from in this issue. Teaching your kids some self control and discipline will take them far in life.

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[quote]nephorm wrote:
I’m not allowed to talk about women’s rights issues because I’m not a woman.

I’m not allowed to discuss Israeli policies because I’m not Jewish.

I’m not allowed to argue with affirmative action or progressive reforms because I’m not black.

I can’t talk about children because I don’t have any.

Push, I respect you. But I see a lot of parents (and others) making arguments from authority (specifically, because I’m X, only I can talk about Y).

I respect the expertise of parents and on most child-rearing issues (especially technical aspects) I will of course defer to those who have done the hard work of raising a child.

It is both infuriating, insulting, and lowers the whole discourse to dismiss people simply because they do not meet some qualification… especially if their arguments themselves are not refuted.[/quote]

No people can have an opinion, but I trust more the opinion of someone who has been there done that than hasn’t. Dave Tate has written much about strength coaches that have never lifted much.

I don’t waste time refuting arguments because I know what I’m doing with my kids. I don’t argue theory, because I don’t live theory. When I want to learn something, I go to an expert and learn from them. I don’t believe in learning from discourse.

I’ve learned shooting from my father and other experts. I learned ART from Mike Leahy, Westside stuff from Louie and so on.

But with my kids, I believe in being the expert. I talk and communicate with them. I teach them. We have built trust and have a great understanding of each other.

Now, other parents might drop the ball, and this is one reason why abstinence doesn’t work for everyone. I doubt these people live very disciplined lives. Most things don’t work when you don’t have your shit together.

But I’m not really a debater. I’m not open minded with people I doubt know, haven’t interacted with and have never met. I’ll tell you what I think, but I don’t really bet money on anyone’s opinions or ideas unless I really know they know their stuff.

I have a mom and dad I can get advice I can go to for advice on kids.

You want to be offended, go ahead, but I’m going to listen to a parent well ahead of a teacher in regards to kids. The environment of 24/7 is a little different than the classroom.

75

[quote]nephorm wrote:
tom63 wrote:
So with your vast experience in raising kids you know it doesn’t work? It does work. We don’t teach only abstinence, but telling kids it’s best to wait does work. Especially if you have built a good relationship with them and regularly talk to them.

Have you read my posts at all, or are you just criticizing my position reflexively? I specifically pointed out the importance of setting down boundaries and expectations for a child - abstinence is not excluded from that. My problem is with “pledges” and “vows.” If you’d read my posts, you’d probably have realized that. I have never once said that teaching abstinence was bad or wrong.
[/quote]

How people want to do it is their business and you don’t have any right to criticize it unless you know their whole story. How is their relationship?

What is their religious background? What’s the day in day out like? How has the last 15-16 years of the parent /child relationship been? what have they been taught in regards to right and wrong, morals, behavior, self respect, and son.

This is where I’m coining from in the you don’t have kids. Having kids isn’t a 20 minute talk every two years. It’s a lot of time and influence. To write off a pledge seems to me like you have great insights in these dynamics when you really don’t.

I don’t tell other people how to raise their kids unless they ask me. Most parents won’t either. But a lot of people here, you included seem to know that this pledge is a bad idea, even though you couldn’t tell me one of these girls birthdays.

78

If anyone’s going to have sex with MY daughter, it’s gonna’ be ME!

:wink:

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[quote]Zero_Z wrote:
If anyone’s going to have sex with MY daughter, it’s gonna’ be ME!

;)[/quote]

…

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[quote]Mick28 wrote:
No need to be insulted, infuriated or otherwise ticked off. I’m sure that the other poster respects your opinion, I know that I do. But you’ll have to admit, perspective does indeed change when your personal circumstance changes.
[/quote]

I won’t argue with that. I am sure that if I were the father of a girl I would be trying to safeguard her virtue in any way I could.

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[quote]pushharder wrote:
Sure he’s free to speculate all he wants and his speculation may even be dead on, maybe even most of the time, but he comes off looking like a much more of a prudent individual if he says “I haven’t been there and done that so I might limit my input here and label it as sheer conjecture when I do interject”.[/quote]

I feel as though I have some empirical basis for my conjectures given how many young people I have known that have taken various pledges. But you are right, ultimately my reasoning is only that and I cannot make any claim to experience or authority on the subject.