Are Americans too uptight about sex? What is the Law of Chastity designed to avoid or prevent? Teen pregnancy? Self-esteem issues? Teens manipulating one another for gratification?
I recently read a fascinating article about how families handle teen sexuality in the Netherlands. Americans generally view the Dutch as over-the-top permissive, which they are by our standards, but the Dutch would hasten to show that while they place fewer restrictions on behavior, they actually have better results than the US in things like teen pregnancy rates, teen self-image, and drug usage. Do we do more damage than good by our restrictive parenting styles (and sexually restrictive laws about age of consent)? Or are the Dutch just beneficiaries of their smaller, richer population? Do we need to legislate morality because of the weakest and poorest among us? And is American prudery and unhealthy sexual cultural the root cause for the church’s very specific instructions on standards? Does this approach create a downside in lack of personal accountability, education, ability to make good choices, and critical thinking skills? Have the Dutch beat us at solving society’s sexual problems?
As I read the article, I was particularly struck by a few observations:
- Trustworthy Teens. The article states that the Dutch treat teens as trusted, emerging adults versus children to be protected. They assume that sexual experience will naturally occur in the teen years, and they allow their teens to explore their sexuality without applying guilt or protective restrictions. They educate both sexes to be safe and how to express love and avoid heartbreak.
- War of the Sexes. In the US, we foster the idea that girls fall in love but boys use sex for gratification. We do not focus on both sexes having the same interest in healthy relationships and loving commitment. Most of our justification of chastity paints promiscuous girls as victims of poor self-esteem who fall prey to boys who only want one thing from them, and once that is given, “Why buy the cow when you get the milk for free?” Consider all the phrases we use that point to these unhealthy notions of male-female roles: “love ’em and leave ’em,” jokes about boys wanting to find girls with “daddy issues,” and movies ad nauseum that show how men should manipulate women to get sex and how women should manipulate men to get commitment.
- Agreements, Not Rules. The article contrasted the American tendency to set rules or limits on teen behaviors through things like curfews with the Dutch parenting style. The Dutch prefer to use mutual agreements with their teens rather than rules; I find this very appealing and applicable to how we run the church. For example, we teach that we are a covenant-making church, but we don’t talk much about the individuality of our covenants as agreements with God; we’ve made most of our covenants cookie-cutter one-size-fits-all rather than mutual agreements with God. We often think of rules and “standards” that govern and limit behavior rather than recognizing members as adult children of God who are making personal commitments that may even be unique and not prescribed by church norms or leaders.
- Mi Casa Es Su Casa. I was a bit blown away to read that 2/3 of Dutch parents green light opposite sex sleepovers with their teens! I’m 43 years old, and I’m not sure I would be comfortable doing it at my parents’ house. Yet, this is certainly one way of putting your money where your mouth is and getting the message across that there is nothing dirty or shameful about sex. Mormons aside, I have a hard time imagining many Americans embracing this norm, so hard-coded is our aversion to teen sex. We’ve become obsessed with proving that someone is “of age,” meaning that there is no middle ground.
- Zero to Sixty Overnight. The article suggests that our all-or-nothing attitude about sex (zero before marriage – anything goes after) is psychologically unhealthy. There are many, many steps between hand-holding and intercourse, to say nothing of the fancy rope tricks with odd sounding euphemistic names that are de rigeur in gross out sex comedies. There has been plenty of discussion in the ‘nacle about the difficulties people experienced in their marriages due to total lack of sexual experience before marriage.
- Preggers. The teen pregnancy rate in the US is much higher than in the Netherlands. Personally, I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that it’s a tiny country with more uniform standards of education that does not have our socio-economic diversity. But I also think it begs another question that I’ll end with in my concluding paragraph.
- Shame = Fun. That which we resist, persists. We hide sex away and make it shameful, so like a speakeasy during the prohibition darker forces take over its distribution. Additionally, for those who slip up in their effort to remain chaste until marriage, their feelings of shame and guilt are forever jumbled up psychologically with sexual enjoyment. An article on atheism and sexual pleasure shared some interesting statistics related to this. Basically, everyone’s doing it, but atheists are enjoying it while it just makes the religious people feel regret. 😦 Reported feelings of sexual guilt were highest among Mormons at 8.2 out of 10, whereas atheists and agnostics only felt 4.7 and 4.8 out of 10 on the guilt-ometer. As Darrel Ray who conducted the poll remarked: “‘Of course, they have to return to their religion to get forgiveness. It’s like the church gives you the disease, then offers you a fake cure.” Ouch! Of course, this strikes me as a great pickup line. . .
Underlying this discussion, one wonders what the purpose of the Law of Chastity is. Clearly from the time it was originally revealed to Moses to about the 1960s, it related to paternity; fidelity to a single partner not only made questions of inheritance clearer, but significantly reduced the spreading of STDs. Is chastity mostly outdated due to readily available, reliable birth control? Without the concerns of disease and pregnancy, most of our chastity rhetoric revolves around preserving self-esteem and the institution of marriage as a place to raise children. Making young women the guardians of virtue is only necessary when culture teaches that “boys will be boys” and “good girls don’t.” Is the Law of Chastity as we teach it in the LDS church primarily an American value rather than a universal moral code? Is the Dutch solution smarter and more effective at achieving the same ends?
Can people (as the Dutch are claiming), even teens, have healthy happy committed sex lives outside of marriage without the byproducts of disease, unwanted pregnancy, hookup culture, depression, and ill advised marriages? Are Americans just too prudish to have developed a healthy view of sex? I find the Dutch model intriguing sociologically. Yet, there are a few sticking points for me as well:
- We live in a broader culture that is the product of time. Moving to a more permissive model doesn’t mean that the healthy behaviors emerge overnight.
- It would be the work of many decades to get parents to the point where they are comfortable with different messaging for teens regarding sexuality. Many parents don’t even talk to their kids about sex – at all!
- It also might require repealing the age of consent legislation.
- Movie and TV shows, which often set the culture by example, would have to put forward a more neutral, healthy view of male-female sexual dynamics. Many of today’s rom-coms would become quaint.
- The Law of Chasity has a benefit for boys as well as girls in the church. It takes the pressure off of them to pretend to be more sexually experienced than they are. It creates a separate subculture of teen sexual behavior within the church that is vastly different from the culture that exists elsewhere. For example, contrast the dating culture at BYU with the hookup culture of every other university on the planet.
- The Law of Chastity does encourage marriage vs. other forms of long-term commitment as a pre-cursor to sex. Of course, the downside is that horny engaged Mormons can only wait about 3 weeks maximum between proposal and marriage or risk having to re-send invitations.
- Teens still have developing brains and may struggle with good decision making in relationships. Even if they have safe, consensual sexual experiences, they may reap emotional consequences for such committed relationships at a young age. It can be difficult to extricate oneself from emotional entanglements even as an adult, much less as a teen, if it happens that the relationship is not in their best interest. Personally, I’m glad I don’t have to live with the kind of person I was attracted to as a teenager for the rest of my life!
Discuss.
Wheat & Tares 
The article on atheism and sexual satisfaction struck me as non-revelatory. I’m sure deeply religious liars feel more guilt about their actions than less religious liars. Plus while it said that religious people felt more guilt and had worse sex lives, could it really be argued that atheists who had extramarital affairs and were less likely to feel guilt about it is really indicative of a ‘better’ sex life?
The article on the Dutch is fascinating. In your OP, of course you blend US culture and LDS culture, which probably are quite closely intertwined.
The other element of OT chastity was related to covenants more than just inheritance, and so it is with LDS doctrine today. But I agree that in today’s world we may teach it in a clumsy way that may be counterproductive.
As I’ve aged, I’ve come to realize that as a parent I have far less control over my children than I once thought. They will make their own choices, and the best I can do is foster a relationship in which I can communicate my values and my understanding of why my standards are meaningful to me. And I can hope they will accept them for their own.
I’m not too old to remember that all of my agreement with my parents’ standards and values did not keep me from making some choices that were outside those standards. One thing my parents did was they made clear that I was part of their family no matter what I did. That acceptance did two things: it encouraged me to think more about their point of view, and it gave me courage to come home even if I crossed their boundaries.
I don’t think its very surprising that Mormons have the greatest guilt complex about sex. I disagree with dpc about his liar comparison. I doubt Gordon B. Hinckley felt guilty about his misleading comment (lie?) that he doesn’t know the doctrine or that we don’t teach that men can be Gods and the God was a man. Nor did Brigham Young and the polygamists feel guilty about lying for the Lord when it came to polygamy. So you can’t compare them. Plus we don’t have talk after talk after talk, lesson after lesson after lesson on lying, whereas sex, porn and adultery seem to be a constant domain of regulation and topic for the leaders to preach to us on.
I have to be honest and say that I don’t get the law of chastity. I know what it is as I have read the strength of youth etc. but I don’t get why we have it. I read the old testament and pretty much everyone is violating our definition of what it is and has no problem with it. Judah sleeps with a prostitute and no one bats an eyelid. Lot sleeps with his daughters, then you have the priest who gives his daughters to the men to rape. Further it is evident that Joseph Smith had a fluid conception of chastity as well. So I don’t get why it is focused on to such a high level and guilt is piled upon those who violate it today.
In other news, researchers at U. Mass. and Harvard claim that improvements in critical trauma care kept the homicide rate down: “There were 916,380 aggravated assaults and 15,533 homicides in 1999. If the aggregate 1960 lethality level (.056) described these data, we would have instead observed about 880,000 aggravated assaults and about 52,000 homicides—or about 3.4 times the 15,500 or so actually observed.” (link)
So one cheer for the medical care that allowed so many who shot or stabbed others to not be killers.
Jake, ask the question about the law of chastity when you find out your wife has been cheating on you or when your teenage daughter is pregnant. Plus the study didn’t say anything about behavior, only psychological responses to behavior. Those who ‘lie for the Lord’ may still feel guilty about what they do without any abatement of lying behavior.
@hawk, why no mention of who pays for birth control? I postulate that countries with generous health benefits will have lower levels of teen pregnancy than those without and it will have little relation to attitudes on sex
dpc – good point about who pays for birth control. I think the key on that is that in general Netherlands is a much tighter, higher socio-economic strata.
Another difference: in Old Testament times, if a man (or boy) had sex with with an unmarried woman (or girl) they were, by definition, now married.
Thus the prohibition on adultery, rather than [anything else].
Call me an idealist, but I like to think that my wife won’t cheat on me because she loves me, not because some religious law says that she is a sinner if she does. I mean if we didn’t have the law of chastity, are we going to see everyone sleeping with each others wives? I doubt it, and if we did it would say something about how hollow their marriage was if it was just some law rather then love and fidelity that kept them from sleeping with other people.
Jake, you are an idealist.
So, Jake above views sex as linked with love and fidelity, and that extramarital relations would be a sign of a hollow marriage, and that these things are independent of any standards outside the marriage. It calls to mind something I wrote a few years ago, “Community Standards and Private Acts.”
I think there’s no doubt that our super-restrictive attitude toward sex (in both LDS culture and American culture) causes and exacerbates a lot of the problems it’s meant to prevent.
But I’m torn on actual teen sex. On the one hand, I agree with your very last bullet point; I think the emotional consequences of sex can be pretty devastating for teenagers, even if the choices were made in a healthy environment. And I think about myself as a teenager, about the things I wanted for my life at that time and how much I changed within only one or two years after high school, and I think that maybe there’s a reason we try to treat teenagers like children rather than adults… Because they’re really not adults. Not yet.
But on the other hand, I wonder why puberty begins so young if teenagers are really so ill-equipped to handle it. It doesn’t seem logical to me that teens develop such a powerful instinct that they are then supposed to completely ignore, at an age at which their judgment and self-control are far from mature.
Mixing culture and religion is a problem. Just because something is cultural does not justify it in a religious sense.
One of the things that the Op does not address is how the Dutch religious community deals with this same issue.
I would thing that the Dutch secular society is very, very, very permissive. Open drug use and prostitution being two examples. This does not necessarily jive with any modern religious view.
I am not necessarily endorsing the way the US handles sex in general. But, American culture is a series of paradoxes and hypocrisy when it comes to sex.
I think we’re sort of in a catch-22 when it comes to how we treat our teens. They aren’t emotionally adults, so we treat them like children. But often they make all sorts of rash decisions as soon as they leave home because no one ever gave them the responsibility they needed to live like an adult.
When I think of the number of teens in sexual relationships in high school, I think that aware parents who taught them all the implications of teen sex could only have helped. Their parents could have helped them through emotional transitions, birth control choices, etc. and I can’t imagine the stress that would have been relieved by not sneaking around.
I also recognize that Christianity is far more prevalent here than in the Netherlands and that often means a more uptight attitude about sex. I waited until I was married and I still wish my mother had talked more about sex with me.
John,
I don’t think that sex per se is related to fidelity and love necessarily, rather, that extramarital sex is often linked to those concepts. The reason why I think people shouldn’t have extramarital sex is out of love and fidelity to their partner, if they have promised to commit to each other then it would hurt and betray the partner if they had extramarital sex.
Extramarital relations aren’t a sign of hollowness, but a refraining from them just because of a religious code is. The reason why it would be a hollow marriage is if the only reason a partner is not sleeping with other people is because a religion tells them not to, as dpc suggests is the case, then in my opinion the marriage just seems a bit empty.
“Underlying this discussion, one wonders what the purpose of the Law of Chastity is. Clearly from the time it was originally revealed to Moses to about the 1960s”
Interestingly, I just searched our standard works and I found not one reference that clearly refers to the law of chastity in it. Chastity is only mentioned in two verses in the entire standard works but neither speaks of it as a law. This makes me think that ‘the law of chastity’ is not actually a scriptural principle, but rather it is a construct we have made by pick and mix selection of various scriptures and inferences from verses that regulate sexual practice to make some al encompassing law of sexual conduct. Even the temple phrasing of the law of chastity is modern in its description of it I can’t see God saying to Adam the exact phrasing that we have now.
“results than the US in things like teen pregnancy rates, teen self-image, and drug usage.”
What about actually reducing rates of teen intercourse? Or is that not within the bounds of discussion?
Before getting to the OP, I just have to say how sick I am of hearing the mis-statement from #3:
“I doubt Gordon B. Hinckley felt guilty about his misleading comment (lie?) that he doesn’t know the doctrine or that we don’t teach that men can be Gods and the God was a man.”
The actual quote from Pres. Hinckley gets butchered all the time in comments like that – and I wonder if the people who do so think that they are lying or misleading others when they misrepresent Pres. Hinckley.
Back to the regularly scheduled discussion:
I also am torn about this one. I want WAY more open dscussion about sex, but I don’t want teenagers to be engaging in sexual intercourse without concern and with anyone to whom they are attracted. I’ve seen the results of sex decoupled from marriage in some of the communities within which I’ve worked and on college campuses, and some of those results are horrific – and I’m not exaggerating when I say that.
In the end, I would say what I wrote a while ago on my own blog:
“The Religious Foundation of Chastity”
http://thingsofmysoul.blogspot.com/2009/03/religious-foundation-of-chastity.html
One more:
“An Expansive View of Chastity”
http://thingsofmysoul.blogspot.com/2008/09/expansive-view-of-chastity.html
I would think the parent’s right to opt their kid out of sex ed in the US would also play a role in a teenager’s sexuality.
Any experiences of what happens in the long run when a member chooses for their children not to participate? (The one example I saw started with boy gone wild after high school, ending with a shotgun wedding)
What about the videos discussing the basics of puberty in elementary school?
“I also am torn about this one. I want WAY more open dscussion about sex, but I don’t want teenagers to be engaging in sexual intercourse without concern and with anyone to whom they are attracted.”
This statement (insert smiley face):
There is a lot I could criticize about the cultural attitude regarding sex, that I have encountered being raised in the Church…but I still agree with the notion of chastity. PARTICULARLY when it comes to teaching the youth. Birth control notwithstanding. I’m not a child psychologist, so I won’t pretend to argue whether teenagers can emotionally handle “it”. Whether they can handle sex or not, they can almost never the unanticipated result of an unwanted pregnancy. I say this as someone who was born under similar circumstances, and still lucked out because my mother was a little older than the average pregnant teen, and had a very solid support group.
The disagreement I have with the religious approach is that the real-world consequences of sexual recklessness are significant enough that we don’t need to dillute the seriousness of the issue with abstractions on “worthiness”.
Jake, in your #8 and #14, you make clear that you expect fidelity in your marriage because you and your wife have entered into a covenant (my words, not yours) to be faithful to one another. I think that’s right.
In the LDS church, chastity can certainly be taught in terms of the covenants we make (perhaps instead of the old victorian ideas of men’s and women’s motivations for relationships).
I find it a difficult thing to balance in my family with 2 daughters and 2 sons of different ages.
Different personalities and different ages and needs make it a constant long-term effort to stay in touch with each child and know how to help them at the stage they are at. The young ones hear things being talked about that the older ones never had being discussed (dating and stuff).
Any effort to reduce guilt and shame in kids is good, any teaching to help them be righteous and faithful is good, for their self-esteem and their self-perceptions. The tricky part is when these are in conflict, and have to be navigated through…especially in our church where it is so over the top highest priority to be chaste for youth…according to my kids and what they say is taught at church…which is frustrating some of the wacky things they are taught at church.
I found that being able to be open and talk with kids is awkward at first (I wonder if that is because of my issues with sexuality) but really helpful for them, because they have questions about it. There must be trust and openness to talk. That happens over time to build and teach that.
I will be honest, I have tried to be open and very trusting…but my daddy instincts sure flare up when my daughters started dating…and wow…what I thought would just be open and not make them feel guilt has challenged how I really feel about it, and deep down…I still get very protective and I believe there is safety in following church standards…as long as they get a balanced message that they are loved no matter what, and all things, even sex, must be put in perspective (middle view), not painted as dirty, shameful, off-limits (the extreme view). They are so exposed (no pun intended) to things online, at school, and on TV…that you can’t avoid the thoughts…and I don’t get bent out of shape about them, but I still teach important things to them about safety and virtue and purity and good things about ourselves and others and our bodies.
Its a generational thing…we are way more open about sex in our home than the home I grew up in…and the home my parents grew up in. But we are far away from the Dutch if parents are actually allowing sex in their home.
Hawkgrrrl…do you know the age the Dutch are OK with their kids being sexually active? 21 and in the home is different then 15yr olds, right?
Heber13, when I was in Boy Scouts, the other kids made rude jokes and pickup lines all the time, but I was the one who was held back from temple trips and didn’t take the sacrament, because I confessed to the bishop that I touched myself.
I personally feel that worthiness interviews don’t test for righteousness, so much as the ability to lie. And that the ones who feel the most guilt and shame are the least deserving of it.
#23 TF, good point. It is sad that there seems a need for discretion on confession, but I think there is that need, especially when I feel some church leaders have very different standards on sexual sin than I do.
I’ve supported my kids going to the bishop when they felt it was the right thing to do to help them work things out, be accountable to someone, or trust leaders will help bring the Spirit of peace. But I don’t push them that they HAVE to go if they don’t want to or don’t to, because, sadly, I think there are things like you mentioned which are unfair and unnecessary, IMO.
I’m also uncomfortable with Bishops interviewing my daughters about sex. When I protested to the bishop and required I be present for all interviews…he said that can’t be done because it might change how my kids open up and confess. It bothered me, because while I felt I knew everything about my kids because they talk to me (which is maybe 80% true in reality), it felt wrong that the bishop would be the better one for my kids to talk to rather than me or their mom. But he doesn’t understand how close I am to my kids.
I don’t know…that seems to be more weird feelings on how we treat sex in the church…it is even so secret kids are told to tell bishops and not tell parents? That seems wrong.
“Is the Dutch solution smarter and more effective at achieving the same ends?”
I served my mission in Denmark 20-or-so years ago, and it was very clear that only a very small percentage of 18-yr-olds were virgins. By that age, they’d all seen very explicit sex-ed material in school, knew the opposite sex’s genitalia and how to stimulate it, and how to protect themselves from pregnancy and disease.
My experience is anecdotal of course, and viewed through my male American Mormon-colored lenses, but the impression I had was that the youth were just as confused by boy-girl relationships as were the youth in the US — they’d just added copulation to the mix. Sex certainly wasn’t viewed as an “ultimate expression of love” or anything. The stereotypes of men trying to get sex and women trying to get love (or attention) still seemed to hold to the same extent it did here. The girls just offered more in the way of sex. We knew that if a woman or young woman wanted to show us pictures of her vacation, it was time for us to leave, because she’d invariably be showing us pictures of herself topless on a beach and judging our interest.
They clearly didn’t feel guilt about sex and certainly didn’t have to stew in their own juices (with all the complications associated with that). I don’t have the stats handy, but at the time they had fewer “unwanted” pregnancies than the states, but the percentage of children living with both biological parents was well below 50%.
My personal feeling was that they had a far higher fluidity in relationships (divorce rate isn’t exactly applicable because they didn’t tended to just live with each other). It looked like a painful way to live, from my missionary perspective. I think associating sex with commitment tends to make commitment stronger.
Also, on a few occasions I was asked directly if I were a virgin, and when I answered affirmatively, they were always incredulous — I mean, slapping-their-hands-over-their-open- mouths, laughing, and-staring-at-me-like-I- were-an-exotic-zoo-animal incredulous.
Ben S: “What about actually reducing rates of teen intercourse? Or is that not within the bounds of discussion?” It’s within the bounds, but the referenced articles didn’t cite these stats.
Heber13: average age of first intercourse is 17. This is a norm across both US and Netherlands from what I have read.
Heber, about sex and Bishop’s interviews, I appear to agree with you. I wrote the following just last month – and the comment thread is interesting, since it includes comments from someone who thought I was badly wrong:
“Sex and Bishop’s Youth Interviews”
http://thingsofmysoul.blogspot.com/2011/11/sex-and-bishops-youth-interviews.html
Ray, you’re a good and patient man! That Jeff guy is making my head hurt.
Ray,
How am i misrepresenting President Hinckley? As he did say words to that effect. I don’t understand how my paraphrase of the quote is ‘butchered’ as you claim that it is. As the full quote (from the actual transcript) is as follows:
Is this the teaching of the church today, that God the Father was once a man like we are?
A: I don’t know that we teach it. I don’t know that we emphasize it. I haven’t heard it discussed for a long time in public discourse. I don’t know. I don’t know all the circumstances under which that statement was made. I understand the philosophical background behind it. But I don’t know a lot about it and I don’t know that others know a lot about it.
Oh wait, now I see how I brutally altered the quote. I said that: “he doesn’t know the doctrine or that we don’t teach that men can be Gods and the God was a man.”
When a more accurate paraphrase should have said “he doesn’t know A LOT about the doctrine, and that he doesn’t KNOW that we teach that God was a man.”
Such a massive difference between the two so I apologise that I missed out those crucial pedantic points as missing those subtle distinctions surely amount to a butchering of his words. As saying ‘not knowing the doctrine’ instead of ‘not knowing a lot about it’ could have seriously mislead some people.
Perhaps we need to be aware that there is a culture of individual responsibility in western Europe that relates to much more than just sex.
For example a childrens park at the confluence of 2 large rivers with no railings to prevent children falling in. Parents are expected to take responsibility until children do. Or another example, no speed limits outside built up areas.
So people grow up expecting to take responsibility for the consequences of their decisions. Of course they also need the information to make those decisions and their sex education also contains information on self esteem, values, communication and negotiating, recognising power imballances, the right to say no at any time, and the responsibility to respect no.
Both Holland and USA are extreme examples with US having 39 births/1000 and Holland 5/1000. Americas rate of teenage abortion is also 10 times higher than Holland. Countries like Canada and Australia come in around 10 to 12/1000 pregnancies.
You might be surprised that values are part of sex education. Americans often believe because of their christianity they have higher values than less christian countries. All the countries mentioned above show higher values/morality in so many ways beside sex education, such as universal health care, and social security for single mothers etc.
I think the better sex education along with the culture of taking responsibility for the consequences of your actions, produces the results, that obedience can not.
I have 4 daughters (youngest now 33) and would have been uncomfortable with pre marital sex in my home but that is largely a result of the Church. In hindsight I see the Church’s teachings on modesty and morality to be more a result of canservative US culture than the Gospel. God couldn’t be that wrong!
Martin 26 How can you tell if an 18 year old is a virgin? You said it was obvious.
“That Jeff guy is making my head hurt.”
Me?
Jeff – no, there’s a guy on Ray’s site named Jeff. If you click on his link and read the comments (he mentioned it above), you’ll see.
Ray, You make a good point in your post about chastity and bishops interviews. I have always thought the same thing about interviews that they shouldn’t probe into details and I agree with Hawk, reading the comments he made on that post made my head spin in circles of contradictions and bewilderment as to how someone arrives at thinking in such a way.
Geoff A, where do get a Dutch abortion rate one tenth the U.S. rate? The article linked at the beginning of this post claims the Dutch rate is half the U.S. rate. The U.S. is a large country with a lot of variation. California produces a quarter of U.S. abortions all by itself, with a rate 39 per 1,000 women ages 15-44. New York follows not too far behind at 30 per 1,000, and third place Delaware is only 21 per 1,000. There are other states like Utah and Idaho with rates of 6 per 1,000.
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss5212a1.htm
Jake, I’ve read much worse statements about Pres. Hinckley’s statement than yours – and I apologize for ranting about all of them when I responded to yours. My objection to what you said is pretty simple.
“I said that: ‘he doesn’t know the doctrine or that we don’t teach that men can be Gods and the God was a man.'”
Two points:
1) “I don’t know that . . .” was a very common idiom of his generation in Utah (and probably elsewhere). I heard it all the time growing up – and I mean all the freaking time. It meant, “I wouldn’t say that . . .” – a “soft” way of disagreeing without having to say, “No, that’s wrong.” When I read the interview, I immediately understood it that way – since it’s exactly what my own father and grandfather would have said if they were answering that question.
2) He was asked ONLY about the idea that God once was a man (NOT that “as God is, we may become”) – and he ONLY said “the Church” doesn’t teach / emphasize it now. That is 100% correct.
If you want a fuller discussion of the quote, as usual, I wrote about it on my personal blog. lol
http://thingsofmysoul.blogspot.com/2009/12/pres-hinckleys-interview-with-mike.html
I think the Bishop’s interview with youth should be like a TR. Do you keep the law of Chastity?
Yes or no? No probing, no explaining, etc. the Bishop should leave it to the parents and the youth to decide for themselves what that means. If the person wants to confess to something, it is one thing, but the probing need to stop.
It looks like Geoff A‘s estimate is correct about teen abortion rates, and the Time article is considering all abortions. The Dutch teen abortion rate is 3.9 per 1,000, and the American rate is 30.2.
Figure 13 on page 20:
Click to access repcard3e.pdf
Thanks John it does make you wonder which system produces the more moral result, doesn’t it?
I’m actually with Jake for the most part on this. I really do think the law of chastity had a useful purpose on a practical level, but much of that usefulness has gone away. I mean don’t get me wrong, I would not condone a culture of sleeping with anyone one gets the urge to, but neither do I think it’s as big a deal as we make it out to be.
Furthermore, I think there is a huge downside to the law of chastity and the potential problems if one follows it (which is almost entirely overlooked in the church). I think it’s easily argued that intimacy is one of, if not the most important component of a marriage. How is it that a person can appropriately assess their sexual compatibility with another person prior to marriage while keeping the law of chastity? Most people I ask tell me that assessment can be made by kissing, holding hands, or even making out. Sorry, I’m not buying it. Sexual intimacy and all the emotion entailed therein is leaps and bounds beyond making out. And I think it’s unreasonable to expect people to assess sexual compatibility with another person without some sexual intimacy (although perhaps this doesn’t strictly require intercourse). And I think it’s insane to not assess that compatibility prior to marriage and expect a happy, healthy marriage.
So, I guess for me, I would encourage us to at least move toward the model the Dutch use, and if nothing else develop in our teenagers the tools necessary to assess their sexual compatibility with a potential marriage partner.
Marriage isn’t about sexual compatibility. It is about commitment.
My single sister keeps sleeping with people she’s attracted to hoping to find someone who is compatible (including sexually compatible). While I have been married for 19 years so “attracted to” is now irrelevant. I have a sexual partner and we are either committed to being together sexually and putting forth the effort and communication to make it happen or not.
Having more sexual relationships in order to find compatibility doesn’t seem to increase marriage or marital satisfaction as far as I can tell.
But what do I know? I’ve only had sex with one man. Nothing to compare him with except Hollywood. But I’d bet our open communication, lots of effort sexual relationship that we jumped into blind but still going strong after 19 years against couples who slept around before deciding on someone.
So can someone make a cogent argument on the benefits of NOT obeying the law of chastity?
Why is not obeying it so important to some people?
jmb275 – I disagree with the “sexual compatibility” rationale. I agree with jks. To me, the benefits of the Dutch model are entirely in allowing for sex to be a healthy part of life, not something to be hid away in the shadows, not a source of shame or guilt, and to allow teens (and therefore, adults, when they grow up) to truly be open to experiencing love and pleasure and to feel good about themselves and relationships. I think most of the reasons that’s impractical today is that it requires everyone to play along. You can’t have sexual manipulators mixing in your population, and you can’t have people who stigmatize sexual activity. Even if you raised your kids this way, it wouldn’t work in the US today. It wouldn’t be practical.
Jeff, the benefits of NOT obeying it would be healthier self-esteem and decoupling it (he he) from guilt and shame. If someone is harmful to others in his/her sexual life (manipulative, coercive), that’s a cause for guilt or shame. But it’s putting the guilt & shame where it belongs – with anti-social or irresponsible behavior, not the sex itself.
Actually I think the Dutch argument is more like eradicating a drinking age than it is about removing the law of chastity. But like the WoW, we’ve built hedges about the law. Is it a sin to drink? Is it a sin to be drunk? Or is it a sin to harm others through your bad behaviors because of your drinking? Likewise, sex is not sinful when you are married, but it’s next to murder outside of marriage(?). That’s a big leap, literally overnight, and it requires some mental gymnastics.
The Dutch seem to have removed the relationship between morality and sex and also morality and marriage, and also morality and abortion. If an individual wants to add morality back into the equasion they can but it is not culturally or socially required.
Interestingly western Europe is fairly religious, but their religion is less conservative and does not seek to impose it’s values on others the way the LDS Church does. Do they respect agency more than we do?
Agree hawkgirl that removes the guilt, and encourages a healthy and positive attitude to sex.
If there is more openness there is less abuse because there is no stigma to reporting such. Various abuses are also explained as part of the school sex education so it is more readily recognised.
I would think America already has the sexual activity among 17+ age group without the openness and approval of parents. The problem for those wishing to move to a more open society will be to remove the moral judgement from the discussion.
Even with figures like shown above conservatives will stick to their MORAL position, and try to impose it on others as they do now.
Most other developed countries do the same as the Dutch to varying degrees, so countries like Canada and Australia have a record closer to Holland than USA.
Looking through that UNICEF report I linked above, the country that seems to be doing things right is Greece. A moderate teen birth rate, 12.2, with 80% of those births to married teen mothers, and an extremely low abortion rate of 1.3. The Dutch teen birth rate is too low, the sign of an anemic people. They seem to have reduced sex to an adolescent level and left it and themselves there.
JMB,
“Jeff, the benefits of NOT obeying it would be healthier self-esteem and decoupling it (he he) from guilt and shame.”
boy, that’s not a very good argument. One can then make the case that we should abolish all rules because someone might feel guilt or shame about breaking them?
As our Psychologist friends would say, no one can MAKE you feel anything. That is a choice. So why would someone make the choice to feel guilt or shame if they didn’t think they had done something wrong?
Jeff, that was my comment, not jmb275’s. The article talks about the benefits of agreements over rules. But when it comes to sex, the key is to make sure guilt is associated with something wrong – like anti-social or irresponsible behavior (such as “love em and leave em” or talking someone into sex who isn’t ready). The article is saying that Dutch teens are being raised to not feel guilt for sex, just for bad behaviors towards others.
I’m not saying I buy it entirely. It’s certainly not how the US works. Promiscuity does have consequences socially here and to self-esteem. But the question is whether that’s necessary or not. Blue Lagoon was a movie that illustrated the idea that sex only comes with guilt based on social systems and mistreatment of others.
I’m not clear your perspective. Are you saying that sex outside marriage, even between consenting individuals who treat one another well and who have no other entanglements, will always result in guilt because it is inherently immoral and wrong outside of social reinforcement?
Hawk,
Sorry to misidentify.
“Are you saying that sex outside marriage, even between consenting individuals who treat one another well and who have no other entanglements, will always result in guilt because it is inherently immoral and wrong outside of social reinforcement?’
Firstly, I am ambivalent about sex between consenting adults. I don’t really care if they have sex or not, it is their business.
Sex among teenagers is a different story, not so much about it being morally right or wrong but because of the social, societal and emotional consequences. Teens are generally ill prepared, mainly because of maturity, to handle the emotional consequences of intimacy, unwanted pregnancy, sexually transmitted disease, etc.
If you then apply a moral code to that, it can be worse. My real problem is that media and social pressure portray things as having no consequences. If responsible parents fully educate their children as to both side of the coin, so to speak, then maybe the outcomes are less harmful. but frankly, I doubt it.
As I stated earlier, the article only addresses a secualr view and not a religious view. I doubt that a religious view shares the same conclusions the article purports.
Fwiw, I think it’s interesting that throughout recorded history, sex during the “teenage years” was fine and dandy – since most people were married and having kids long before they turned 20.
I think the fact that we think teenagers can’t handle sex (and, in many cases, rightly so) says more about our culture and the infantilization of teenagers than about the teenagers or sex alone.
As I said earlier, I’m not advocating that teenagers be out there having sex – and I teach abstinance to my own kids. It’s just instructive the difference between our own cultural expectations now and those that existed even just 200 years ago (and less).
Ray,
“since most people were married and having kids long before they turned 20.”
The big difference is that while they may have been married and having kids at an earlier age, they were not “on their own.”
Because of familial structures, extended families tended to live together and parents were still parents and acting as such.
“In 2000, while the pregnancy rate for non-Hispanic white teens was 57, it was 151 for non-Hispanic black teens and 132 for Hispanic teens (table B).” (per 1000) http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_23/sr23_024.pdf
The problem is that the US is huge and we have many cultures within it. So the white middle class America culture stats are completely different than the stats for other racial/ethnic groups.
When someone tries to say that the Dutch are doing it better, I look around at my community which is 70% white, 15% Asian, 4% hispanic & 2% black I think we are probably doing just as well as a community as the Dutch. So even though I might have complaints (entertainment, cohabitation rates) our community is educated and I don’t see the extreme shame/guilt and I don’t see the high rates of pregnancy and abortion. I see many parents who do teach their kids about sex.
I have to admit that I think I am doing a better job parenting and teaching my kids about sex than my overall community (I’m arrogant that way). I feel passionate about the subject. But I also feel superior to what you describe as the Dutch method and don’t feel my community is doing so badly, certainly not as badly as the whole US stats would lead you to believe.
“Teens are generally ill prepared, mainly because of maturity, to handle the emotional consequences of intimacy, unwanted pregnancy, sexually transmitted disease, etc.” The article just points out that they need not be and that they aren’t ill-prepared in the Netherlands (so say the Dutch anyway). Perhaps it’s just Lake Woebegone Effect (all the kids in our own town are exceptional).
“My real problem is that media and social pressure portray things as having no consequences.” I think the Dutch view is that the consequences are being portrayed wrongly through a cultural (and religious)lens in countries like the US.
“I doubt that a religious view shares the same conclusions the article purports.” Obviously. But the question to me is whether there is a universal morality to this or if chasity is there to combat cultural evils we’ve manufactured and medical consequences we can now prevent effectively by other means.
Hawk,
“I think the Dutch view is that the consequences are being portrayed wrongly through a cultural (and religious)lens in countries like the US.”
Not sure I’d call what we see of sexuality in the US has anything to do with religion, it is more commercially driven.
There is this so-called repressive nature that US religion has brought to the picture, no doubt about that.
Now whether there is a universal morality. I think there is to some extent, but secularity has won out in some cultures over this morality. And they trade off the morality for what they term as healthy attitudes.
One little figure that appeared above is that for both the US and Holland the average age of first sexual experience was 17. So we are talking late teens, not 13 and 14 year olds.
From watching American shows like “big bang” it appears young people (except for the religious ones) have moved to a more liberal model.
So either it remains for the parents to catch up or gradual change to continue.
So why is there such a dispariety in the figures for teenage births and abortions? Is it tha lack of sex education? Is it that by the time the young woman has realised and admitted it to parents and partner, and decided what to do (because of ignorance), the options are reduced.
Hawk, as I said earlier the culture in western Europe is very much one of individual responsibility for the consequences of their decisions, which I think, (along with the wider sex education) helps them to be more mature and able to deal more effectively with this aspect of life.
Jeff do you see the US figures for teenage pregnancies and abortions (8 times higher per 1000 than the dutch) as a more moral outcome or has the moral plan (which seems to include ignorance, abstanence, and modesty) backfired and produced a less moral result?
Geoff-A,
“Jeff do you see the US figures for teenage pregnancies and abortions (8 times higher per 1000 than the dutch) as a more moral outcome or has the moral plan (which seems to include ignorance, abstinence, and modesty) backfired and produced a less moral result?”
Well, it’s a clear indication that nothing is working very well on the morality side of the equation.
That was one reason why the paradox and hypocrisy is so great here.
It shows me that the media and the hyper-sexualization of the US society has a much, much, much bigger influence than religious teachings.
Can you say that religious and moral teaching is a failure as a result of those statistics? I suppose one can.
IMO, it is as much a result of the breakdown of the family and other structural problems than a great correlation that religious/moral teaching is repressive and therefore not be taught. There is a place for teaching self-control.
Re jks/Hawkgrrrl-
I guess I only have one thing to say
I am with jmb275 on this. I think sexual compatibility is important. I don’t buy the argument that if we were to have a more liberal attitude to sexuality that we would end up with teenagers sleeping around with everyone.
In my experience non-members are not the vociferous sexual animals that we tend to think they are. When I was at university I was the one that seemed like a man whore, as in my housemates and friends eyes seemed to be constantly dating a different girl (following the prophets council to date lots of girls). Almost all of my friends were not sleeping around, and I found that me and my member friends had kissed more girls then all of my non member friends. So I think in a way the law of chastity makes kissing seem less by putting sex on a pedastal. We will kiss lots to compensate the lack of sex. My non-lds friends found this really strange btw.
It seems to me that hyper-sexualisation is a media phenomena, that the more we talk and show sex the less people actually are having it. As in the UK students are seen as sexual rabbits when this is far from the truth.
Jmb275: here’s where we agree. I do believe that it can be difficult for Mormons with no sexual experience to be unaware of their own sexual interests. But I think that what is far more likely an issue is that there are Mormons with major sexual hangups, especially women, and it can take years or even a lifetime to undo their conditioned beliefs about self and sex that are unhealthy. I agree this can cause detriment in marriages, particularly where communication and trust are lacking. And there are Mormon women who believe that male sex drive is sinful and lustful (the constant role separation contributes to lack of empathy in both directions).
My family is largely Swedish and Finnish while I grew up in the Bible Belt of the U.S. When I go back to visit, they are all so comfortable in their own skin. They strip down and pile into saunas and skinny dipping in the lakes. I’m always the one clinging to a towel. They think the U.S. and Mormonism have ruined me. I find myself wondering how they can remain such good Lutherans with so much casual nudity? They are young and old, married and single and they go to the public sauna together. They share the family sauna. I always experience so much cognitive dissonance when I see how happy they are and there are no modesty police around. Naked bodies just aren’t that titillating. I’m not sure how this relates to the Netherlands, but I’m pretty sure that like my cousins they have a healthier view of their own and others’ bodies from a young age.