Letter to the President #43 | Subject: Health Care, Abstinence, Weddings, etc.

Letter to the President #43 | Subject: Health Care, Abstinence, Weddings, etc.

Dear President Obama,

Since everyone in the country is talking about health care right now, I thought I’d chime in too. Well, actually, I’m not going to chime in on the whole health care bill. In particular, I’ve been reading about the feisty debate that’s sprung up around abstinence-only education and certain provisions that were proposed in the healthcare bill. From what I’ve read, several measures in the bill will fund abstinence-only education.

Now, I have to be honest, Mr. President, I don’t know if this is such a great idea.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand why people would suggest that abstinence is the answer. A number of health-related issues—teen pregnancy, the spread of STDs—certainly stem from the result of sexual activity, and if there is no sexual activity, there’s no chance of these problems. Some groups have therefore been popularizing the idea of “abstinence rings” in order to combat sex-related ills; these rings symbolize a purity pledge that the wearer takes, which states that they promise to remain a virgin until they are married.

This doesn’t seem like a very good idea for several reasons. First, it probably is setting up our young people for unhappy marriages. Let’s be honest; certain aspects of marital life take a bit of practice, so giving one’s teenage bride-to-be an abstinence ring seems a little like saying, “Here, the first night of our honeymoon is going to be really, really awkward.”

Of course, the bigger problem has to do with how humans (and especially young people) seem to work: First, we’re hardwired for reproduction, so we’re automatically going to be aware of the subject. (There was a reason Baywatch was popular. It wasn’t acting.)

And then there’s the psychological factor; prohibition is almost always the doorway to overindulgence. This is probably why our culture is permeated with sex—we want what we’re told we can’t have and we compensate. This is also why there will never be an Amish Britney Spears; clearly very few people care what Spears or Lady GaGa (what IS she saying in that Bad Romance song?) or Rhianna are actually saying, many of us (like it or not) are interested in their low-cut tops and the hip thrusting.

(Then again, I suppose my mention of an Amish superstar is a bad example. Yes, the Amish are quite chaste and Amish women do not generally wear revealing clothes, but an Amish superstar would necessarily depend on the use of electronic gear, microphones, and whatnot, so that kind of goes without saying. Perhaps one day there will be an Amish singer with a really, really loud voice and really catchy lyrics in Pennsylvania Dutch, but I doubt it.)

And then there is the problem of failure. For instance, let’s say you have one of those promise rings on as a teenager, and you break your pledge. What do you do the next day? You can’t take the ring off, obviously, or your cover is totally blown. So then you either have to fess up (have fun with that) or lie until you get hitched. (I suppose you could lose the ring in a freak accident.) In any case, then the ring becomes something much more negative; a harbinger of impending doom. (OK, I didn’t have to type that phrase there, but I really wanted to type “impending doom.” It’s a lot of fun to type. Try it!)

I digress. In short, rejecting our healthy, innermost urges seems arbitrary and counterproductive; instead, tempering them and shaping them seems a wiser course of action. Guilt is almost never a healthy educational tool. Unless you are a Catholic. Then it is the only educational tool. (I’m kidding, Mom!)

In addition to the abstinence-only approach, why not push sexual education too? This sounds like the best of all words. Abstinence-only education is a bit too much of a “one size fits all” approach; it doesn’t consider much nuance (i.e. a teenager who is well-adjusted, smart and ready for such activity at that age).

In this respect, it’s a little like proposing marriage by having a skywriter write, “Will you marry me?” in giant letters above the horizon. Sure, it’s romantic (if the skywriter can spell), but what about the innumerable other wholly-committed-but-hitherto-unmarried couples down below in sight of the same proposal? What does one to say to the poor sap stuck with a gushing girlfriend who is crying because she thinks he is finally proposing and then is crying the whole way home once he explains that he doesn’t have a ring (yet) and that’s it’s probably for someone else.

[The same goes for writing wedding proposals in chalk at the park. This too could make for awkward moments; what if two friendly, but single coworkers were on a walking lunch in the park, and after crossing a stone bridge see “Marry me?” in big letters. For a moment there would probably be awkward silence and then perhaps a polite refusal, or worse, a sudden acceptance.]

In any case, there are certainly other options at hand, so I’d like to see a proper sexual education provision added to the Health Care bill.

Take care,

Brett