[gorickey]

Is this really going to help the problem?

Mark Townsend
Sunday May 9, 2004
The Observer

Encouraging schoolchildren to experiment with oral sex could prove the most effective way of curbing teenage pregnancy rates, a government study has found.

Pupils under 16 who were taught to consider other forms of 'intimacy' such as oral sex were significantly less likely to engage in full intercourse, it was revealed.

Britain's teenage pregnancy rate is the highest in Europe. In 2002 there were 39,286 teen pregnancies recorded. The government has spent more than �60 million to tackle the problem but so far failed to halt the rise.

A sex education course developed by Exeter University trains teachers to talk to teenagers about 'stopping points' before full sex.

Now an unpublished government-backed report reveals that a trial of the course has been a success. Schoolchildren, particularly girls, who received such training developed a 'more mature' response to sex.

The study by the National Foundation for Educational Research found youngsters were 'less likely to be sexually active' than peers who received traditional forms of sex education, dispelling the fears of family campaigners who believe such methods actually arouse the sexual interest of teenagers.

Now the government will recommend the scheme, called A Pause, to schools throughout England and Wales following the success of the trial in 104 schools where sexual intercourse among 16-year-olds fell by up to 20 per cent, according to Dr John Tripp of the Department of Child Health at the University of Exeter, who helped to design the course.

Teachers who sign up to the course are primed to deal with queries from pupils on all kinds of sexual experience. Those behind the course stress the scheme does not suggest teenagers experiment with oral sex. Instead they say A Pause promotes the message that other forms of physical intimacy are safer than full intercourse.

'It teaches people assertiveness skills and that they should be only as intimate as they feel comfortable with,' said Tripp.

A Department for Education and Skills spokesman said the report's verdict would be made available to all schools. 'All teachers respect peer-reviewed material, and this will help influence their decision,' he said.

[Sandbaggins]

"A Pause"

[Zimphire]

Yeah sure.. as most teens don't know about oral sex, or how to.

I smell a loser idea.

[RedStar]

I know a few girls who could benefit from an oral sex class.

[Lateralus]

Originally posted by RedStar:
I know a few girls who could benefit from an oral sex class.

*Snicker*

<----- I know a young gentleman who could benefit from being the 'test subject' in such a class.

[Link]

OMG This sounds like such a good idea!









NOT!

Reality check No sex at all is best.

[Webscreamer]

Sounds like they need lessons on how to put their right(or left) hands to use.... a do-it-yourself job.

[Lateralus]

Originally posted by Link:
Reality check No sex at all is best.

I don't get any either... but even I'm not stupid enough to say that.

[d4nth3m4n]

Originally posted by PowerMacMan:
I don't get any either... but even I'm not stupid enough to say that.

so low.

meh, i think anal is a little more fitting personally.

[Webscreamer]

Originally posted by d4nth3m4n:
so low.

meh, i think anal is a little more fitting personally.

Man... I stay away from that region. It just screams DO NOT ENTER on it.

Just sick.... I think.

[d4nth3m4n]

Originally posted by Webscreamer:
Man... I stay away from that region. It just screams DO NOT ENTER on it.

Just sick.... I think.

oh me neither. exit only area. but while promoting experimentation, it would seem that this would follow in the progression.

[UNTeMac]

Why isn't this a good idea? We don't want teenage pregnancy so we teach them another outlet for their hormones.

[Zimphire]

Originally posted by Webscreamer:
Man... I stay away from that region. It just screams DO NOT ENTER on it.

Just sick.... I think.

He likes to get mud on his helmet.

And prefers staph infections.

[sek929]

At least most chicks would actually know how to give head properly.

[Superchicken]

How long until we start encouraging boys to blow each-other? After all then you have no chance of pregnancy! Or... we could always let kids develop and not let ourselves work under the assumption that given enough information people will always choose what's best for them?
I'm sorry I'm all for education, but we can't pretend that information is a cure all for society's ills. People aren't criminal because they're uneducated, they're criminal because they don't care that they're breaking the law. Likewise teens aren't sleeping together and getting knocked up because they're don't know what will happen, and what guy DOESN'T know about a blow job? No they behave this way because they want to, and for the most part our society tells them they should do whatever they want... but maybe possibly... they might not want to... for some reason that we can't really tell them.. because that would be imposing an arbitrary moral standing... news flash people, if you're trying to curb them away from sex, or teen pregnancy YOU"RE ALREADY IMPOSING A STANDARD!

Gah.. people are stupid, and people trying to regulate education for the most part are even dumber. Sex ed is a stupid idea, I went through it, and I thought it was ridiculous. If I ever have kids, I'd probably send them, and ask if I could sit in on the class, being that I'd probably be the local area pastor I think I might be allowed to... and hopefully I'd have a good enough relationship with my kids that it wouldn't be one of those things where dad was being a moron. Either way I like the idea of keeping the teacher on a short leash, because I think sex ed in general has become something that nobody's really sure why we have, but everyone wants to put their mark on.

[Jim Paradise]

Originally posted by Zimphire:
Yeah sure.. as most teens don't know about oral sex, or how to.

I smell a loser idea.

Apparently they should have consulted you before releasing the results from the study.

[Zimphire]

Originally posted by Jim Paradise:
Apparently they should have consulted you before releasing the results from the study.

Of course not. But this is just common sense.

The Gov pays out tons of money yearly to study things that should be common sense.

It's silly.

[sek929]

Originally posted by Zimphire:
Of course not. But this is just common sense.

The Gov pays out tons of money yearly to study things that should be common sense.

It's silly.

[adam west]Somebodies stealing my water![/adam west]

[phoenixboy]

Originally posted by gorickey:
Encouraging schoolchildren to experiment with oral sex...

Originally posted by d4nth3m4n:
meh, i think anal is a little more fitting

Originally posted by Superchic[k]en:
I like the idea of keeping the teacher on a short leash

uuuhhhh...so do i.

man, this thread is full of good ideas, keep it up.

[wataru]

This has got to be better than abstinence-only education.

[phoenixboy]

this gives a whole new meaning to "oral exams" /can't believe i'm the first one to post this.

[Oisín]

Originally posted by Superchic[k]en:
How long until we start encouraging boys to blow each-other? After all then you have no chance of pregnancy!

Now this idea I like! They should definitely do that!

And as for what you said: You're right, there isn't a teenage boy in the world (hopefully) who doesn't know about blowjobs. There are, however, quite a lot of teenage girls who, although they are perfectly aware of blowjobs, think they're disgusting and refuse to do it. Some education in that area would be a good thing, I believe.

It's not like this is trying to cure all society's illnesses; but if it can reduce the number of unwanted teen pregnancies even a little, I'm all for it. Like someone said, it beats the crap out of abstinence-only sex ed.

Just out of curiosity, by the way - when and for how long do you have sex ed? We had it for about a month or so in 4th grade (that is, when we were mostly 10 or 11).

[iMOTOR]

Originally posted by PowerMacMan:
I don't get any either... but even I'm not stupid enough to say that.

Reality Check: you can still get stds from smoking pole. Still stupid?

[Sealobo]

why didn't they think of that when i was a teen?

[Lateralus]

Originally posted by iMOTOR:
Reality Check: you can still get stds from smoking pole. Still stupid?

Haha! You agreed with Link!

[Oisín]

Originally posted by iMOTOR:
Reality Check: you can still get stds from smoking pole. Still stupid?

You can also get STDs from kissing. Good luck trying to prevent teens from doing that.

And good luck trying to prevent teens from having sex too, one way or the other.

STDs are bad, unwanted pregnancies are bad. If you can't effectively and realistically prevent both, better to prevent at least one than none at all.

[willed]

Originally posted by Superchic[k]en:
If I ever have kids, I'd probably send them, and ask if I could sit in on the class, being that I'd probably be the local area pastor I think I might be allowed to... and hopefully I'd have a good enough relationship with my kids that it wouldn't be one of those things where dad was being a moron. Either way I like the idea of keeping the teacher on a short leash, because I think sex ed in general has become something that nobody's really sure why we have, but everyone wants to put their mark on.

For the love of all that is holy, please don't have children; for their sake, and for the sake of humanity.

[Luca Rescigno]

Superchic[k]en:

Duh, of COURSE kids in their teens know that sex causes babies. They're not idiots, which is your point - then why the hell would they have sex? Do they WANT babies? Do they think "you can just get an abortion?" Perhaps the latter, but I think the problem is that their hormones take over and they just DON'T THINK. I wonder how many times a young couple has fumbled their way through their first sexual intercourse, the guy thinking, "Okay, I just need to remember to pull out and we'll be fine," then of course he doesn't since he doesn't have the control needed to do it, and oops! there goes another teen pregnancy. Seriously, I bet that's the cause of over 50% of teen pregnancies.

Encouraging oral sex among teens will prevent that. Now, I'm guessing a large percentage of teens know about oral sex, but not all of them do. Plus, their opinion of it might be quite low. Promoting it as a good form of sex that is much safer will lead some teens to try it out instead of going straight to intercourse. That way, these kids have an outlet for their overflowing hormones instead of forcing them to keep it bottled up until they're old enough (as you would have it).

Promoting oral sex will NOT lead to encouraging homosexuality. That is just paranoid and stupid on your part. Kids won't do what they don't want to do, and if they're not gay, they aren't about to have oral sex with other members of the same sex.

[Cipher13]

This is idiotic. A waste of time and money.

Teenagers know about oral sex. "Teaching" them about it will serve no purpose.

After oral sex, they'll have intercourse... at best. They might just go straight to intercourse. Either way, it WILL happen.

Oral sex is not an ALTERNATIVE, which is what they're presenting it as.

Stupid.

[tomdavidson69]

Compulsory chastity pants... Make them part of the school uniform.

Oh and the idea that you, as a parent, will sit in on your kids sex ed and they will be "cool with it" has got to win you some sort of "Is-your-brain-connected-with-reality-in-any-way" prize...

[Oisín]

Originally posted by Cipher13:
Teenagers know about oral sex. "Teaching" them about it will serve no purpose.

They know, yes, but for many (especially girls), it needs destigmatizing.

After oral sex, they'll have intercourse... at best. They might just go straight to intercourse. Either way, it WILL happen.

Especially with the "traditional" sex ed.

Oral sex is not an ALTERNATIVE, which is what they're presenting it as.

Why isn't oral sex an alternative? It is to some people. And even for those to whom it isn't; when we're talking about young teenagers who want to avoid pregnancies, why shouldn't it be? Perhaps not a complete, permanent alternative, but at least part of an alternative.

Besides, it's not really about oral sex only - it's about teaching teenagers that you can be intimate without actual intercourse: "Those behind the course stress the scheme does not suggest teenagers experiment with oral sex. Instead they say A Pause promotes the message that other forms of physical intimacy are safer than full intercourse".

[Oisín]

Originally posted by tomdavidson69:
Oh and the idea that you, as a parent, will sit in on your kids sex ed and they will be "cool with it" has got to win you some sort of "Is-your-brain-connected-with-reality-in-any-way" prize...

Depends on the parents and the children. I wouldn't have had a problem with my parents sitting in on our sex ed, though I'd agree by far most kids would/will.

[tomdavidson69]

Originally posted by Ois�n:
Depends on the parents and the children. I wouldn't have had a problem with my parents sitting in on our sex ed, though I'd agree by far most kids would/will.

Yeah, I guess it depends on the type of sex ed. We had a half hour video, cartoon actually showing (in a graphic as way a cartoon can) the basic areas on a 'female' and what happens when a 'male' is ready for intercourse...Then we got the obligatory cut away view which is good from a biology POV I guess but for sex ed...

This was in year 6 (I was 12 i think) the girls in the class got a special extra lesson on "feminine things". And that was it...nothing in secondary school. Thank god for porn (and tolerant first girlfriends whilst I learnt the ropes so to speak!! )

I hope it's better than that now!

[Oisín]

Originally posted by tomdavidson69:
Yeah, I guess it depends on the type of sex ed. We had a half hour video, cartoon actually showing (in a graphic as way a cartoon can) the basic areas on a 'female' and what happens when a 'male' is ready for intercourse...Then we got the obligatory cut away view which is good from a biology POV I guess but for sex ed...

This was in year 6 (I was 12 i think) the girls in the class got a special extra lesson on "feminine things". And that was it...nothing in secondary school. Thank god for porn (and tolerant first girlfriends whilst I learnt the ropes so to speak!! )

I hope it's better than that now!

Hehe... sounds a little like ours, except we didn't have videos (I think, we might have had though), we mostly had those biology illustration thingies where we learned all about veins and spermatozoids and all kinds of other things that I've happily forgotten all about again...

Although, I do specifically remember that our first sex ed lesson started out with our teacher asking us for all the different words and denominations we knew for a penis (from the hilarious to the disgusting)... and then afterwards we did the same with vagina... Needless to say, the girls were all flaming red from blushing and the boys were all hiding their heads in their arms laughing extremely hard, in order to conceal the fact that they too were flaming red from blushing (with a few exceptions [me being one] who sat quietly, giggling slightly at how idiotic the others looked)...

[tomdavidson69]

Originally posted by Ois�n:
Although, I do specifically remember that our first sex ed lesson started out with our teacher asking us for all the different words and denominations we knew for a penis (from the hilarious to the disgusting)... and then afterwards we did the same with vagina... Needless to say, the girls were all flaming red from blushing and the boys were all hiding their heads in their arms laughing extremely hard, in order to conceal the fact that they too were flaming red from blushing (with a few exceptions [me being one] who sat quietly, giggling slightly at how idiotic the others looked)...

Hehe, that sort of fun came at the end of junior school when we all got given dictionaries. They were only pocket sized but they had enough "rude" words to keep us amused for weeks....Sad I know... Even worse when I got a huge French dictionary 5 years later I did exactly the same....

[Oisín]

Originally posted by tomdavidson69:
Hehe, that sort of fun came at the end of junior school when we all got given dictionaries. They were only pocket sized but they had enough "rude" words to keep us amused for weeks....Sad I know... Even worse when I got a huge French dictionary 5 years later I did exactly the same....

I doubt most of the definitions we came up with would be in a dictionary...

(But don't worry, I did the same with my first Chinese dictionary too )

[moonmonkey]

Originally posted by Superchic[k]en:
How long until we start encouraging boys to blow each-other? After all then you have no chance of pregnancy! Or... we could always let kids develop and not let ourselves work under the assumption that given enough information people will always choose what's best for them?
I'm sorry I'm all for education, but we can't pretend that information is a cure all for society's ills. People aren't criminal because they're uneducated, they're criminal because they don't care that they're breaking the law. Likewise teens aren't sleeping together and getting knocked up because they're don't know what will happen, and what guy DOESN'T know about a blow job? No they behave this way because they want to, and for the most part our society tells them they should do whatever they want... but maybe possibly... they might not want to... for some reason that we can't really tell them.. because that would be imposing an arbitrary moral standing... news flash people, if you're trying to curb them away from sex, or teen pregnancy YOU"RE ALREADY IMPOSING A STANDARD!

Gah.. people are stupid, and people trying to regulate education for the most part are even dumber. Sex ed is a stupid idea, I went through it, and I thought it was ridiculous. If I ever have kids, I'd probably send them, and ask if I could sit in on the class, being that I'd probably be the local area pastor I think I might be allowed to... and hopefully I'd have a good enough relationship with my kids that it wouldn't be one of those things where dad was being a moron. Either way I like the idea of keeping the teacher on a short leash, because I think sex ed in general has become something that nobody's really sure why we have, but everyone wants to put their mark on.

THIS IS IMPORTANT!

Wash you hair, steel your dads credit card, fly to Shanghai, I will take you out to a bar get you so laid you will not walk for a week.

I think you need it.

[hyteckit]

Man, wish I was in Junior High School these days.

[andi*pandi]

SCHICK: If I ever have kids, I'd probably send them, and ask if I could sit in on the class, being that I'd probably be the local area pastor I think I might be allowed to...

So, already planning to abuse your position? What superior right would a pastor have to be in that class above any other parent?

Speaking for the future other parents in your kids class, DON'T. The last thing the kids need in there is a) a parent to make them feel all self-conscious like they can't ask questions; b) YOU. Educate your child (sigh) at home if you will, but I would hate to see you disrupt other kids education.

Topic: The reason we have sex ed at all is that some kids weren't getting ANY ed at home. I don't much think the Oral Imperitive mission will work.

[moonmonkey]

Originally posted by hyteckit:
Man, wish I was in Junior High School these days.

With superchicken, sitting at the back of the class clutching binoculars and "tutting".

[AppleCello]

If they are so worried about it and tired of wasting money, why not just impose manditory birth control on everyone under 18 or without a job?

Otherwise I think they should get out of people's personal lives and business and stop worrying about it.

Get real and stop pretending that we're not driven to procreate (as if its immoral or unnatural...).

[AppleCello]

Originally posted by moonmonkey:
With superchicken, sitting at the back of the class clutching binoculars and "tutting".

I remember back in Sex Ed class when the teacher demonstrated how to put on a condom (over a banana, no kidding).

I was thinking to myself, what person physically capable couldnt figure that out. It was unbelievable really. Sure, it might make some sense to learn about STDs and treatments (or lack of) and safe practices. Im all for that. But honestly, people need to stop treating it like such a catastrophic deal.

We should be more concerned with important problems, like how to act diplomatically in the world so that we arent hated by the rest of humanity.

[Millennium]

Trading one social problem for another. How lovely.

Abstinence-only sex education, as some politicians push, is not the answer. But neither is the abstinence-as-nonoption sex education currently taught in most of the US. The fact is that we practically push our children to become sexually active well before they're emotionally capable of dealing with such relationships, their ramifications, and most importantly their consequences.

Of course, this is not unique to sex education in the US, or even the US at all; the media in general doesn't really do any better at it. We've become so fixated on the physical aspects of sex that we ignore -or worse, actively avoid- the emotional side, not just in how we teach others about it but all too often in our own lives as well. It's as though our whole society has come to confuse the concepts of sex and love, to the point where they are practically viewed as synonymous by most. The end results have been devastating, and this is not going to help that one bit.

[Sherwin]

On behalf of my countrymen, I apologise for the stupidity of my government with respect to this and other matters (but hey, don't blame me - I voted for the other guys). This will be corrected at the next election.

[Oisín]

Originally posted by Millennium:
Abstinence-only sex education, as some politicians push, is not the answer. But neither is the abstinence-as-nonoption sex education currently taught in most of the US. The fact is that we practically push our children to become sexually active well before they're emotionally capable of dealing with such relationships, their ramifications, and most importantly their consequences.

Of course, this is not unique to sex education in the US, or even the US at all; the media in general doesn't really do any better at it. We've become so fixated on the physical aspects of sex that we ignore -or worse, actively avoid- the emotional side, not just in how we teach others about it but all too often in our own lives as well. It's as though our whole society has come to confuse the concepts of sex and love, to the point where they are practically viewed as synonymous by most. The end results have been devastating, and this is not going to help that one bit.

I agree completely, except for the last sentence.

The way I understood the article, this was about teaching the kids that there are other ways to be physically intimate than having sex.

Edit: Don't know if you just used the US as example because it's what you know, but this article (and the A Pause thing) is in the UK...

[Sherwin]

Originally posted by Superchic[k]en:
How long until we start encouraging boys to blow each-other?

Not long at all if the Lib-Dems get in. They've already got plans to teach seven year olds sex education.

Vote Sherwie!

[nredman]

"Pupils under 16 who were taught to consider other forms of 'intimacy' such as oral sex were significantly less likely to engage in full intercourse, it was revealed."

i think when i was under 16, licking carpet probably would have grossed me out, but then a couple of years later it would have lead to intercourse. but hey thats me

[dampeoples]

I just hope they get all of this straight before my kids start getting taught

[Turias]

Sure, it might help curb pregnancy rates, but it is bound to increase the number of kids with STDs.

Bad idea.

[sixz]

Oral sex is foreplay.