...delay sex until age 15...

delay?

Lack of COMPREHENSIVE sex ed + dumb trashy parents + religion = Jamie Lynn pregs at 16.

maybe the silver lining to the media's constant attention to pregnant teens: gov't will reassess its sex ed. approach?

@ineffable.me: Well, I'm guessing it's probably a safe bet that in the old days (like, Caveman Days), kids started having sex the second they could.

There's probably a biological impulse in there that wants you to get going the moment you hit puberty. So, delay is maybe appropriate.

Abstinence-only programs are worthless. Kids are going to have sex. It's protection that they need to know about.

They need to go back to scaring the shit out of kids with pictures of genital sores and horror stories about gonorrhea.

Also: hey kids, remember AIDS? Because guess what, it's still out there! And you can still get it! And die from it! OMG I know, AIDS is so "I Love the 80's", but still!

The lack of awareness is terrifying.

God, the spears are making my home state look horrbile and it pisses me off!

@MsKenney: Doubtful while the retarded monkey is in charge.

@hortense: Yeah, if you think about it, how could abstinence-only programs be effective? Kids already know how to NOT have sex. They've been not having sex for years! What is abstinence-only going to teach them?

@ineffable.me: Yeah, that isn't really delaying. It is more not jumping the gun to early.

Treat your children like young adults and give them the information they need. Anyone who has ever worked with teens will tell you that saying 'don't do that' makes it almost irresistable!

Kids growing up in small towns, which often only promote abstinence only sex ed in their schools, are the ones who need safe sex and condom ed the most. There's nothing to do in these places other than drink, get high and fuck. When I graduated from high school, half the girls in my class either had a baby, an abortion (or two) or a disease. If we'd had condoms and better education easily available, I don't think that would've been the case.

Oh, and I graduated in 1997. I can only imagine how bad it is today.

@hortense: Agreed. I've tried to scare my sister with stories of lifelong Herpes and diseases that can render you infertile. If she's gonna have sex, which she has, then she better be safe. Lord knows she doesn't learn the important shit in school. Ugh.

@SinisterRouge: I hate that guy so much.

delaying sex till 15. Man i feel like such an old woman when I think about how old I was when I lost my virginity.
@hortense: and YES more teens are worried about getting pregnant than getting AIDs but that might have to do with the love of the baby bump now.

@serreca: Herpes is another one. I remember sex-ed and being beyond frightened of having horrible herpes outbreaks forever. Now kids just go with the flow. Everyone's got it! No big deal!

@braak: Makes my blood boil when I realize how much money is being spent on literally nothing (i.e. "Don't have sex.").

@SinisterRouge: Well they see those commercials on TV, where everyone has herpes, and discusses it over horseback riding and sweet walks on the beach, and they think, "Well, I'll just get a pill for it, that's all."

The other thing that scares me is the "oral sex/anal sex isn't sex" mentality that's popped up due to this abstinence crap. Because guess what kids, you can get STD's from that, too!

Yeah, sex ed scared the crap out of me. You better fucking believe I used a condom when I lost my virginity.

But now that I'm monogamous and we've both been tested and she's on the pill... meh.

And what state is the boyfriend from? What was his sex education? Did he go through it? Everyone is coming down so hard on Jamie Lynn and her parents, who definitely share blame here, but the boyfriend and his parents are also responsible. If he is quite a bit older than JL, then I'd say he takes on a teensy bit more responsibility than she does here.

@braak: @Leiakat: I know that kids are doing it super young these days, but when it comes to kids having sex I turn into an old lady. I couldn't possibly imagine being 13 and having sex because I was still playing with toys and thinking about my first kiss. Sex with a 13 yr old boy makes me want to throw up (not as an adult, because duh, but as a kid too).

The thing about this study, though, is that it does not distinguish between abstinence-only sex ed and comprehensive sex ed. It just talks about "sex ed."

@DorothyZbornak: Did you go to my high school?

I think I'm one of three in my class of 120 that hasn't popped out a kid at the ripe old age of (almost) 30. And again, one of my former classmates? Found out she's going to be a grandma in May.

@ineffable.me: Seriously. I didn't even kiss a boy until I was 15! But I do remember a few kids in my 8th grade class having sex, which scared the shit out of me.

@ineffable.me: Yeah, I can understand that. I got really weirded out when I found out my brother had secretly had his first pregnancy scare in high school.

@BottledCynicism: Good point. The boyfriend was probably an idiot, too.

@ineffable.me: i know, i know.. TOTALLY UNFAIR! i'm trying to remember what kept me a virgin past my 20th birthday so i can use it on my own kids..

@hortense: Yeah, I think mine was the summer between 9th and 10th grade. I didn't have sex till I was 17. And I was in college. In my second semester.

My school had a really great sex ed program, and out of 81 girls, only 4 have had babies so far. I graduated in 2001. I think those are pretty good odds.

@I_Heart_VH1: I grew up close to New Orleans, and ab-only was supposed to be taught even back then. But I had an AWESOME teacher who explained everything in a factual, no-nonsense manner, she answered any and all questions (no matter how dumb) and de-bunked many myths associated with STD transmission and contraception.

Louisiana education is not all hopeless. The thing about ab-only "education" is that teachers HAVE to explain the reproductive system in full, they HAVE to explain about STD, they just have to say "don't do it" alongside all the facts. Some teachers choose not to give the facts, but many do.

@pferde_schwanz: besides social incompetence.

@ineffable.me: what? 17? are you some sort of smartypants or what?

@pferde_schwanz: Can't help you there. Social incompetence was what took me so long.

@SarahMC: Exactly. It makes the religous nuts happy because they don't want any sex-ed at all. And there is a HUGE difference between comprehensive sex ed and abstinence only retardedness (because it is in no way education).

@SinisterRouge: While it's easy to think this study will be a "We told you so!" to abstinence-only proponents, they will just claim that the study is about abstinence-only (since it's unclear).

@DorothyZbornak: I fully agree with you on this. I also think that parents need to take a more active role in this as well. Parents are to afraid to approach the subject or don't know how so they rely on the schools to educate their kids about sex. What they don't realize is that kids are learning about sex from other kids at school, not from a sex-ed class.

@SarahMC: It's true. Scientists that do studies often forget exactly why the hell it is they're trying to figure something out.

This has always been the case. I just read this book about Marconi inventing wireless, and all the physicists in England didn't think he could make it, because all they cared about was the math behind radio waves, and never tried to actually do anything with it.

@pferde_schwanz: I just started Kindergarten a year early!

@BiscuitDoughJones: Girl me too, and I'm 27. Course I went to catholic school all my life. I was in the age of the tail end of corporal punishment from the nuns.

This is why Mommy drinks.

the other problem with abstinence only education: they seem to spend a lot of time talking about how condoms "don't work". even though we weren't totally abstinence only at my school (my health class at least discussed birth control options,) we had a school-wide motivational speaker about "waiting." i specifically remember being told that "condoms weren't made to protect against aids. they were made to protect against pregnancy. and a lot of times they won't even do that." i know a lot of kids came out of that thinking "hell, why use a condom? it won't work anyway."

the sad thing is, i totally believed that speaker. it wasn't until i took a feminist health course at my college when i realized it was a load of bullshit. i will never forget the look on my instructor's face when i told her how i'd been told condoms won't protect AT ALL against aids-- she was a grad student studying aids transmission, and she looked like i'd just killed her puppy or something.

@hortense: Agreed: kids ARE going to have sex. In the words of my mother "Teenaged sex is some of the best sex you're ever going to have: who am I to stop it." (And no, my mom isn't trying to be 20 and doesn't buy my teenaged sister and her friends beer. She's just realistic.)

@SinisterRouge: but retarded monkeys are adorable. There is nothing endearing about the feces flinging chimp in charge...

@athertonmerriweather: True. The only thing I got from my parents was a "Don't do it until you're married" from my dad. I didn't lose my virginity until I was 22 (I know!), but I wasn't saving myself or anything, I just wanted to wait until I met someone I really liked. And honestly, I think seeing all those girls get pregnant/diseases in high school scared the bejeezus out of me.

@onthecornerofparkerandwoolf: We were taught that too. I remember a special group came in one day to give us the abstinence talk. They told us that one family had conceived 8 children and had used a condom every time they had sex. Then the guy drew a big ol' tadpole on the board to represent a sperm, and a tiny dot to represent HIV. "If that big old sperm can get through a condom, don't you think HIV can get through too?" Oy.

@DorothyZbornak: when i was 14 my parents told me there was no way i'd make it through high school without having sex. my teenage rebellion: waiting till college. well played, parents.

@ineffable.me: I hear that! My first kiss was when I was 11, and my friends pushed me literally into it. My brother's friend asked me to 'go out' with him, but I was so naive I completely didn't get it. Any kisses were like acting out bits from movies for me. Sex wasn't even near my radar.

I pray my kids follow in my path, and I can also say that their mom waited 'til 23.

@mcemmie: This really gets my blood boiling. How could you consciously misinform children like that?

@mcemmie: See, that is such a crock of shit. People do not have 8 kids using a condom each time. Unless they were putting the condom on their nipple. Fucking retards. Jesus. I've been off the Pill on the Pill and at times have only used condoms. Never got pregnant once.

Delaying Sex? Umm they do realize that sex doesn't usually mean sexual intercourse right? Anal Sex and Oral Sex anyone?

My parents did not talk to me about sex. My dad made me watch this ABC program about Sex, AIDS and education and of course going into high school where my friends were getting knocked up left and right. I waited until I was 21.

@hortense: thanks for bringing up AIDS. kids today think it is a manageable disease where you just take a pill and life goes on. what a joke. @DorothyZbornak: same here. i'm almost thankful i grew up during that period. a little fear mixed with exhibits a - z being the smart girls around you who made dumb mistakes with boys does wonders.

@Leiakat: yes! "go out with." i "went out" with plenty of girls in the old days, with little if any physical contact whatsoever. and by physical contact i mean hand-holding. i think i may have been the most clueless kid in the world, ever.

@mcemmie: ?!?!?!?! Holy shit! Did anyone tell these rocket scientists that using a condom actually entails putting one on and not just looking at it. If I may ask, how old are you? I'd be curious to exmaine sex ed per age group. Mine was pretty progressive, "use a condom every time, prefferably with a spermicide lube" kinda stuff: I'm 25.