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by Emily Bridges, Director of Public Information Services Advocates for Youth has long argued that one of the many problems with abstinence-only programs is that people have differing definitions of "sex" and "what it means to remain abstinent." New research from the journal Sexual Health confirms that this is, in fact, a problem. Researchers surveyed adults ages 18-96 and found wildly differing ideas about what people define as an act of sex. For instance, only 1/3 of young men ages 18-29 and 60% of young women ages 18-29 classified performing oral sex as "having had sex," while almost 80% of men and women ages 30-64 classified performing oral sex as having had sex. Young people were also less likely to consider anal intercourse "having had sex." Confusion about these definitions has played a role in sexual behavior for some time. |
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You may have seen a few newspaper articles with titles like “Abstinence-only programs might work, study says” in the past couple of days. But are newspapers telling the whole story?
The articles are based on a recent study by respected researchers John B. and Loretta S. Jemmott and compare results for young people receiving three kinds of programs: an “abstinence-only” intervention, designed to help teens wait until they are ready; a “combined intervention” which included information about abstinence as well as contraception and condoms; and a safer-sex-only intervention with no information about abstinence.
The study focused on young African American preteens in an urban area and found that this new type of abstinence-only program can help some very young adolescents (average age 12) delay sexual initiation for up to 24 months.
It is important to note that the study provides no data in support of the failed abstinence-only-until-marriage programs of the Bush era. The abstinence-only program in this study would not have been eligible for federal funding during the Bush years because it did not fit the “8 point definition”. The program goal was to help early teens avoid sex until they are ready—a totally different objective than the federally funded abstinence programs already proven ineffective by the long-term Mathematica study “which showed no impact on teen behavior”.
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by Mary Seymour, Library and Research Intern This week's new research includes: - an analysis of a curriculum to teach young people about healthy relationships
- new articles about factors affecting teen childbearing and contraceptive use
- a study in juveniles who commit sex offenses against minors, and
- a discussion of the mouth and factos that may influence HIV infection.
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by Abbey Marr, Amplify front page blogger There has been a lot of coverage this past week about the Guttmacher Institute's new report "Abortion Worldwide: A Decade of Uneven Progress", which shows contraceptive use up and abortion laws becoming more liberal worldwide, and, correspondingly, abortion rates down worldwide. This is great news and shows what family planning advocates have been arguing for years; if you want to lower abortion rates, if you want to lower the rates of women dying and being injured from unsafe abortion, then you need to make contraceptives readily available and abortion legal.
The report also confirms another argument commonly used by abortion rights advocates; abortion rates do not correspond to abortion's legal status- making abortion illegal does not make abortion rates go down, it just puts women at risk.
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