Unless you've been living under a cultural rock, you probably know that New Moon, the second installment in the wildly successful Twilight human-vampire romantic saga, opens Friday.
This time around, brooding vampire Edward must compete with werewolf Jacob for the attentions of Bella, the human heroine of the books and movies.
But with its sexy-but-chaste leads, this teen bodice-ripper series may be sending its target audience of teen and tween girls a mixed message, some fans say.
Then And Now
Back in the '70s and '80s, Hollywood preached a clear message in its teen horror films: have sex and die; stay a virgin and live.
"Let's look to Halloween," says Kevin Doughty, 17, referring to a classic example of the genre. "Jamie Lee Curtis, virgin through the entire movie. Lived."
A student at Mount Miguel High School in Spring Valley, Calif., Doughty thinks the Twilight films promote conflicting values. Bella and her vamp boyfriend, Edward, don't have sex, but in one scene, Edward comes into her room at night to watch her sleep in her underwear.
" I don't have the strength to stay away from you anymore," Edward says to Bella. "Then don't," she responds.
It's been a mainstay of sex ed for more than a decade. Now, as the Obama administration cuts off federal funding, the movement scrambles for money, determined to continue its mission.
kids realize its stupid...
as shown here in the blatant mockery of the assignment.
i lawled.kids realize its stupid...
as shown here in the blatant mockery of the assignment.
i... more
Texas currently has the third-highest teen birth rate in the country and “the highest rate of repeat teen births.” It also leads the nation in the amount of government money it spends on abstinence-only education. But some school districts in the state are now shifting away from that approach, admitting that it isn’t working:
“We mainly did it because of our pregnancy rate,” said Whitney Self, lead teacher for health and physical education at the Hays Consolidated Independent School District. “We don’t think abstinence-only is working.” [...]
Both approaches to sex education teach that refraining from sexual activity is the safest choice for teens.
But abstinence-only gives limited information about contraceptives and condoms and tends to downplay their effectiveness, while abstinence-plus stresses the importance of using such protection if teens are sexually active.
Medical experts have stated concluded that not only do abstinence-only programs not curb teen pregnancy, but “there is evidence to suggest that some of these programs are even harmful and have negative consequences by not providing adequate information for those teens who do become sexually active.”Texas currently has the third-highest teen birth rate in the country and “the... more
ATLANTA — Mississippi now has the nation's highest teen birth rate, displacing Texas and New Mexico for that lamentable title, a new federal report says.
Mississippi's rate was more than 60 percent higher than the national average in 2006, according to new state statistics released Wednesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The teen birth rate for that year in Texas and New Mexico was more than 50 percent higher.
The three states have large proportions of black and Hispanic teenagers groups that traditionally have higher birth rates, experts noted.
The lowest teen birth rates continue to be in New England, where three states have rates at roughly half the national average, which is 42 births per 1,000 teen women.
It's not clear why Mississippi, with 68 births per 1,000, surged into first place. The state's one-year increase of nearly 1,000 teen births could be a statistical blip, said Ron Cossman, a Mississippi State University researcher who focuses on children's health statistics.
The New Mexico rate was 64 per 1,000; Texas was 63. New Hampshire, with a rate of 19 per 1,000, was the nation's lowest.
More than a year ago, a preliminary report on the 2006 data revealed that the U.S. teen birth rate had risen for the first time in about 15 years. But the new numbers provide the first state-by-state breakdown.
The new report is based on a review of all the birth certificates in 2006. Significant increases in teen birth rates were noted in 26 states.
"It's pretty much across the board" nationally, said Brady Hamilton, a CDC statistician who worked on the report.
About 435,000 of the nation's 4.3 million births in 2006 were to mothers ages 15 through 19. That was about 21,000 more teen births than in 2005.
Numerically, the largest increases were in the states with the largest populations. California, Texas and Florida together generated almost 30 percent of the nation's extra teen births in 2006.
Some experts have blamed the national increase on increased federal funding for abstinence-only health education that does not teach teens how to use condoms and other contraception. They said that would explain why teen birth rate increases have been detected across much of the country and not just in a few spots.
There is debate about that, however. Some conservative organizations have argued that contraceptive-focused sex education is still common, and that the new teen birth numbers reflect it is failing.
Other factors include the escalating cost of some types of birth control and their unavailability in some communities, said Stephanie Birch, who directs maternal and child health programs for the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services.
Glowing media portrayals of celebrity pregnancies don't help, either, she said. "They make it out to be very glamorous," said Birch, who cited a calculation by Alaska officials that teen births were up 6 percent in that state in 2006.
A variety of factors influence teen birth rates, including culture, poverty and racial demographics. For those and other reasons, kids in mostly white New England likely would delay child birth, said David Landry, a researcher at the Guttmacher Institute, a New York-based organization which supports abortion rights and gathers research on sexual and reproductive health.
"It's more costly for youth in the Northeast to have a teen birth than for youth in the South, in terms of opportunities they'll miss," he said.
"Last week at Comic-Con, the big story wasn't comic books—it was vampires. Some 2,000 young women set up a tent city outside the San Diego Convention Center on Tuesday, sleeping rough so that they could attend the Thursday panel on New Moon, the upcoming sequel to vampire blockbuster Twilight.
It's just another sign of the massive popularity of vampires. Yet, like many people who acquire mega-celebrity, the vampire has developed an eating disorder. Read the books. Watch the movies. You'll see vampires who manage nightclubs, build computer databases, work as private investigators, go to prep school, lobby Congress, chat with humans, live near humans, have sex with humans, and pine over humans, but the one thing you won't see them do is suck the blood of humans.
No, bloodsucking is so yesterday. It's so 1994. It's so Anne Rice. Today's vampire is a good listener. He cares about our love lives and our problems, which is strange because we're supposed to be his food. Humans just assume that we are the center of the universe and so, faced with a literary creation that should, by all rights, just conk us over the head and suck us down like Slurpees, we've decided that we're too fascinating to be eaten. And so the modern vampire stalks, seduces, sleeps with, and cries over us. They don't eat us.
At least Angel [from Buffy the Vampire Slayer], Anita Blake's vampires, Sookie Stackhouse, and most of the rest of them have a lot of sex. But Edward Cullen, immortal star of the Twilight books, does not have sex. Edward tells Bella, his human paramour, that they need to wait until they're married before doing the deed. In the meantime, he's fascinated by her, beguiled by her, he can't stay away from her—but he can't touch her. Instead, he lies next to her in bed and moons over her as she sleeps. Leaving aside the fact that he's a 90-year-old man, this is what stalkers do, not boyfriends.
Just as America's young men are being given deeply erroneous ideas about sex by what they watch on the Web, so, too, are America's young women receiving troubling misinformation about the male of the species from Twilight. These women are going to be shocked when the sensitive, emotionally available, poetry-writing boys of their dreams expect a bit more from a sleepover than dew-eyed gazes and chaste hugs. The young man, having been schooled in love online, will be expecting extreme bondage and a lesbian three-way.
The bigger problem here is that we're breeding sexually incompatible human beings, and vampires are to blame. I can see a time coming when the birth rate is going to precipitously decline. And what that means is that vampires are going to run out of food. But if Charlaine Harris, Laurel K. Hamilton, Stephenie Meyer, and all the others are right about the souls of their emo, Goth, velvet-wearing, crybaby vampire spawn, then maybe some kind of mass, Kurt Cobain-inspired, "You'll miss me when I'm gone," specieswide suicide is what vampires have been after all along.""Last week at Comic-Con, the big story wasn't comic books—it was vampires. Some... more
What kind of lessons can we learn here? During the Bush era, when abstinence education received increased funding, reports of teen pregnancy and STDs "rose sharply," according to a new report from the CDC. Birth rates had been in decline since 1991, but that trend has reversed in more than half the states since 2005, according to the Guardian. The report also finds that syphilis has increased by 50 percent among adolescent girls and that gonorrhea and AIDS among teens are on the rise as well. Abstinence education advocates say the problem is not the failure of their curriculum, but that they need more money to promote their "no sex before marriage" message.What kind of lessons can we learn here? During the Bush era, when abstinence education... more
As long as there are teenagers, cheap beer and house parties, people are going to continue having sex before marriage. Which is great news because that means that there will also be people trying to get them to stop doing it, and creating incredible abstinence adverts like these.As long as there are teenagers, cheap beer and house parties, people are going to... more
At the Mississippi Department of Human Services' summit entitled "Abstinence Works: Let's Talk About It," we didn't talk about abstinence, but we sure did chant, cheer, dance, pray and sing about it. At least sort of. Here's a few (of the many) things that stood out to me.
Before the summit began, rap music blasted over the speakers. The 5,000 kids in attendance spent their time inside dancing and singing along to Soulja Boy's hit song "Crank Dat," the chorus of which repeats "Watch me crank that soulja boy, then superman that ho," which most young people know is a disgustingly explicit sexual innuendo. Shortly after the Grenada Middle School cheerleaders performed their catchy cheer "Stop, don't touch me there! You know this is my no-no square," outlining the shape of a box around their short shorts. Talk about mixed messages.
Follow the link for the rest of the story By Kate Royals, Senior, Millsaps College, Jackson, MS. at the Huffington Post.At the Mississippi Department of Human Services' summit entitled "Abstinence Works:... more
In an yet-to-be released interview with GQ, Levi Johnston, the ex-boyfriend of teen mom Bristol Palin (and father to her son, Tripp) reveals even more details about the dynamics of his relationship with Bristol and her family.
Johnston told GQ that Todd Palin, on multiple occasions, offered to buy his daughter a car if she would break up him.In an yet-to-be released interview with GQ, Levi Johnston, the ex-boyfriend of teen... more
Here's one of the Tech Report. The Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Campaign of North Carolina has set up a special number called The Birds and Bees Text Line. The line offers non-judgemental information to teens texting in all their sex questions. Here's an example:
Actual question: “Why do guys think it’s cool to sleep with a girl and tell their friends?”
Actual answer: "Mostly it’s because they believe that having sex makes them cool. Most guys outgrow that phase."
The Text Line is staffed by adults, who offer their cautious, non-judgemental answers within 24 hours of receiving a text.
It's no secret that teen pregnancy rates have been on the rise since Abstinance Only programs were pushed above all others. The Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Campaign is trying to open a line of dialogue with teenagers, circumventing teachers and parents completely.
The North Carolina Family Policy Council apposes this service, since it has no oversight from parents.
The Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Campaign does not give medical advice, and refers all such questions to local clinics, health websites, or emergency hotlines.
Not surprisingly, they are also advised to avoid sarcasm.
--St_Alia_10191Here's one of the Tech Report. The Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Campaign of North... more
Levi Johnston's lawyer is bristling at suggestions from Gov. Sarah Palin's family that the 19-year-old is a deadbeat dad.
"I wish that Sarah Palin's father would get his facts correct, quite frankly," attorney Rex Butler said Wednesday.
Johnston and Palin's daughter, 18-year-old Bristol, have a nearly 4-month-old son, Tripp. Since the couple broke up, Johnston has claimed in several national television interviews that the Palins were limiting his access to the boy.
Palin's father, Chuck Heath, claims in a story being published Friday in Us Weekly magazine that the unemployed Johnston isn't financially supporting the infant. He said he wishes Johnston would take some money from the interviews and buy diapers for Tripp.
Butler told The Associated Press that Johnston was not paid for the interviews and is tired of the Palin family's characterization of his client.Levi Johnston's lawyer is bristling at suggestions from Gov. Sarah Palin's family that... more
The Roman Catholic pope has come under renewed criticism after saying that condoms are not the solution to Africa's HIV epidemic.
Pope Benedict XVI made the remarks as he started a seven-day tour of the continent on Tuesday.
An estimated 22 million people in Africa have HIV, the virus that leads to Aids.
Three-quarters of all Aids deaths in 2007 were in sub-Saharan Africa.
"You can't resolve it [Aids] with the distribution of condoms," the pope said. "On the contrary, it increases the problem."
He will later travel to Angola on a tour that aims to raise awareness of Africa's key problems - famine, poverty and armed conflict.
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Pope Benedict XVI's ignorant comments also raise awareness of Africa's other key problem, religion.The Roman Catholic pope has come under renewed criticism after saying that condoms are... more
Criticism of the pope’s attitude to condoms reveals a fault line in western propaganda, writes JOHN WATERS
DRIVING AROUND Uganda in recent years, you could hardly help noticing the government-sponsored advertising hoardings along the highway. One had a picture of a smiling man in his 60s with the slogan, “Say No to Sugar Daddies”. Another showed a slightly younger man, and the slogan, “Would you want this man sleeping with your daughter? So why are you sleeping with his?” The billboards were part of Uganda’s long, successful battle against Aids, these posters being directed at creating a sexual firebreak between generations.
In the 1980s, Uganda was at the epicentre of the African Aids catastrophe, but managed to reverse the spread of the disease through an emphasis on cultural adaptation – abstinence, fidelity and some education about condom use. In Europe and America, however, whenever the subject of Aids and Africa is mentioned, there is an assumption that condoms are incontrovertibly the sole option.
Click on link for rest of article...Criticism of the pope’s attitude to condoms reveals a fault line in western... more
GRITtv's Laura Flanders and Countdown's Keith Olbermann discuss Bristol Palin's confession that abstinence only isn't in fact realistic. The daughter of GOP Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin recently appeared on Fox news to declare that the decision to have a baby was her choice and not her mother's. The choice that they're so proud of Bristol having made is the same choice they would deny countless other women.GRITtv's Laura Flanders and Countdown's Keith Olbermann discuss Bristol Palin's... more
In an interview with an Alaskan radio station, Bristol Palin said she'd like to become an advocate to prevent teen pregnancy. Palin was quick to point out that she has no regrets about giving birth to son, Tripp, in December, but also said that abstinence was 'not realistic at all.'In an interview with an Alaskan radio station, Bristol Palin said she'd like to become... more
"The Twilight series has created a surprising new sub-genre of teen romance: It’s abstinence porn, sensational, erotic, and titillating. And in light of all the recent real-world attention on abstinence-only education, it’s surprising how successful this new genre is. Twilight actually convinces us that self-denial is hot. Fan reaction suggests that in the beginning, Edward and Bella’s chaste but sexually charged relationship was steamy precisely because it was unconsummated—kind of like Cheers, but with fangs. Despite all the hot “virtue,” however, we feminist readers have to ask ourselves if abstinence porn is as uplifting as some of its proponents seem to believe."
We all knew that the Twilight Series was a fetishized version of Mormonism, but the real issue here is sexualizing NOT having sex. Is it healthier for kids ot get off on...not getting off?"The Twilight series has created a surprising new sub-genre of teen romance: It’s... more
Teenagers who pledge to remain virgins until marriage are just as likely to have premarital sex as those who do not promise abstinence and are significantly less likely to use condoms and other forms of birth control when they do, according to a study released today.
The new analysis of data from a large federal survey found that more than half of youths became sexually active before marriage regardless of whether they had taken a "virginity pledge," but that the percentage who took precautions against pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases was 10 points lower for pledgers than for non-pledgers.
"Taking a pledge doesn't seem to make any difference at all in any sexual behavior," said Janet E. Rosenbaum of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, whose report appears in the January issue of the journal Pediatrics. "But it does seem to make a difference in condom use and other forms of birth control that is quite striking."
The study is the latest in a series that have raised questions about programs that focus on encouraging abstinence until marriage, including those that specifically ask students to publicly declare their intention to remain virgins. The new analysis, however, goes beyond earlier analyses by focusing on teens who had similar values about sex and other issues before they took a virginity pledge.
"Previous studies would compare a mixture of apples and oranges," Rosenbaum said. "I tried to pull out the apples and compare only the apples to other apples."
The findings are reigniting the debate about the effectiveness of abstinence-focused sexual education just as Congress and the new Obama administration are about to reconsider the more than $176 million in annual funding for such programs.
"This study again raises the issue of why the federal government is continuing to invest in abstinence-only programs," said Sarah Brown of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. "What have we gained if we only encourage young people to delay sex until they are older, but then when they do become sexually active — and most do well before marriage — they don't protect themselves or their partners?"
Duh...Teenagers who pledge to remain virgins until marriage are just as likely to have... more
