In weighing the pros and cons of funding “abstinence only” programs in our schools you’d want the advice of experts, right? You’d want to know whether such programs are effective in reducing teenage pregnancies, arresting the spread of sexually transmitted disease, and helping our teenagers avoid the emotional and psychological problems that are said to be byproducts of premarital sex.
So, I guess the first person you’d want to ask about these things would be Dagmar Herzog. No?
Who is Dagmar Herzog? Well, it seems that she’s a historian (City University of New York) with considerable knowledge in the field of Nazi era German history who spends a good deal of her time criticizing conservative (and middle of the road, and many liberal) Christians and promoting the idea of near unrestrained sexual license for everyone, including teenagers. At least, that’s how I understand her.
In a recent video (available here)
Ms. Herzog tells us that 95% of Americans have engaged in sex outside
of marriage and that “the vast majority know in their hearts that it’s
made their marriages stronger.” Gee… how counterintuitive is that?
In a recent article by Don Monkerud, writing on the Dissident Voice
blog, Herzog is quoted as asking, “How could an aggressive minority
successfully push the most grotesque message of abstinence, and why are
95 percent of Americans who claim to have had premarital sex unable to
admit it publicly?”
“The most grotesque message of abstinence?” I
am not sure from her question whether she feels that abstinence has
within it several messages, one of which is not merely more grotesque than the others, but most
grotesque; or whether she simply views abstinence as itself a grotesque
message. Either way, it’s a little hard to imagine just what she might
be talking about. It all sounds seductively avante garde, but doesn’t
sensibly communicate much.
And, what’s this about the 95% being
unable to publicly admit their fornicating and adulterous ways? I
thought she said they’re all saying that it made their marriages
better. I must have misunderstood.
A couple of paragraphs down in
the same article Herzog is quoted as follows: “The conservative
evangelical sexual politics of the 1990s and early 21st century are
totally new,” Herzog says. “Premarital sex was perfectly normal in the
South when I grew up. The churches weren’t hung up on sex back then so
I knew that this new sexual repression was recent.”
Wow… I
can’t imagine when or where Ms. Herzog grew up, but her words seem to
imply that she grew up in “the South.” Surely she isn’t talking about the
southern section of the United States—you know, places like Georgia,
Alabama, Tennessee or Mississippi. Folks didn’t start calling it the
Bible Belt for nothing, you know.
If I understand her correctly, Ms. Herzog
is saying that she grew up somewhere in the South at some time prior to
1990. Can anyone recall any time between James Olgethorpe’s sailing
into the mouth of the Savannah River and 1990 when premarital sex was
generally thought to be perfectly normal anywhere within, say, a 500
mile radius of Atlanta, Georgia?
I can testify that such was not
the prevailing opinion in the late 1960s when I was attending a
suburban Atlanta high school. Neither was it the case in the 1970s nor
1980s when I lived there as an adult. In fact, I think that Ms.
Herzog’s thesis is stood on it’s head. Perhaps today premarital sex is
generally held in high regard in the big cities of the South. If so,
that would be a very recent innovation.
Monkerud himself hammers
home his own position with the following declaration: “Presenting
premarital sex as ‘risky behavior’ hides an intrusive and insidious
attack on sexuality.”
If we’re talking about the risk of
pregnancy, then it would seem indisputable that premarital sex is, at
least, riskier business than abstinence. I think most folks will
calculate that it’s roughly 100% riskier. Would Mr. Monkerud judge that
presenting unrestrained gluttony as an obesity risk constitutes an
intrusive and insidious attack on dining?
Monkerud continues,
“America needs comprehensive sex education, contraceptive distribution
and counseling to overcome the destructive social and personal effects
of sexually repressive religious morality.” That sounds very
authoritative, but assumes a fact Mr. Monkerun altogether fails to put
into evidence. Are there, in fact, any “destructive social and personal
effects of sexually repressive religious morality?” For that matter,
what constitutes “sexually repressive religious morality?”
It may
well be that “abstinence only” educational programs do not work. It may
well be that such programs do nothing to reduce the number of unwanted
pregnancies or instance of sexually transmitted disease. Such programs
may not be worthy of funding. But, neither Mr. Monkerud nor Ms. Herzog
seem to have anything to say that will advance our inquiry or help us
to decide the question.
Mr. Monkerud tells us, as if it were a
bad thing, that “Focus on the Family, American Family Association and
Concerned Women for America, promote marriage as a solution to
everything from suicide to poverty and self-worth issues.” Well, now
we’re getting somewhere. Might it not be worth our time to see whether
these organizations make a better case for their position than Mr.
Monkerud and Ms. Herzog have made for theirs?
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Abstinence only programs do not work, but good parenting does. It doesn’t take money to give our kids good practical sense and a sense of morality. It takes a mother and father.
The whole idea that sex outside marriage is a good thing is a flawed, dangerous and destructive idea. Fatherless children, unwanted children, abandoned women with children they can’t support., these are all the products of sex outside of marriage and none of them are good. This is not a frivolous thing, it is a serious problem.