The measure of need #46890

[bismark]

is it alright to have "dirty" thoughts about your spouse once you are married?

[Cognoscente]

is it alright to have "dirty" thoughts about your spouse once you are married?

It freaking better be!

[orb360]

Alright alright... I'll concede the point...

Being completely in the dark about it until marriage night is probably a bad idea...

(And darn near impossible I'd think given society today...)

But you have to admit... it was a fun discussion

[vorpal blade]

Sometimes it's hard for me to tell if Nantipoo is trying to be sarcastic or if he's just saying something dumb again. I actually thought he was just saying something dumb that time, especially because vorpal had made a legit point about treating people as individuals rather than as members of a gender.

You know what, you're right. Vorpal Blade was only stating werf's beliefs, trying to add something of genuine value, that pertains to the topic and I responded immaturely. Whether it was sarcastic, dumb, both, or something else, it was uncalled for and unneeded. So sorry for inserting dumb comments into these topics, nor should I be celebrating my alacrity for posting such comments.
Sorry Vorpal for my response.

Apology accepted, Captain Needa.

Actually, nice apology. I hadn't seen it when I last posted.

[Imogen]

oy. thanks cog for stating what i apparently was not getting across. i don't think we should tell CHILDREN all about sex. oy vey! but people our age have no reason for being ignorant about their bodies.

[Cognoscente]

oy. thanks cog for stating what i apparently was not getting across. i don't think we should tell CHILDREN all about sex. oy vey! but people our age have no reason for being ignorant about their bodies.

So, you're a jewish black chick? Awesome! As your people would say, mazel tov!

[vorpal blade]

tao, i agree with your (long, but very interesting) post. a lot of parents do pass off their responsibilities on whoever will take them. but that's why i think schools should focus on giving kids good factual information, and not morality. maybe this is naive, but i really believe a person with all the facts will make good choices. information is power, and knowing the consequences can stop people from making dumb choices. to me, having sex isn't dumb or wrong. but doing it in a way that may put you or others at risk is.

I am in favor of education in general, and I oppose the sin of ignorance. But I disagree with your view of human nature. Giving people information doesn't make them better or worse. I really don't believe that a person with all the facts will necessarily make good choices. Knowing the consequences rarely makes any difference in what people do, or the dumb choices they make. That is because most people make decisions based on emotion rather than on thinking. That's my opinion based on long observation of people, and my understanding of the scriptures.

I realize my position is not easy to defend, and is not very popular in today's culture. I do indeed think it would be naive and irresponsible to give people the power to do very destructive things when you know that they are not morally prepared to make good decisions.

I am in favor of teaching children sex education, but if it can't be done simultaneously with teaching them morality, then it ought not to be taught in the public schools. I don't want the public schools teaching children that there is no absolute standards of right and wrong regarding sex. It would be better not to teach sex education then to give the wrong idea about the morality of sex.

[bismark]

but knowing is half the battle!

[orb360]

I do indeed think it would be naive and irresponsible to give people the power to do very destructive things when you know that they are not morally prepared to make good decisions.

Gosh!

Someone needs to learn how to stop worrying and love the bomb!

[vorpal blade]

I do indeed think it would be naive and irresponsible to give people the power to do very destructive things when you know that they are not morally prepared to make good decisions.

Gosh!

Someone needs to learn how to stop worrying and love the bomb!

Actually, I did have an analogy here about atomic weapons, but I deleted it, knowing Bismark would give me a hard time about it.

[bismark]

you better believe i would.

[orb360]

Well with the LHC's first run just around the corner I think atomic bombs are the least of our worries.

[Portia]

Wow. Go to work for a day, and the thread explodes.

Some thoughts:

. . . teach the boys to go ahead and rut as they may.

I didn't know men had a mating season . . . ^_-

I feel that if you are going to remain celibate until marriage, then your reasons for it should be positive: (morals, physical/psychological health etc.) not fear.

Agreed. I honestly don't see how any talks saying sexual feelings are "bad" are justified from a gospel perspective. I think we should, rather, emphasize the necessity of waiting for an appropriate time because it is so good.

RE: Orbsy/bismark, secret combinations, etc.

Becoming a pimp is bad. Being sold into sexual slavery and being captive in some Eastern European country would be a bad experience. Sex, in and of itself, is not, in fact, bad. How you can think that young adults should steer clear of any knowledge of it, in the way we might not get embroiled in the Mafia, is beyond me.

. . . not enabling them to make bad decisions . . . Some people choose to protect from unsafe sex by ignorance.

From what I can gather, you mean exchewing run-of-the-mill sex ed, right? Sex isn't rocket science . . . I'm pretty sure anyone of adolescence and up can, in fact, figure it out. Why would keeping someone in ignorance be beneficial? My high school didn't have sex ed, per se (we had an uncommon number of required classes, in addition to an unusual weekly class schedule), but we certainly learned about the human sexual response, how various birth control options work, and reproductive anatomy in classes like AP Biology. It seems like that is a matter of fact, not morality, in my opinion.

i'm not mormon

You don't have to be. That just means we are at an impass[e] since your opinion does not apply to the situations I'm talking about. And my opinion doesn't apply to the situations you refer to.

This is one of the more baffling statements on here. Even if you homeschool your kids, they will need to learn to interact with and respect people from different or no religious traditions. If you send your kids to public or secular private school, then guess what? It's not going to be General Conference every day. Why does it have to be an impasse? Isn't it reasonable to think that people might have different interpretations of what constitutes moral behavior, while still having a moral compass? It doesn't seem to me that Imogen is saying "go out and have sex anytime, anywhere, at whatever age." On the contrary, I think she is saying that people should be emotionally ready and mature enough to handle such relations before they go into them, and that being properly informed actually helps you, not hinders you. Can't you "apply that to your situation," with the understanding that you think marriage is an essential portion of this prerequisite maturity?

Knowing the consequences rarely makes any difference in what people do, or the dumb choices they make.

I think it makes a huge difference! If you don't know what behaviors could lead to pregnancy, diseases, withholding a temple recommend, how the heck are you supposed to not do them? I'm glad that my parents didn't lie to me about how babies are made or whatever, because I would have felt confused and betrayed. Knowing that sex can lead to unwanted pregnancy is actually a pretty huge deterrent for me, and if I had just chosen to plug my ears and sing "la la la," it seems like that is a recipe for compromising situations--I have a hard time believing determined ignorance helps anyone make good choices.

I don't want the public schools teaching children that there is no absolute standards of right and wrong regarding sex.

Personally, I don't see why schools should need to, or why that is a good thing. It should be from one's own religious or ethical belief system that one draws the conclusion that premarital sex is the wrong way to go, not because the State tells you. I don't see what's wrong with the way of Imogen's school at all: that abstinence is the only 100% effective form of birth control, and that it is the safest route for teenagers health-wise, not that God says you should be abstinent. What if, for instance, a school taught that there is an absolute standard of when it is right to have sex . . . and it's not what you agree with? That seems to be the more insidious problem, in my opinion.

Of course, I think teaching concepts like "Intelligent Design" in schools are ridiculous, too, so I don't know how representative I am of conservative Christendom. I prefer my schooling to have empirical facts, and my religion to strengthen my faith, and I don't like too much muddying of the two. I think attempts to, say, squeeze a young-earth theory into a Geology course, or to try to dissuade someone from being Christian by mocking their intelligence are both misguided. The common thread linking all this together is perhaps that I don't see why I can't believe both that God thinks sexual fidelity is worthwhile and it's best to wait till marriage; and that there's nothing wrong with knowing what constitutes safe sex, or acknowledging that sexual desires are real and nothing to be ashamed of.

That is what I believe, and the arguments in favor of that seem most logical to me.

[Whistler]

Perhaps it is the researcher in me, but it would seem to me if you aren't able to know which of your actions are affecting your significant other, you aren't paying enough attention to them.

Have you been doing a lot of research, Tao?

[vorpal blade]

Knowing the consequences rarely makes any difference in what people do, or the dumb choices they make.

I think it makes a huge difference! If you don't know what behaviors could lead to pregnancy, diseases, withholding a temple recommend, how the heck are you supposed to not do them? I'm glad that my parents didn't lie to me about how babies are made or whatever, because I would have felt confused and betrayed. Knowing that sex can lead to unwanted pregnancy is actually a pretty huge deterrent for me, and if I had just chosen to plug my ears and sing "la la la," it seems like that is a recipe for compromising situations--I have a hard time believing determined ignorance helps anyone make good choices.

I think you will see, if you take my comment in context, that I was not saying anything about withholding information from people. Perhaps you have me confused with someone else. What I was saying is that even when you know the consequences you still act emotionally, and not logically. Your arguments put words in my mouth, as if I was in favor of not teaching what leads to pregnancy, STD, and losing your recommend. I never said that determined ignorance helps someone make good choices. Your comments unjustly put me in a bad light.

How many girls do you know who got pregnant because they didn’t know sex might lead to pregnancy? I don’t think these basic facts are a secret in our society. What LDS boy or girl doesn’t know that having sex before marriage is morally wrong?

I think parents need to teach their children the facts of life. A school sex education program just encourages more parents to shirk their responsibilities. When the schools teach sex education, with the full weight of public approval, it is “morally neutral,” which means in practice that the message is that it is not wrong to have sex as long as you are “responsible.” What is taught is a morality contrary to God's laws, under the false label of "morally neutral."

I’ll bet you knew that sex can lead to unwanted pregnancy long before you were taught it in school. I’m also sure this is not the only, or even a major reason you don’t have sex. You can use it as a logical argument for why you don’t have sex, but for millions of girls each year, who have unwanted pregnancies, knowledge of the logical consequences didn't stop them.

I don't want the public schools teaching children that there is no absolute standards of right and wrong regarding sex.

Personally, I don't see why schools should need to, or why that is a good thing. It should be from one's own religious or ethical belief system that one draws the conclusion that premarital sex is the wrong way to go, not because the State tells you. I don't see what's wrong with the way of Imogen's school at all: that abstinence is the only 100% effective form of birth control, and that it is the safest route for teenagers health-wise, not that God says you should be abstinent. What if, for instance, a school taught that there is an absolute standard of when it is right to have sex . . . and it's not what you agree with? That seems to be the more insidious problem, in my opinion.

Your arguments assume that my statement is equivalent to the statement “I want the public schools to teach that there is an absolute standard of right and wrong in regard to sex.” I didn’t say that, and I didn’t mean that. Go back to what I actually said. Now, do you want the schools teaching a doctrine that is contrary to God’s law? Do you want the schools to teach that there is no absolute standard of right and wrong in regard to sex? If you are going to disagree with me then you need to disagree with <i>me</i>, not some straw man argument you construct.

In regard to Imogene, she certainly is convinced that more sex education is the answer. Was the teaching of her school effective in reducing pregnancies? Imogene seems to think so, but she also says that “i'm from a town that had the HIGHEST teen pregnancy rate in the country for about a decade. my high school (which also had the highest teen pregnancy rate in the country for a while) had to add a daycare because so many girls were dropping out. we used to lose at least 100 girls a year to dropping out to care for babies.” One could argue that it would have been much worse without the sex education, but that argument is difficult for me to believe. In areas without sex education there are fewer teen pregnancies. I think it would be difficult to prove that Imogene’s sex education reduced pregnancy rates.

It doesn’t do much good to teach that abstinence is the best method of birth control if you say at the same time that “Of course no one expects you to practice abstinence. That is just unreasonable.” The way abstinence is taught is that it is an idealistic goal that is not at all practical. The end result of teaching abstinence this way is the exact opposite of the intended consequence-you can forget about practicing abstinence. In talking to students who take sex education in the public schools, in reviewing their learning materials, in talking to other parents, and from what I read everywhere, this is the way abstinence is actually taught in the schools.

Imogene talks about the advantages of sex education which “scarred her for life,” and was really effective in teaching birth control. Yet her brother, a product of the same teaching, got a girl pregnant because he had been taught in his sex education class that condoms don’t work. Without the class he would have used a condom, but since he learned that condoms don’t work he had sex without a condom.

I think Imogene also lets the cat out of the bag when she says that “i was given comprehensive sex education in school three years before i had sex, and let me tell you IT SCARED ME! i did NOT want to a)get pregnant or b)get one of those gross STDs they showed us in the slide show. so i held off on sex until i had more education and was more comfortable. but i was able to make an informed decision about it and my body.” As I read this, a little bit of knowledge was a deterrent for her, but when she thought she had enough knowledge she was given a false sense of comfort that it was okay to have sex.

[Nanti-SARRMM]

Knowledge doesn't always prevent the problem, because some probably have it thinking that getting pregnant or getting an std couldn't happen to them. Wishful thinking on their part I suppose.

[orb360]

I think you will see, if you take my comment in context, that I was not saying anything about withholding information from people. Perhaps you have me confused with someone else.

Yes... You are not to take vorpal blade's comments out of context. Nor are you authorized to attack werf.

I'm the only one whose comments are allowed to be taken out of context and/or attacked!!! SRSLY!

[Nanti-SARRMM]

I'm the only one whose comments are allowed to be taken out of context and/or attacked!!!

Well I guess that means Orb only wants us to take his comments in context then.

[bobtheenchantedone]

Wow. Go to work for a day, and the thread explodes.

My thoughts exactly, for two days in a row now. Sheesh.

[Tao]

Good conversation. Sorry for the rambling, half asleep posts.

And Whistler, I try to learn as much as I can in every situation I am in... sometimes it gets me into trouble, other times it gets me out. I prefer it that way.