Re: "Does anything work in sex education?"

Find the article here.

A Government program that doesn't work???? Please tell me you're kidding. I don't really understand why people would expect sex education taught in government schools to have any effect, after all our children also rate at the bottom of industrial nations in all of the academic disciplines, don't they? Teaching math certainly seems to have no effect on our kids. I believe, and have read supporting statements, that abstinence (sp?, I went to government school) programs do work when presented as you outlined in your article.
We need more people like you.

When a couple has embraced the typical contraceptive lifestyle, even for the "best" of reasons, they are blinded to true chastity. They have accepted the phrase, "man is a sexual being" and therefore are trapped in the definition and all its consequences.

I say this because when we were developing our curriculum, low these many years ago, this was one of the phrases that we tried to purge from our work. Man is not a sexual being. He is a rational being made in the image and likeness of God. Even the first half of that phrase, "a rational being" re-orients your thinking. If a person "is" something, they are only complete when they fulfill their "is-ness". (Am I getting too confusing here?) So, if man "is a sexual being", then he is only complete when he is being sexual or committing a sexual act. Further, all acts then tend to be defined in relationship to sex. (Sounds rather Freudian!!). The sex ed people really think man is sexual and only fulfilled in their sexual acts.

If he is a rational being, then he is fulfilling his nature when he is engaging his intellect. The more his intellect rules his life, the better person he is. Of course, it must be understood that man can only reach perfection when he has enterd into the life of grace fully.

I believe we must shout from the rooftops that "man is a rational being made in the image and likeness of God" again and again and again. The incorrect definition has been repeated so many times that most of us are not aware of how it has crept in and influenced our thinking about ourselves and how we should live life.

This does not preclude dealing with our "sexuality", another phrase that has taken a life of its own and is usually not used properly. It is a means of seeing ourselves as a whole in the proper light, especially in relationship to God.

Unless abstinece education includes all of these truths, they will be total failures.