Pop over to Jill Stanek’s blog and check out her most recent post. I think you’ll find it inspiring. I’m planning on heading over to Barnes and Noble to read the ComsoGirl article sometime soon. Perhaps I’ll post on it later.
From LifeSite:
A new American study has implied that any or all types of “sex education” significantly delays the start of sexual activity in teens. But what some news media is downplaying is that the research made no distinction between abstinence education and more mainstream “comprehensive” sex education based on contraception.
In the study, students were understood to have received sex education if they had either or both types of instruction.
There are several things I’ve been wanting to post about for a while now, but I’m just getting around to it now.
Here are a few of those “several things”.
Bishop Paul Loverde of the Diocese of Arlington (Virginia) has a must-read column titled “Letters from Teens about Pornography”, in which he includes excerpts from dozens of letters he has received from teenagers in response to a pastoral letter he wrote last year titled, Bought With a Price: Pornography and the Attack on the Living Temple of God.
Bishop Loverde’s column begins:
Recently I have been hearing a lot about pornography.
The mail I have received on this issue from Catholics and others around the country gives me hope, even as it confirms the gravity of the threat this scourge poses to us all.
Here is what one high school senior wrote (more…)
The winners of Project Reality’s annual essay, music, poetry, and poster art contest have just been announced. This year’s topic was: “Sex and the Media – What messages do you think the media should communicate about abstinence?”
I’m happy to see that Sarah Halbur – who heard about the contest from GFL – won first prize in the poetry division! (As you may recall, Sarah also won first prize in the TeenSpeak 2007 essay contest.)
You can see the top three winning entries in each of the four categories here [PDF].
There’s still time to enter Project Reality‘s “Teens Speak Out” Contest, but not much. The deadline is Thursday, March 15.
**UPDATE: 3/12, 2:55pm: I just got an e-mail from Project Reality saying that the entry deadline has been extended to Thursday, March 22.**
This year’s format is a little different:
In years past, participants were required to compose an essay to enter the contest. This year, interested teens can enter one of four categories: essay, song, poetry or poster art. This year’s topic is: “Sex and the Media – What messages do you think the media should communicate about abstinence?”
First prize in each category is $500. All Illinois students, ages 13-18, are eligible to enter.
You can find out more information on the contest here.
Good luck!
Reader and frequent commenter Young Christian Woman is starting a ministry called Stand and Be Counted, which encourages couples to name and spiritually adopt an aborted child. Her blog post on the new ministry is here.
The Little Sisters of the Poor are looking for a few good young women. Sister Carolyn Martin has asked us to promote a series of vocation discernment retreats they’re sponsoring in several cities throughout the country this year. More information on the retreats is available here.
Check out this joint statement — “It Started Here. Let It End Here.”:
We are three bloggers who also live in the Dallas area. We are deeply committed to ending abortion in this country. To that end, we have committed ourselves to the following: On each First Friday for the next eleven months, we will fast and pray before the Blessed Sacrament for an end to abortion…
We ask anyone reading these words to join us. Fast and pray with us each First Friday, no matter how far removed you are from Dallas…
The highest achievement a Girl Scout can attain is the Gold Award. For a girl to earn this prestigious award, one of her many requirements is to plan and carry out a major service project.
For her project, Theresa Hanntz, a student at Immaculata High School in Somerville, NJ, had the idea of organizing a chastity program at her high school.
The Girl Scouts rejected her proposal, claiming the project was too controversial. (more…)
This past week-end, my brother Eric and I spoke to a group of close to 100 teens on the topic of chastity. The retreat, which was based on the famous Steubenville Retreats, separated the guys from the girls. Even though almost all of my chastity talks are to a co-ed audience, I have to say that there is something sort of neat in speaking to just the girls. I’m sure any woman reading this can relate. I can talk about certain things or not even talk just give the look and they know exactly what I mean. Not that I’m saying anything bad about guys, that wouldn’t be very conducive to the quest for chastity, but there’s just a different feel in a room full of women. It was a nice change anyway. (more…)
I enjoyed this post on Modestly Yours. I have taken to calling Victoria’s Secrect, Victoria’s Brothel. I really liked the final comment (at least it was the final comment last I looked). It nicely summed it all up.
In conjuction with today’s official release date for Dawn Eden‘s long-awaited The Thrill of the Chaste: Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On, she and The Raving Atheist bring us “Chastening Thoughts”, the first installment in a new video series.
I just finished reading Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. In order to not ruin the story for any readers who have not yet read this classic, I will continue this entry . . . (more…)
I was really annoyed with a particular article from last Sunday’s Chicago Tribune. I have to wonder if Ross Werland is stuck in the 60′s? Doesn’t he realize that there are dozens of STDs because people choose to sleep around? And that most of these STDs wreak havoc on women – possibly rendering them infertile? But why should he care about that? He’s more concerned about whether or not people think he’s a freak.
As an aside, I happened to really like being part of a “small crowd” and so do most people I know from large families.
I suggest you write to our dear friend and enlighten the poor soul: (rwerland@tribune.com).
…comes “Chastity Rome-Chick Blues”!
An excerpt from Dawn’s forthcoming book, The Thrill of the Chaste: Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On, is available here.
Watching this video, I couldn’t help but make the connection with the abstinence educators’ symposium I attended yesterday. The symposium included an excellent talk on the importance of effective communication of the abstinence message by David Mahan — probably the most dynamic abstinence speaker I’ve ever heard — of Frontline Communications as well as a performance by a group of high school and college kids from the Chicago chapter of BreakDown.
The kids in BreakDown, David Mahan, Dawn Eden — none of them is anything like the tired old stereotype of the abstinence movement: the homely, puritanical, sex-hating, finger-wagging, “You’re going to hell if you have sex!”-preaching old biddy.
The new pro-life, pro-chastity generation is here. And it’s here to stay.
There’s a story—actually several months old at this point—that’s lately been making the rounds at various radical feminist and other leftist websites and even the mainstream media. It’s about the alleged abject failure of abstinence only programs at one Timken High School in Canton, OH, resulting in an epidemic of teen pregnancies, and how the school administration jettisoned such programs in favor of “comprehensive” programs that include birth control instruction.
Tim at Random Observations looked into this report and offers a thorough debunking. The most outrageous bit is the case of one Timken student whose parents claimed to have talk to her “45 times a week” about sex, and yet—somehow—blame the school for their daughter’s pregnancy! As Tim concludes: “In short, we appear to have been conned yet again.”
Read the whole thing.
“Condoms Found to Block a Virus Harmful to Women,” headlines the New York Times article about a study on condoms and HPV (human papilloma virus) published today in the New England Journal of Medicine.
In many circles, the study is being touted as a boon for proponents of condom-based sex education and a setback for abstinence education supporters.
A closer look at the study, however, reveals that the tired old message of “Use condoms” is hardly an advisable strategy for HPV prevention.
Among the study’s findings:
The incidence of genital HPV infection was 37.8 per 100 patient-years at risk among women whose partners used condoms for all instances of intercourse during the eight months before testing, as compared with 89.3 per 100 patient-years at risk in women whose partners used condoms less than 5 percent of the time (adjusted hazard ratio, 0.3; 95 percent confidence interval, 0.1 to 0.6, adjusted for the number of new partners and the number of previous partners of the male partner).
Read that alarmingly high 100% condom use failure rate again in light of the New York Times headline. The study itself uses considerably less stronger language: (more…)
