From: neeri@iis.ethz.ch (Matthias Neeracher)
Subject: Re: Passing out Condoms  (Was Re: Better Off Than Four Years Ago NOT)
Organization: Integrated Systems Laboratory, ETH, Zurich
	<1992Aug24.223331.13101@aero.org> <1992Aug25.131123.24352@crd.ge.com>
	<BtJL2I.K4z@apollo.hp.com> <1992Aug26.045511.19175@athena.mit.edu>
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 15:34:47 GMT

In article <1992Aug26.045511.19175@athena.mit.edu> jfed@athena.mit.edu (Jude G Federspiel) writes:
>In article <BtJL2I.K4z@apollo.hp.com>, nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson) writes:
>|> In article <1992Aug25.131123.24352@crd.ge.com> doel@crd.ge.com writes:
>|> >  We should encourage the kids to refrain from the dangerous behavior.
>|> 
>|>   Again, ---> HOW? <---.   And I mean "how" that actually works 
>|>   most of the time.   Condoms have a certain failure rate but they
>|>   work most of the time.   Everything I've read, heard, or witnessed
>|>   with my own eyes suggests that even the best parental guidance has
>|>   a higher failure rate than condoms.  
>|> 
>
>I'll tell you.  It's so simple it's almost funny.  You start when the child is
>very young.  You teach the child sex before marraige is wrong, dangerous, and
>can have catastrophic consequences.

If you allow me a personal question, are you married or celibate? There are
several problematic points in this teaching of yours:

- You fail to consider that marriage before sex can also have catastrophic
  consequences. Therefore I consider it morally wrong.
- In societies with restrictive views on premarital sex, people tend to marry
  younger, and I don't see how this can possibly considered a good thing.
- With a message on sex like the above, you are likely to end up with children
  who see *all* sex as wrong.

>You show them (eventually we'll get a generation that can do this) by example
>that a loving married couple has just as much sexual fun as an unmarried pair.

I think you should re-read your New Testament. The utopian generation you seem
to be referring to will not have sex *at all* :-) And how can you show to your
children something you're not supposed to know (i.e., you assure them that,
although you never had sex before you got married, it wouldn't have been as
good as the sex you're having now. Sound like sour grapes to me). And even if
your children believe you, I can't see how this can possibly construed to be
an argument against premarital sex. The logic conclusion for them would be that
as long as they are not married, they might as well enjoy their second rate
sex. 

>Anyone who doesn't believe this is true just doesn't want to admit it because
>it's obviously not an _easy_ thing to do, and people have become too
>accustomed to promiscuousness (?)

Do you know the difference between promiscuity and premarital sex? And for
several years, I have found it quite easy to remain abstinent, just not
pleasant at all.

>people won't like saying they have to
>give up something they like in order to solve a problem.  Instead, they
>say, "lets hand out condoms so they can have the best of both worlds:  health
>and baby-free sex."  That's fine.  But it's blood on their hands every time 
>someone is impregnated or infected with some sexually communcated disease because 
>of condom failure.

People won't like saying they have to give up something they
like in order to solve a problem.  Instead, they say, "lets preach abstinence
so they can have the best of both worlds: health and morality."  That's fine.
But it's blood on their hands every time someone is impregnated or infected
with some sexually communicated disease because of unprotected sex.

Matthias

-----
Matthias Neeracher                                   neeri@iis.ethz.ch
        "I came to the conclusion that sex is a sublimation
         of the work instinct" -- David Lodge, _Small World_
Newsgroups: alt.politics.bush