Plato's Playground
It is one of the most popular projects in cultural anthropology (of course!) to think about how and why sexual mores have come about in various cultures. For the most part, of course, humans have not perceived that there was no shortage of themselves. Life has been perilous, and if we found that we had a problem with overpopulation it was always possible for part of the band to just pull up stakes and move on to the next valley or head out further into the jungle. At the same time, lacking effective means of contraception, societies had to construct rules that assumed that a likely consequence of sex was pregnancy. So, they wanted lots of kids, but they wanted them to be born into situations that would contribute to the economic viability of the group. This was real important stuff, so it picked up major religious baggage. The problem with that kind of baggage is, you can't easily replace it as circumstances change.
Now we have too many people, and it's easy to have sex without having kids. Solution to our problems is obvious. But religions forged thousands of years ago, for totally different situations, are messing up our lives today.
it seems to me that now (perhaps as always) we also face racial, religious, ethnic and nationalistic pressure to procreate so one's in-group will out-populate other races, religions, etc.
to some racists/religionists the situation has not changed. demographics is victory.
And we didn't believe Clinton when he said he didn't have sex with Monica.
Pirate, if you are asking for someone to come up with a logical case for not giving teens complete information about preventing pregnancy and STD's, that is just not possible.
janeboatler---i did think of clinton, but thought better of going there. i wonder if the virgins will tell potential marriage partners about the STDs as well as the virginity.
i was fairly sure you would be for full information in sex ed classes.
The sex drive will win in the end. It always has and always will. I believe it's our duty to our children (who we want to protect) to teach them about sex and STD's and at the same time about overpopulation and the effects it has on our lives and planet. They should have access to birth control in a manner that is not embarassing not so they 'can' go out and have sex but because they will go out and have sex. Time has shown us that children of both sex 14 years and up have been ripe for creating life for 3 or 4 years already. I do not see that their ability to sustain from the sexual act has changed much. Things that feel good we usually try to repeat. I always thought laughter felt good so I try to laugh as often as I can. The sooner we get to the real problem of overpopulation and start being more realistic with information we give our children about all things we will just continue to pass these STD's around and around, they will continue to mutate, while we consume all we can out of the planet trying to survive while we continue to contemplate sexuality. Children are the future folks. Like it or not they will be sexual. (Not to even get into the use of sexuality in advertising thrown at us all constantly...). We can either have grown children raising children or children raising children. I am for condoms available everywhere until they come up with another way to provide contraception and protection from STD and HIV. Join the revolution and leave an open box of condoms somewhere public once a week. It's a small price to pay and what harm can come of it?
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