I am appalled at Amy Balila's response to a thoughtful blog post about the choice of some on the Jewish right to present abstinence as an important belief without Halachic grounding, and without real facts.
The hysteria of this comment is revealed by the statement "Ask anyone who has been sexually assulted what impact one sexual experience has had on them." The issue with sexual assault is assault! The sexual part of the assault will certainly have psychological ramifications, but they have nothing to do with normative sex or normative relationships.
Given that studies seem increasingly to be showing that abstinence-only education has a very short-term positive effect, and that long-term, teens who have received no actual sex education are likelier to get pregnant and likelier to catch STDs, surely there is room to question the approach taken by this Orthodox organization without trying to imply that sanity and a respect for the teens being educated is solely limited to "liberal feminists." Shouldn't it be something that all of us embrace?
I am appalled at Amy Balila's response to a thoughtful blog post about the choice of some on the Jewish right to present abstinence as an important belief without Halachic grounding, and without real facts.
The hysteria of this comment is revealed by the statement "Ask anyone who has been sexually assulted what impact one sexual experience has had on them." The issue with sexual assault is assault! The sexual part of the assault will certainly have psychological ramifications, but they have nothing to do with normative sex or normative relationships.
Given that studies seem increasingly to be showing that abstinence-only education has a very short-term positive effect, and that long-term, teens who have received no actual sex education are likelier to get pregnant and likelier to catch STDs, surely there is room to question the approach taken by this Orthodox organization without trying to imply that sanity and a respect for the teens being educated is solely limited to "liberal feminists." Shouldn't it be something that all of us embrace?