Friday, Sep 5, 2008
Jan 12, 2001 | Read the story
I'm saddened by this article -- but not for the same reasons the author proclaims. I'm sad that she, and many other people, think it's OK for teenagers to have sex at all, that they even have a right to it. Ugh. This makes me ill. I'm so bummed out that I was sexually active from the age of 16. What I thought was "love" was so shallow, so dysfunctional and obsessive and twisted. And now that I'm 34 and married to the man of my dreams, my best friend in all the world, it sickens me to think that my body was touched by anyone else!
Hindsight is always 20/20, but, oh, had but I listened to my mother's advice to wait. Wait! What a concept in this culture of instant pleasure and "do whatever feels good at the moment."
Bleaaaahhhhh ...
-- Name withheld
Hurrah to Jennifer Foote Sweeney and her critique of the federally funded study of "virginity pledges." As a nurse working for a family-planning organization, I can tell you that the most powerful thing that we can do for our children is to be honest and accountable, listen carefully, support them in believing in themselves and the possibility of a bright future and give them accurate information and resources. Promoting a right-wing ideologue message as a substitute for health education does them a great disservice.
-- Linda Zeigler, R.N.
Your recent article by Jennifer Foote Sweeney is right on target.
I'm a 60-year-old, nonwhite female who grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia in the late '50s. While many girls in my ethnic group were getting pregnant and being labeled "outcasts" within their homes and communities, my white girlfriends were engaging in oral and anal sex. They tried to convince me that I should be doing the same, saying that this was the way to remain a virgin and not get pregnant. Suffice it to say that oral sex or anal sex was more of a taboo among my ethnic group than pregnancy. A few of my group tried it but were totally embarrassed by it. (This is the "old-fashioned" way many blacks and other mixed kids were brought up.) So we took our lumps, had our babies, added to the welfare rolls and were scorned by our communities as well as the majority community.
I want to know what the anti-abortion hypocrites and the ultraconservative Christian folks tell themselves about oral sex. Do they really want us to believe that they believe that their sweet innocent children abstain from sex until they are married? Did Clinton really commit perjury, or was he just reflecting the mind-set of a group of people who keep oral sex a deep, dark secret while they suck their teeth, shake their fingers and toss their heads at minorities for having so many children out of wedlock? Is this really why so many Americans (and Europeans) wanted to give Clinton a pass on his tryst with Monica Lewinksy?
OK, Pat, Jerry and Ralph, speak up!
-- R. Jennings
I agree with the author that virginity pledges are not necessarily effective and can even be dangerous. Kids need to be equipped with the skills to say no when they mean no, but they also need to explore when it might be appropriate to say yes.
As a teenager, I attended a Baptist church that was, to say the least, obsessed with sex. The lesson constantly drummed into our heads, above all others, was that sex should be preserved for marriage. I was pressured into losing my virginity at the age of 16 by an abusive boyfriend. The "no sex before marriage" trope had an unspoken but unshakable corollary in my head: I believed that if I couldn't wait until marriage, I had to eventually marry the first man I did have sex with. Because of this, I stayed with a jealous, overbearing, insecure and abusive boy for a year despite the fact that I hated him and I wanted more than anything to get out.
People make mistakes sometimes in their sexual choices, and teens shouldn't feel compelled to stay with someone they don't love, or who might be actively harming them, just because they happened to have sex.
-- Name withheld
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