The World O' Crap Archive

Welcome to the Collected World O' Crap, a comprehensive library of posts from the original Salon Blog, and our successor site, world-o-crap.com (2006 to 2010).

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Friday, May 20, 2011

If We All Clap Our Hands and Believe . . .

Here’s a nice example of the power of positive hypocrisy in action: the Concerned Women for America and Abstinence Clearinghouse (you may already be a loser!) are saying that a report can’t be accurate, because it doesn’t say what they want to hear — and what they don’t want to hear is that people are having sex before marriage, because it will make kids believe that people can have sex before marriage.  Here’s part of the Agape Press report:
A pro-family group is expressing skepticism about the accuracy of a new report that says 95 percent of Americans have had premarital sex. A study by Lawrence Finer of the Alan Guttmacher Institute finds that 99 percent of Americans had sex by the age of 44, and 95 percent had done so before getting married.
[…]
An Associated Press report on the study quotes Finer as saying that the likelihood of Americans having sex before marriage has remained stable since the 1950s. In other words, the researcher claims premarital sex is “normal behavior for the vast majority of Americans, and has been for decades.”
However, Dr. [of Communications] Janice Crouse of Concerned Women for America (CWA) sees Finer’s report as a ploy to cast doubt on the need for abstinence-until-marriage programs. “My eyebrows went up when I first saw the numbers,” she recalls, “and I thought that the results were a bit too pat because they fit so specifically into the agenda of Planned Parenthood and the Guttmacher Institute.”
Heck, Janice never had sex, and all of the other women at the institute say they have never had sex, so Finer’s report HAS to be wrong, because Janice’s study shows that nobody has ever had sex!
Abstinence-based sex education proponent Leslee Unruh, who heads the South Dakota-based Abstinence Clearinghouse, is also suspicious of the Guttmacher Institute’s findings — and of the motives behind them. […]
“The sexual revolution came, it went, and it lost,” the Abstinence Clearinghouse director observes. “The sexual revolution ended the last century, and we feel people need to be looking to what the newfound research is on sexuality,” she says. “Today’s a new day, and we know that from the studies we have seen, that many young people are demanding the higher standard of abstinence education.”
Abstinence Clearinghouse has seen study after study indicating that increasing numbers of young people are open to the abstinence message and that many are choosing to remain chaste until marriage, Unruh observes. “According to the CDC, there are less kids having sex now than those that are,” she asserts.
Well, the CDC did find that only 47% of high school students reported having had sexual intercourse (down from 53% in 1993), but the rate goes up as the kids get older — so, by 12th grade, 63% of students say they have done the deed.  So, I guess it’s all how you define “kids.”
 But, if fewer than 50% of 14-year-olds are having sex, then Leslee must be right about the sexual revolution being over.  (Thanks to her and abstinence education, of course.)
“So we have numbers that show there is a different thought process going on in America right now, and we believe a lot of that has to do with the fact that these programs [abstinence only education programs] raise the bar.”
Or it means that teens are having oral sex instead of intercourse, and it’s Bill Clinton, not Leslee, whom we should thank for this new age of purity.
But hey, if Janice and Leslee think that they can keep people from having sex by telling them that nobody is doing it, then I wish them all the best.  After all, it’s not like sex is that popular anyway.
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24 Responses to “If We All Clap Our Hands and Believe . . .”



Oh, I’m sure Jan and Les will both be a smashing success.
After all, what teen doesn’t look to some hand-wringing, finger wagging biddy whose knickers get knotted up at the thought that, somewhere out there, beneath the pale moonlight, someone is humping somebody else-for information on sex?
“The sexual revolution came, it went, and it lost…”
Well, hell. ‘Cause I think it’s taken up asylum in my home. Hang on, let me check on it. Maybe it was, you know, just a flesh wound. Seemed okay last night, though, admittedly the dark glasses were somewhat distracting, but those who lose revolutions probably need to remain incognito so as to avoid retaliation by the winners.
Yup, it’s doing just fine. Nobody tell Leslee where it’s hiding, or she’ll have sex up against a wall with a cigarette and a blindfold before you can so much as blink.
Say, when are you two going to mock a Christmas movie for us and make Baby O’Reilly cry? Tell me I didn’t miss it when the internet connection was out here?
Slightly OT rant.
The way the religious nuts use the word “purity” is creepy. It hovers far too close to the notion of being “unclean,” and walks hand-in-hand with notions of racial purity.
Putting people in categories like pure/impure, clean/unclean sets up an us-them situation, where we are the good guys and you’re not. It’s ok for us to oppress you, drive you from your home, kill you, whatever, because you’re impure and unclean. Our god says you’re an abomination and should be eliminated. Whose god gets to call the shots is determined by whoever has the most power at the moment.
Seriously, I have trouble imagining that someone who uses “purity” is not racist or sexist or an ideologue.
But doesn’t Janice report being a Wild Woman in college? Or have I got her confused with some other middle-aged vicarious thrill seeker?
Any road, there’s always hope that today’s sexual revolutionary will become tomorrow’s withered, joyless husk.
“The sexual revolution came, it went, and it lost.”
I believe the sexual revolution did come, but I also believe it’s multi-orgasmic. It will come again…and again…and again…
Apparently the sexual revolution came, went, and then set up housekeeping among fundamentalist ministers in Colorado. Maybe Janice should look there.
“My eyebrows went up when I first saw the numbers,” she recalls
WASP has orgasm….film at eleven….
hell if any of these so called women had actually HAD and ORGASM I think that might change that tune
These comments are beautifully hilarious. I have just two things to add: the CWA response is sadly quite lame and smacks of the wild flailings of a drowning person (a person drowning in TRUTH, as Jack Handey might style it), and Bill S., don’t think no one noticed your quotation of the lyrics from “Somewhere Out There” (as sung by Feivel Mouse in “An American Tail”).
Yes, but as you can see, they were the UNCENSORED lyrics.(And I was thinking of Linda Ronstadt & James Ingram, but ok.)
Janice Crouse is one of those people who believe that having sex soley for pleasure is immoral. And with her, impossible.
Jesus, is that where that song is from?
Buffalo Gal: You make a really excellent point about the “purity” and “unlcean” connection. It’s sad how just because a person (especally a girl) is a virgin, she’s automatically seen as “virtueous” and “pure.”
It’s sad how just because a person (especally a girl) is a virgin, she’s automatically seen as “virtueous” and “pure.”
Good point. As I recall, it wasn’t until I had sex that I calmed down.
A little. And that should be expunged from my record by now anyway.
[...] In short, without the questions asked and a better breakdown of the information, the conclusion that has been touted by so many liberal blogs is, shall we say, unsubstantiated. [...]
I don’t really know how I’ve stumbled upon this absolutely preposterious web-site..but seems to me that there are alot of troubled people who feel offended by abstinence programs. Allow me to retort to the asinine comments that have been posted. If someone wishes to practice abstinence, allow them to do so. I don’t really see the point of blasting someone for making a sound and respectable decision…from what I gather here it’s seems that the lot of you are most likely the off-spring of lower class inbreeding.
Sex soley for pleasure is pathetic and deplorable. Sex is a commonly accepted bond between a man and a woman who are in love with each other and regard one another with the highest esteem. Let me ask you this. Where do babies come from? They are a recreation of two persons who love each other so much that they want to bring another one of them into this world. It’s really sad to see someone lower sex as just a pleasurable experience and that is all it is… I think it’s time all of you cynics about abstinence open your eyes and WAKE UP!! Oh and while I’m at it the word you spelled as ‘virtueous’ is actually spelled “virtuous” when it is spelled properly.
Wow, did I just spelled preposterous wrong? Boy, is my face red! So, disregard that “virtueous vs. virtuous” remark. Mouse-in-Da-House is caught with his tail ‘tween his legs!
So, class warfare over sex? That’s new.
Sounds like someone has trouble getting it up.
My ex-husband and I tried to recreate ourselves. Often. With gusto, and sweat, and dirty talk, and positions impossible to hold without the proper restraints and supports.. Alas, butt-babies never live. My next-ex and I are trying it again, with new positions, equipment and language (Yo queiro grande pinga, Papi! Mas! Con gusto mi bruto Papi! Ai, chico! Ai! Ai!)
Mouse-in-Da-House is caught with his tail ‘tween his legs!
and here we thought you were just happy to see us
I’ve loved every woman I ever had sex with. Even if I didn’t know her name.
Ditto, merlallen.
Mouse, darling, we’re not mocking people for being chaste. I don’t believe any of us gives a good goddamned what you guys do in your bedrooms or public parks, or don’t do, as the case may be. We’re mocking because frankly, we’d like y’all to return the favor, and stop scolding and trying to punish those of us who *don’t* choose chastity.
Or, as you put it before you went off on your judgmental “You’re All Pathetic And Deplorable!” bit, we don’t see the point of judging us for making a sound decision.
In my case, entirely sound. No harm, no foul, kiddies, and while we may certainly argue about what constitutes “good” decisions, I would suggest it is any decision in which no one is harmed (after they safeword). Feel free to prove that we’ve somehow hurt someone in some concrete fashion with all our reckless non-procreative sex, and we’ll give it some consideration.
Me, I’ve never understood the mindset of people who plainly do not want to be here reading this, wasting their time, who not only continue to waste their time here, but then take the extra time to tell us how little they wanted to be here. If I didn’t know better, I’d say there was some Internet Version of “Saw” in which persons are forced to atone for their crimes by reading lefty weblogs. Would you like us to notify the police, Mouse?
Incidentally, you’re not the Mouse who writes the gay “X-Files” smut, are you? Because I totally love your stuff.
Apologies to the rest of you for my absence, it seems I’ve been missing a lot of fun. Apparently, my appendix might be lonely without my gall bladder, they were the only two organs that, you know, really *got* each other, man, and none of the other ones really *understood*, right?, and it’s possibly decided it doesn’t want to live anymore. Probably not, though, since I’m guessing someone would have called me even if it *was* a holiday weekend. My partner found this all rather funny. “This is like our New Year’s tradition!” Next year we’re going for the tonsils! I got vestigial organs and I’m not afraid to not use them, dammit!
If someone wishes to practice abstinence, allow them to do so
This is probably a good idea, since the alternative is usually called “rape.”
“offspring of lower class inbreeding.” Ah, where to begin………..
Wasn’t western Europe ruled for several centuries by the offspring of upper class inbreeding? And what were the results…
Me, I was the child of white upper middle class folks with no prior genetic ties, and what I went through before age 18 would make a decent training manual for any social services agency. So when I go to catalog my own premarital sexual encounters it’s not an entirely pleasant task, know what I’m saying? So when I hear people inferring through such self-congratulatory drivel that “nice people wouldn’t say or do such things” or “nice people’s shit don’t stink” it makes me want to projectile vomit. Except that I don’t have good enough aim or range to hit the intended target.
Damn, ButchPansy, your post made me all…
[mumbles]
…and stufflikethatthere!
 

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