Should parents be able to pull their kids out of sex ed?

warning: highly graphic

not for the faint of heart. highly graphic.

Who gets syphilis?
Anyone who has sex can get syphilis. People most at risk are those having unprotected sexual intercourse (i.e. not using a condom), those with more than one sexual partner, and those who change partners frequently.
In 2004, there were 2,254 cases diagnosed in STI clinics (also called genitourinary medicine clinics) in the United Kingdom.
The highest rates of syphilis are seen in women aged 20-24 and men aged 25-34 years.

How do you catch syphilis?
Syphilis is a sexually transmitted infection. It is caught through unprotected vaginal, oral or anal intercourse or genital contact with an infected partner.
An infected person may have no symptoms, but still transmit the infection without knowing.
Syphilis cannot be caught by casual contact (toilet seats, swimming pools and saunas).
A pregnant woman with infectious syphilis can pass the infection to her foetus via the placenta or during birth.

How do you know that you have syphilis?
The symptoms of syphilis are not specific. Though the illness usually begins with one or more painless but highly infectious sores (primary infection) appearing anywhere on the body (but usually at the site of infection), this is not always the case. These sores clear up on their own in two to six weeks.

Secondary symptoms may develop 6 weeks to 6 months after the onset of primary sores. Later symptoms are highly variable, but may include a rash on the palms or soles.
Late syphilis occurs four or more years after an untreated primary infection. Complications may occur in the mucocutaneous tissue, heart, respiratory tract or central nervous system.

How serious is syphilis?
Infectious syphilis in pregnant women usually results in miscarriage, stillbirth or a congenitally infected baby. Maternal infection, however, is detectable and entirely treatable which prevents transmission to the baby.
If left undetected syphilis will eventually cause symptoms in about 40 percent of infected people.

How can you protect yourself against syphilis? Sexually active young men and women can reduce their risk of syphilis by reducing their numbers of partners and using condoms correctly and consistently during sexual intercourse.

How is syphilis diagnosed?
Syphilis can be diagnosed by detection of the organism in the ulcer. Antibodies to syphilis can also be detected in the blood.

All pregnant women should be tested for syphilis to prevent transmission to the foetus.
Genitourinary medicine clinics (also called STD clinics) have the equipment and facilities for testing and for contacting, testing and treating sexual partners. Details of these clinics can be found in the telephone book, from your local hospital or from the STD clinic index of the Health Education Authority’s sexual health web site. Clinics are completely confidential and will not inform GPs of results unless requested to do so. You can attend one of these clinics at any age (even if you are under the age of consent to sex which is 16).

A person with suspected syphilis should also be tested for other sexually transmitted infections which may be present without symptoms.

How is syphilis treated?

All stages of syphilis can be treated with antibiotics.
All current and recent sexual partners of a person with syphilis should be tested and treated to prevent re-infection and the further spread of disease. Treatment is offered whether or not they show any signs of infection.

Source of data: HPA Syphilis Fact Sheet http://www.hpa.org.uk/infections

not for the faint of heart

warning: highly graphic.

and that is surely some crazy stuff you mention kstein! It all spookily makes me think somehow of Nazi Germany and how sweeping changes were then, it's too much! Oddly, I saw an article in the New York Times where they're still looking for Nazis. They figure enough are still allve. I always wonder about Argentina... *shrug*

Americans have more to fear of their government than ever before...and they haven't even waken up to it yet. tick tock tick tock tick tock....heh

Just becuase you tell your children to be safe during sex doesn't make them more safe. Just makes them know that they should be.

And Planet Parenthood sounds so much like a cult.

Oh I'm sorry...Planned. Such a simple mistake.

Once, people come to the Planned Parenthood, abstinence is already out of the door. Why would they advocate something that doesn't really have anything to do with what they specialize in?

Also, I agree with you that abstinence is unequivocally the best way to prevent pregnancy and STDs, but kids aren't going to wait until marriage. Hormones are raging, telling them to screw for ten years before they're supposed to have sex and most can't resist (it also doesn't help that Western culture puts sex on an enormous pedestal that kids are encouraged to indulge in).

So abstinence is great to teach, but for the rest (scratch that, majority) or kids who are going to do what they want, they should be educated.

In a way you make the best example I can find Nettle. wow. if abstinence is really to be ruled out a priori, in such asinine summary fashion, while students happen to be in school, I'd say you have an crippling psychological addiction and you need to seek help. students shouldn't be in school to protect potentially catastrophic sexual relationships they may not have the maturity or the luck to deal with in the first place. What good can come of sexual relationship in teen years while one's energies are best devoted to the mass corpus of academics one must master? Some teens thinking sex is acceptable and more accessible utilizing a rubber from a school counter, find themselves easier to fall into a hole. I gave the example to someone that it's like driving your car off a cliff, you naturally fall in it. Or, it's as you say, why would one show up on Planned Parenthood's doorstep ("abstinence is already out the door..."? You see it as an inevitability...an escape from this "irrevocable" irresponsibility, and I think it's unfortunate. I agree with the Aurora parents. Children will generally rise to the level of expectation that's provided them wherever they find themselves. They'll value it at least, even if they are tempted or have had an experience or two, and they may realize that sex as pleasurable as it should indeed probably wait for a better time in life when it's on terms agreeable to everyone affected by it. That's more responsible. Not hiding it for RISKIER selfish pleasures whose fruits can only damage the best of a student's academic ambitions, to say the least.

I agree with you that those are all myths. What was your point about bringing them up? I'd also like to point out that disproving those myths is something that would be involved in a sex ed class.

I still contend it's the parents' prerogative, Nettle, however distastefully your mother found it. I don't buy the stereotypical disgruntled if detached parental involvement crap that parents can't know their children as well or better. Instead of paying planned parenthood such exorbitant sums, we could offer a summary of such general information for parents to take home to discuss with their own children...along with a paid dinner for the occasion to discuss it with our daughters and sons! lol We could certainly afford it with what we pay these eugenic freaks...

I'd also contend it's material for public consumption and not exclusive to your sex ed program. I offer the material as a "starting" point for parents to engage their own children. Thanks for your views.

thank you so much for that interview it was enlighting, I knew her name only. I love the cigerette on tv and in the ads. Mike Wallace was explaining her right to express herself and being impartial was such good journalism i wish was still being praticed today. So thats how it all started one women, where was The Church?

kstein, ;) Philip Morris: ..."because there's nothing between you and the tobacco". Wallace handled her with kid gloves though he did tend to get a little forceful on her snakelike maneuvering throughout the tougher questions of the interview. lol She also lived quite an amoral sexually-carefree lifestyle, even with Haveloc Ellis, as well I vaguely recall. It was funny watching her trying to save face, even while Wallace asked her about her ideas of sin. ;)~ She knew he knew what he was digging at her own casual morality without being explicit. lol He had good enough questions for her if anyone knows a little of her actual background. And her concession was that she claimed she was quite the "feminist" then...heh. she was giving it up in her day to these "names" like Haveloc and so that's how she got started... she was racist too...not really a good role model for her "moderately-posed" views you see here. As you can see she lied even about what one of their reporters had quoted her for saying... These people are good at denying the worst of what they really are. It's amazing. I mean did you see her tentatively hold out episcopalian faith? lol yeah right. she was hedonist who left a caring husband and her children to enjoy a life of sex herself. And she didn't want to offer a reason for why the Catholic faith basis their views on "natural law" the way they do (or did?) because the question naturally segues into philosophical theism, and the nature of God, which is most certainly the Church's turf where Margaret won't find a rock to crawl under. she was quite a crafty lady with a seemingly admirable presence of mind at times, but she wasn't perfect in how she fielded his pressing questions. ;) if the devil comes as an angel of light, most are not recognize him...or her... ;P

"We should hire 2 or 3 colored ministers. preferably with social service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We do not word to go out that we wish to exterminate the Negro poulation, and the minister is the man that can straighten out that idea if it occurs to any of their more rebellious members." Margaret Sanger's letter to Clarence Gamble- from the Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton, Mass. I rest my case.

How many kids do yo have?

None. By the way, I was being SARCASTIC- making fun of the "groupthink" mentality of these who want more government interference. Government should have NO say in this issue- NONE.

Ok, I've been tolerant of your trolling up until now.

You have just slapped yourself in the face with your own sources. The abstinence-only education has failed miserably and has resulted in the sharp upturn in teen pregnancies in the undereducated states (most of which have a strong adherence to religious thought).

The Planned Parenthood provides services for the people who need it most: those with little education, little money, and little opportunity. Having a child when you're a teenager while living in an impoverished home in the inner city is devastating. Even more devastating is giving up that child to an unknown family/foster home and not only living with that guilt for the rest of your life, but the child also lives in torment wondering why its mother decided to abandon it. Abortion leaves only the mother feeling horrible. The child doesn't have to live a shitty life which statistics show will most likely be brought into crime and violence.

You go to the Planned Parenthood when you want to get help, whether you want to know about contraception, clear up some myths about sex, get a pap smear or have just been beaten and raped.

I myself went not too long ago to get an IUD so that I could have safe, monogamous lovin' with my boyfriend with extraordinarily little risk of an unwanted child. I'm so below the poverty level that a government grant paid for all of my services as well as the actual device. How in the hell is providing birth control for the poor a bad thing?

HAHAHA! "We should hire 2 or 3 colored ministers, preferably with social service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We don't want word to go out that we wish to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man that can straighten out that idea if it occurs to any of their more rebellious members." Margaret Sanger's letter to Clarence Gamble, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, North Hampton, Mass. Sanger, as we all know, was founder of Planned Parenthood. They are the politically correct version of the Ku Klux Klan- they practice their racism and eugenics behind closed doors. Is ignorance truly bliss?

nettie, do you have kids? Why do I seriously doubt that. I'm sorry you have a sincerely pathetic attitude about the love your parents have for you. I don't know many parents who would be apathetic in cases of rape. but I don't feel sorry you. in fact, buy your own gear. save up. use google like you do current to clear up your "myths" heh. you can likely find a box of condoms for less than a six-pack sister. open up an anonymous post office box, maybe current liberals will donate from their back pocket stock to your "worthy" cause.

and yes you DID just slap YOURself in the face, bech, thank you! wtf is it to you if teenagers feel it's just personally better to have the child even solely for religious reasons? why offer that parenthetically like it wasn't worth the legitimate public consideration? Is is also safe to assume your neither respectful of religious views either, in addition to parental rights, to their OWN children? I'm glad more teens decide not to have to answer to God for that, OR to their own consciences, for life, like that. And I would wonder how many of these "victims" are really college-bound material to begin with, honestly =P I would gather enough of them are "in love" anyway. And you talk about "horrible" like it's actually a better decision for foolishness much better honestly confronted with the loving support of family, and, dare I say, the father! Imagine your kid bleeding to death for a complication from a MAJOR surgical procedure that Planned Parenthood thinks parents or fathers in undisclosed pregnancies don't have the right to know about. Worse, the kids are unethically placed in the compromised position of having to dupe parents and everyone else under guise for recovery. And you don't even talk about post abortion trauma, at all, really. You're too whimsically summarily "pat" in your assumptions that prove you're out on a limb when it comes to better consideration than merely what you need to get your groove on. Well, fine. Yet it doesn't change the fact that psychologically even, spiritually, abortion too can take a major toll that no one likes to face for the utter stark undeniable reality of it: the death of someone who would have likely been someone, stays with more women than not, for life. Even the sight a child years later can be haunting. They know the exact age he/she would have been! And naturally they wonder what would he/she/they would have been like. It's worse than getting a rebellious tattoo on your left buttock, nettie, because you think it somehow "better defines you" than the actual curve of your ass. ;P And the betrayal of women who honestly suffer this as "weak" is quite telling! I was raised with the support of family and friends from a teen parent. And I never heard anyone in my pride stop to wonder if they needed an abortion from Planned Parenthood to console them or "Make it go away." ;)

"do you have kids?" Nope, I'm only 18. I actually plan on adopting if I decide to raise children.

"I'm sorry you have a sincerely pathetic attitude about the love your parents have for you" Could you explain this please? I'm not sure why anything of what I said has to do with me disliking my parents.

"to clear up your "myths"" What myths?

"maybe current liberals will donate from their back pocket stock to your "worthy" cause." What worthy cause? Are you suggesting that I should ask for monetary assistance, because if you are that's a low-blow.

"your neither respectful of religious views either" I'm agnostic atheist and have a deeply found interest in different religions, to say I'm disrespectful in them is completely off. It's widely known that the religious South seem to have an unusually high amount of teen pregnancies, I was pointing out the irony.

"Imagine your kid bleeding to death for a complication from a MAJOR surgical procedure that Planned Parenthood thinks parents or fathers in undisclosed pregnancies don't have the right to know about." You're right, that's a huge problem, but the minor has to sign an emergency contact form in case something so unfortunate happens.

"And you don't even talk about post abortion trauma, at all, really." I mentioned it, but it's a heavy subject I didn't feel like expanding upon.

"It's worse than getting a rebellious tattoo on your left buttock, nettie, because you think it somehow "better defines you" than the actual curve of your ass. ;P" What? You brought that out of thin air and don't know where you were going with that.

"if they needed an abortion from Planned Parenthood to console them or "Make it go away."" No one said that. A teen will get an abortion because she knows she won't be able to raise a child in a decent home at the age of 16. Who the fuck gets an abortion for consolation? The exact opposite is true; getting an abortion will probably rip you up on the inside.

"And the betrayal of women who honestly suffer this as "weak" is quite telling!" What's weak?

About the IUD, your information is mostly correct.

False: "Both the ParaGard and the Mirena IUDs can cause longer, heavier, and more painful menstrual periods, but this is much less common with the Mirena."

Actually Mirena has the opposite effect as the ParaGard; shorter, lighter, fewer periods if any at all.

I have a hormone deficiency and I couldn't take any forms of hormonal control (the pill, the depo shot, Mirena, the patch), so I was left with the condom, the IUD, the sponge, spermicide, and the cap. The sponge and cap sound painful and spermicide doesn't work that well. Condoms are the preferred method, but you are limited by having them on-hand and can be forgotten/broken and isn't cost effective in the long run.

The ParaGard stays in my uterus for 10-12 years and has a 99.2% success rate. It requires no maintenance (other than the monthly string check) and I only had heavy flow the first following period. It costs a lot up front, but it pays for itself when it costs the same amount as condoms after two years.

All of the things that can happen (punctured wall, infection, allergic reaction) are extremely rare. It obviously doesn't protect against STDs but I don't sleep around with random people.

So what do you use for protection?

Just to let you know, Planned Parenthood is also an affordable OBGYN for those who don't insurance.

just to let you know...

sure, that's what we told them too when they wanted a clinic in the midschool. the health benefits were fine, but they wouldn't put it in WITHOUT the sex ed component parents at the public meetings insisted on. tsk tsk tsk... it was thee crucial point for them, and everything else was just sugar-coating.

wake up. they have an agenda to PUSH.

You obviously have an agenda to push as well. Everyone does. I don't have insurance, and I believe in regular gyno appointments. are you suggesting that i cut that crucial part of my health care in order to boycott planned parenthood. I don't think so.

Would you be offended if someone told you there was an elephant or a big gorilla in the room? hehe ;) Naw! Not you! cuz you gonna lay down and get some of that too? ;) My message is obviously it's not for everyone. It's not as convenient to other would-be "lifestyles," if you would. Look at it this way maybe. Sometimes for a big fight--a trainer will have his fighter abstain from sexual entertainment to achieve a greater and more valuable end, theoretically, the "W". Maybe it doesn't always achieve the "real" prize but it's 100% efficacious in that, even in a losing effort, I don't think any fighter will even faintly admit he stopped training any harder because of it.

(In any fight really but...) In the UFC, if you go into a fight beaten, you're get gonna get your ass kicked! No matter you just got two weeks notice for a purse that could win you nice change should it end in just a few seconds! That's what you train for! a fight where at the very least 50% of your ability to win is unstoppable no-quit attitude--to the bitter end. Did you happen to see how muscled up BJ came for Ken-flo? I was surprised to see that! It's all cuz BJ got himself worked over from none other than GSP (now there's an athletic Godzilla-Kong monstrosity =P po' Ken-flo was on a roll, but BJ trains much too well to lose a fight with a guy trying to lean on him for a strength/cardio-sapping technique. BJ is a big problem to slow down though! LOL I'm not trying to say anything is easy in there with him and Ken-flo did what he could. BJ was just better...that night anyway. It's funny, another night and maybe BJ would be thinking he'd needed to train a little bit harder to his own amazement (and it wouldn't be the first time that's happened to anyone). But today's credit is BJ's, he battered him, because he trained his ass off... my point is even if Ken-flow got worked over a bit with repeated fierce elbows, and grueling ground and pound, he went out there TO WIN!!! and I know Dana will give him another call and he'll be an even better fighter in the octagon next time...he's no-quit. That's what it takes "to win" even if you suffer loss. And if you really want the best success why try harbor a defeatist attitude? For students in particular is the case I make. If you can't see the obvious hypocrisy of Planned Parenthood as regards the lucrative business of teen sex, and you beg an interpretation for action from me, I hate to trouble you any further lady. I guess in a way it would be kinda like knowing you were getting your doctor's prescriptions filled with a local heroin and cocaine dealer perhaps, but hey...these are YOUR ethics >;)~ hehe

Just because you put "hehe" at the end of your long winded rant about UFC, and you put those stupid smiley faces all over it, does not negate that fact that you just called me slut that would lay down for gorillas and elephants. How about you keep emotion out of debates like this, and instead use references to back up your statements. Just because I go to the gyno does not mean I am a slut. It means that I care for my health. Your statement about PPH being a business looking to profit off teen sex, is rather not entirely true. Yes, it is a business looking to profit, like any doctor or gyno office. Any company is looking for profit, even non-profit organizations, they do need to pay their employees and buy equipment and such. When was the last time you stepped into a PPH? I am guessing never. The last time I went, most of the waiting room patients comprised of women that are "of-age." Now, I know it is a faux-pas to use wikipedia as a source, but seeing as your not really keen on primary sources, only propagandist sources, i am not going to hesitate.

"In 2007, contraception constituted 36% of total services, STI/STD testing and treatment constituted 31%, cancer testing and screening constituted 17%; other women's health services, including pregnancy, prenatal, midlife, and infertility were 11%, and approximately 3% of total services involved surgical and medical abortions."

Three percent of services ended in abortion. That is a very small percentage. Even if it were higher, what would a male like yourself even know about women's health? or what it is like to get pregnant with no money and no help or direction to go. Teen's are going to be sexually active, they always have been. Child sexuality begins around age three, that is normal.

http://extension.missouri.edu/publications/DisplayPub.aspx?P=GH6002

Sheltering your kids from knowledge about sex, even from sex on tv and other media outlets, is going to affect them in a negative manner. Either your kids are going to grow up with a sheltered mentality which leads to a life with few friends and false understanding of reality, or they are going to grow up and rebel against you, and land flat on their face when they find themselves in a world of trouble. Yes, there is a medium to those scenarios, but in my experience of being a nanny for most of my life, kids tend to lean towards one or the other. I would rather explain condoms and birthcontrol then end up with a recluse or a rebel on my hands.

"I guess in a way it would be kinda like knowing your were getting your doctor's prescriptions filled with local heroin and cocaine dealer perhaps but hey...these are YOUR ethics"

First, that analogy makes no sense what so ever. any prescription that PPH may write, gets filled by whatever pharmacist you take said prescription. You may pick up birthcontrol from PPH, but there are no narcotics in them. so stop pulling information out of your ass. Second, How dare you tell me my ethics. You neither know who I am or know my beliefs.

You are an instigator; however, you have no real information to leave. You have propaganda, in which case you probably typed in the google bar "pro-life information" or something completely biased as such. I am tired of you now, you leave nothing on the table that may inspire intelligent thought.

Well I'm sorry you were looking for some kind of affirmation from me. Who tha fuq says parents are raising recluses and rebells in the absence of your g'dam sex ed? Health is fine! WTF Parents don't complain about that! I'm not telling you not to take care of yourself. Yet it IS the sex ed that MANY parents with some experience WILL unashamedly tell you _|_ _|_ and yeah like I said, "if it's not obvious..." I don't really give a fuq about your sensibilities or what you walk away from. To me this isn't about you. And my opinion is frankly not so humble nor apologetic, to you, where children are involved. Medicaid does a decent job of taking care of many more children in more respectable fashion the U.S. today. Better than planned parenthood I'd spit to venture. But you wanna debate statistics for what is clear and simple difference in philosophy? take a permanent trip back to wiki pedia and make sure you keep taking care of yourself first and foremost. Let the parents express real concern for their OWN children. And better than you, I PAY for my own fuqn health insurance, and I try not to abuse it for LIFE-LONG "slip ups" in casual unnecessary explorations in sexuality just because after all everyone says "it's there"... why not... And I shit you not, I was any lesser person: I know I would be quite much too busy for you...

we have more teen pregnancies in school today than every before slarabee. Ironic how "effective" rubbers and other government pharmaceutical contraceptives have become, wouldn't you say? You think it's a necessary evil for those kids who are already defeating expectations with risky behaviors? Hmmm....

To me I'm starting to think of it this way. Imagine if you showed kids how to not build an atomic bomb, the "right" way, for their personal lives. Imagine having a peep room in the back of the library as a "necessary evil" with nothing but ripped playboy pages as an example of how to "safely" consume the form of the female body..."cuz you know if they're gonna look they might as well get the best views and you know they can't be in the dark about what real beauty in life is."

They should offer it as a alternative extra-curricular activity (cuz that's what it is) like basketball or cheerleading, and then see who signs up when the government is just forcing a merely denatured liberalizing agenda on the sexual development of children they hardly know even to treat better than a number or statistic...

yeah now logic', tell me you actually learned something in that class that you hadn't already heard about in the locker room, or previously known from your best "buddy", or on tv, or...*shrug*...just screwing your girlfriend.

tsk Parents expect that too. Many of us grew up that way WITHOUT the kind of pills-foam-lubricants-condoms-diaphragms-"you gotta place it way up in here so that when you're leaning back that big head doesn't dislodge your "protection" girls" kind of sex ed these days.

I doubt many parents dispute factual presentations as regards the reality of socio-economic hard choices facing teen pregnancy, hygiene and/or the higher prevalence and spread of diseases particularly in sexually-active teen culture (sex can wait for a lot of good reasons), but where merely pleasure-seeking liberalizing orientations are perhaps more easily slipped warmly inside or otherwise "Trojaned" in (and there has been some cause for that very attention in the past) parents have a right to judge it any day of the damn week.

So you are like me then, and you didn't find there was very much too unique or "surprising" about the class material either... figures. I think most people generally bring with them all the sex education they really need anyway...whether they utilize it is another contention.

it's the wariness of the historical nature of ongoing sex education that has long been at odds with parental rights I disagree with: from Planned Parenthood foisting "health" initiatives in school nurses taking teens for abortions without parental consent or knowledge, in mid schools (they were already in the high schools doing this), to young children rolling rubbers onto bananas.

I'm with those voices asking, what's next? and I wonder why you aren't you really asking the same questions. is teaching masturbation to young children in an era "global" imperatives a valuable? that was new to me but it's there already waiting for a liberal agenda to adopt it. is legalizing consenting teen sex of a certain age with "safe sex" practicing adults next in the wave of sexual liberation for homosexuals and greater human sexuality in general? Some people seem to irresistibly drawn to the idea a teen has access to as many condoms as he/she requires regardless of the fact a parent may in fact prohibit sex in their own homes, perhaps more content to imagine it I think. that kind of rather enabling "orientation" towards the act of the pleasure rather than the reasoned discipline for it in a more proper and appreciable context time or place in one's life. I find no Virtue in the majority of sex education and while it is technically informative, it does nothing to convey the better common sense that the human condition does not always predispose oneself to their proper use given "familiar" contexts. jmho