"Ten Percent Improvement in the Oral Sex Situation"
How can you tell when a movement has gone completely off the rails? When you hear statements like that on right-wing radio.
I was listening to Laura Ingraham yesterday (look, it's a long commute, okay?) and she was talking about how the liberal media isn't taking students' 'abstitence pledges' seriously. Apparently, the data have shown that 75 percent of non-pledgers have premarital oral sex, while a mere 65 percent of pledgers have premarital oral sex.
To people with, say, any serious understanding of statistics and behavioral models, this would seem like a fairly insignificant difference in result that could be explained by any number of other factors. But no! Laura informed us that we were seeing, again, I quote, a "ten percent improvement in the oral sex situation" that was not being effectively heralded in media outlets.
So we've lost the War on Drugs. We're engaging in questionable strategies and tactics in the War on Terror. But never fear! The War on Oral Sex has just begun, friends, and we are making serious headway (oh... terrible pun. I apologize. No, I don't)!
For anyone who wants to hear the offending audio clip in which Laura rails against oral sex, I suggest you check it out here. It's about as loony as I made it out to be.
Is this seriously what passes for thoughtful conservatism these days? What about reducing the size of the government? What about the independence of civil society from government? What about federalism? Anybody?
As always, the invaluable Andrew Sullivan has posted on a similar matter relating to social conservatism's extreme problems with sexuality of any kind. Please read all about it here.
posted by Joshua @ 11:08 AM
6 Comments:
Maybe it's just me, but when I was in high school, the kids taking those pledges were almost universally the ones who wound up pregnant. They weren't the only ones having sex, mind you, but they were absolutely the ones for whom it "just happened - I can't believe we did that!" and thus would never think to have any protection with them. This is why abstinence-only education doesn't work, of course, but that horse has been beaten to death already.
(Except to say that the church I grew up in, unsatisfied with the sex-ed classes we were getting in school, gave us a more comprehensive siminar. Go Methodists.)
On to the thoughtful conservatism point. Those numbers seemed a little high to me, even for today. Sure, kids today are promiscuous (as were many of us, I'm sure) but there are still the pock-marked kids in the "Babylon 5" t-shirts. Not everyone is getting lucky in high school- oh wait. Now I see. She's not talking about teen sex, she's talking about ANY premarital sex, taking her comments away from the realm of public policy and into the realm of religious enforcement. Of course this also makes the statistics fairly meaningless, as presumably a couple who engaged in oral sex and never had any other partners, and then moved on to actual sex once they got married, would be considered by this study to have not lived up to their pledge. Huh.
Bwah! That is awesome! I listened to the radio bit, and while I didn't get to hear the "10% improvement" part, I did hear her give away her total double-standard position on sex with this line... "As you know parents want their girls..... and I guess boys, to take abstinence pledges." Of course, because unplanned pregnancies will only mean the girl is slutty and going to hell, not the men. And STDs? Well, straight people don't have to worry about that. Thanks Laura Ingraham!
Prometheus:
I hear what you say about whackjobisme, but respectfully disagree about us giving her legitimacy. Ingraham has millions of listeners and reflects the sympathies of millions more. Since the 1970s, those sympathies have been slowly taking over the Republican Party and conservatism, while a great number of rational, moderate folk have dismissed them as kooks.
That is, I wish that Ingraham's statements were somehow out of kilter with the rest of the party or the movement, but they're really not. So I feel it's important for me to say "here's what this movement has become, and here's why I'm against it."
Pascals:
Yeah, it's pretty lame. Anyone who does absolutely anything outside of marriage - even with their intended spouse! - is included in that figure. When I first heard it, I thought, "Wow... 75 percent of kids are doing that? What the hell is going on?" and, I'll admit, I was a little concerned. I mean, if those were the stats, it would be a public health and education issue.
But - and I don't know if you've listed to the clip or not - it seems for Ingraham it's more about some sort of spiritual degredation for pre-married types. Even if this were safe sex by responsible 21 year-olds, she would have us get all upset about it. Sorry, but that's insane.
Saletan over at Slate has a bit more on the idea of "pledgers," (scroll down a bit for it) and the findings conform with your analysis, too. Not only are they generally unprepared for sexual activity, the pledgers are more likely to go all Simon Peter and say "Oh, dude, I never pledged... what are you talking about?"
Man, if only there were some Messiah who said something about the futility of making outlandish pledges... Oh, wait, I found Him:
Matthew 5:34-37
But I say to you, Do not swear at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let what you say be simply 'Yes' or 'No'; anything more than this comes from evil.
Prometheus: I think that a productive rational discussion can be had about an irrational point of view, but the former need not be about the latter specifically, but perhaps about the consequences of the latter. So we are wasting our time if we try to refute Laura, but can certainly have a productive discussion about the social and political forces that have led to her having the sizable following she does. A lakc of eduction? The failure of the Left to articulate a coherent moral vision as an alternative to socially conservative reactionism? And other various and sundry which I hope to get to as soon as I have had a nap and can think.
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