Just say no? No.

Fixer-man found this over at Pandagon which everyone should read.

I've been yelling about this for a while. Jesse at Pandagon says abstinence-only sex education is not only stupid it's dangerous.

I could understand the push for abstinence-only education in a backhanded way if we were dealing with an either-or situation. If abstinence-only were a stunt designed to get abstinence included in a full spectrum of sexual education, then sure, okay - yell about it, get it included, everyone's happy and safer.

But seeing as how it's a serious movement, it's just a dangerous, disturbing method of consigning a generation of kids to a series of ill-advised behaviors if and when they do have sex.

[. . .]

This from L.A. Weekly

Lethal new regulations from President Bush’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, quietly issued with no fanfare last week, complete the right-wing Republicans’ goal of gutting HIV-prevention education in the United States. In place of effective, disease-preventing safe-sex education, little will soon remain except failed programs that denounce condom use, while teaching abstinence as the only way to prevent the spread of AIDS. And those abstinence-only programs, researchers say, actually increase the risk of contracting AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).

[. . .]

Now, if just the Jesus freak, Christo-Fascist, Neocon, Republicans followed this advice, I'd call it throwing a skimmer in the gene pool. Unfortunately, they're allowed to teach this shit to our fucking kids too.

While I do not advocate the drastic measures The Fixer does, this is just crazy. All we have to do is look to Sub-Saharan Africa to see the results of abstinence only. There is no way you can tell someone my age to stop having sex once they have become sexually active. Protection is the key to preventing STDs, namely HIV/AIDS.