#46701: Alon Levy — 11/02  at  10:42 AM
It drives me nuts how people refer to sexual ignorance as innocence. If you don't know what is normal and good for your vagina, you're not innocent; you're ignorant and in need of being educated (no, not in the creepy-40-year-old-pedophile way).

#46703: Kristine Harley — 11/02  at  10:45 AM
I personally would favor boys (and girls, of course) looking at a labeled gynecological illustration of the female pelvis, being that women (and increasingly, men) are already objectified as sex objects in this country without accompanying medical facts. Why is there a taboo against learning about the body, when kids already are targets of porn and pedophiles, and when young girls are pressured to dress like mini adults? I guess it's a similar question to why it's acceptable for kids to see violence in the media, but unacceptable for any of us to see the consequences of that violence (crime scene photos, dead bodies, etc.).

#46705: SweettP2063 — 11/02  at  10:46 AM
Yes, let's keep the kids ignorant. Teaching teens about their bodies is evil and will lead to premarital sex. Only ignorance and abstinence will prevent teenage pregnancies.

Funny how well it works. I just read something where teen pregnancies are on the rise and the "top" states are in the heart of Jesus-land--the South.

#46710: — 11/02  at  11:03 AM
""Once their innocence is gone, it's gone," said Debbie Cottingham, 42, toting groceries alongside her 14-year-old daughter. She said it's her job as a mother to teach her three daughters about their bodies."

Um, she's 14. Shouldn't you already have taught her?

And besides, the magazine is subtly titled "Seventeen". That should give readers and parents alike a hint about the appropriateness of its content.

#46716: — 11/02  at  11:24 AM
I did wonder if the ban was justified to block the rush of teenaged boys trying to get their hands on the magazine…but then I realized no macho horndog would ever want to be caught looking at a copy of Seventeen.

Plus, boys have access to internet porn - for free.

I just read something where teen pregnancies are on the rise and the "top" states are in the heart of Jesus-land--the South.

It's true. The "liberal Northeast" has a lower teen birthrate than the Bible Belt - despite the myth that conservatives practice "family values" and liberals are somehow morally degenerate:

Teenage birthrates for 2000 also varied considerably by state (Table 2). The highest rates (66–71 births per 1,000 women aged 15–19) were in Mississippi, Texas, Arizona, Arkansas and New Mexico; in the District of Columbia, 56 births occurred per 1,000 teenage women. New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, North Dakota and Maine had the lowest rates (23–29 per 1,000).
Source: http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/state_pregnancy_trends.pdf

#46721: — 11/02  at  11:43 AM

"Once their innocence is gone, it's gone," said Debbie Cottingham, 42, toting groceries alongside her 14-year-old daughter.

Actually, I thought current thinking among evangelicals was that it is possible to regain your virginity (see e.g. http://www.geocities.com/thevirginclub/Secondary.htm )

I like to imagine that once your ignorance is gone, it's gone. (Call me an optimist.) I don't see what's wrong with an anatomy lesson or what on earth it has to do with "innocence".

#46722: — 11/02  at  11:46 AM
These people are insane. Hell, my daughter knows quite a bit about her anatomy already, and she's not even 4 years old yet. She knows the basics about how she was born (we have a picture of her at five minutes old on our wall), and you can be sure that, by the time she's physically able to procreate, she'll have a thorough working knowledge of the ins and outs of, um, oh, excuse me, the biological facts about sex.

#46724: Jeff — 11/02  at  11:49 AM
When I was in junior high school the guys and I would sometimes meet in the library at lunch, and ogle the diagram of the female reproductive system in the house encyclopedia. We would point and giggle, and some even probably felt a weird tingling sensation in their loins.

I wonder if these days that part of the encyclopedia has been removed in any of our public schools.

#46726: Ron Sullivan — 11/02  at  11:55 AM
Do you suppose those grocers have ever looked at what's in a box of tampons? At 14, that loony woman's daughter is probably menstruating.

Oh, wait -- she's probably being told that tampons would destroy her innocence. Or at least her virginity. And not being told exactly what "virginity" is, 'cause that detail would of course destroy her innocence. (shudder)

My freshman year of college we had to sit one of our dorm-mates down and explain to her that women do not give birth via our navels. Really. And this was not a dumb young woman. Scarred me for life, that did.

#46731: — 11/02  at  12:12 PM
Even more disturbing is the thought that Ms. Cottingham has instead led her daughter on a personal guided tour of her crotch.

I think you can assume that Ms. Cottingham hasn't told her daughters diddly-squat--and won't, ever, aside from having hysterics every time the subject comes up.

The girls will have to learn about this subject from some other source, which is probably just as well.


Some poor shnook is probably married to this woman.

#46734: MJS — 11/02  at  12:17 PM
If the Intelligent Designer wanted innocent young girls to know about their reproductive anatomy it would have included a schematic in the original packaging. And there would be an 800 number listed so you could talk to someone in India about any problems or questions.

+++

#46737: — 11/02  at  12:23 PM
Hurrah! Another nearby store I have to cross off my list.

I become more convinced every day that the fundamental difference between rational people and wingnuts is that we pursue knowledge where they celebrate ignorance. It explains everything from abstinence-only education to ID.

#46740: Reed A. Cartwright — 11/02  at  12:29 PM
Hey, I read Seventeen.

#46741: Lavalady — 11/02  at  12:30 PM
I have a WHAT?

Yes, this is HORRIFYING. To me, the half-naked fashions of the day are much more dangerous to the health and well being of today's children (and I grew up with the first incarnation of MADONNA as a role model of womanhood!).

Sexual Ignorance does not equal innocence! This means I have to have "the talk" with my 10 year old son, doesn't it?
Crap. Is there a helpful pre-teen boy's magazine available? (I haven't seen anything in the most recent issues of Ranger Rick)

#46742: James — 11/02  at  12:38 PM
"It's filth! It graphically portrays parts of the human body, which, practical as they may be, are evil." -- Helen Lovejoy on Michelangelo's David, from "The Simpsons"

#46744: Stephen Stralka — 11/02  at  12:42 PM
This reminds me of one of my favorite things ever. A few years ago there was some sort of Christian home schooling convention at the convention center in downtown Sacramento. Right outside the convention center is a copy of the famous statue of Zeus (or Poseidon, depending on who you ask) from the Greek national museum in Athens.

That's right, the home schoolers went out and put clothes on the freaking statute. It was sort of this ongoing struggle through the course of the convention, because the home schoolers kept putting clothes on the statue, and then sensible people would come down on their lunch hours and take the clothes off. They were making a lot of the same kinds of comments, too, like "Children are going to see that, and they're going to ask a lot of embarrassing questions." I always liked to imagine how that conversation would go:

"Mommy, what's that?"

"GAAH! DON'T LOOK AT IT, DON'T TALK ABOUT IT, DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!"

#46745: ekzept — 11/02  at  12:46 PM
*sigh* yes, the "taught by your parents" thing was pushed by the Catholic Church for a long time, still might be AFAIK. it simply doesn't work. one parent thinks the other is going to do it. as Ms Cottingham implied in her interview, there's also an assumption that behavior can be controlled by withholding information, kind of like the theory behind massive amounts of government secrecy.

moreover, as Alon Levy, Ginger Yellow, noahpoah, and possibly others have intimated, the idea that children even infants are not sexual beings is a cultural construction, and arguably a bad one. i agree it's far better kids be brought along as they grow up, taught by parents who are comfortable with sex, and knowledgeable.

i'm sure we've all heard horror stories. one i know is of a woman who got her menses young, yet was not brought to a gynecologist because her mom thought "she was too young". the periods got more painful and bloodier and it turned out endometriosis was an underlying factor, causing menorrhagia, discovered three or four years later. when it was, and contraceptive pills were prescribed, the mom refused to permit them, because they'd make her daughter "loose".

i'd say the teen sex education locally is good, except in this area, i'd mimic the British program (in other subjects, don't know about sex education there) and offer separate sex education classes for parents. still, i wonder how many adults would attend: there's the social embarrassment of the subject for many, and then the fact that they who don't know they don't know, won't do anything to rectify their not knowing.

#46751: — 11/02  at  12:59 PM
British sex ed is among the worst in Europe, so I wouldn't want you to mimic it. As always, look to Scandinavia. That said, it's still miles better than in the States.

#46753: — 11/02  at  01:02 PM
Some poor shnook is probably married to this woman.

Bah, I'm not worried about Mr. Cottingham....I've got $10 here that says he's at least as objectionable, if not more so, than Mrs. Cottingham. I will waste no pity on Mr. Cottingham. It's the Cottingham daugthers and sons that concern me.

And to think I occasionally did my grocery shopping at Albertsons while I was living in the US....<shudder>.

#46755: — 11/02  at  01:03 PM
Not any kind of defense for the store chain, but could someone claim that it was pornography? Obviously no rational person would think of it as such, but could someone actually get Seventeen and the retailers into legal trouble by such a claim?

#46756: — 11/02  at  01:05 PM
One of the two reasons I'm glad I live in Austria instead of the US is the sex education here (the other is the medlars- mmm squishy!)

#46768: — 11/02  at  01:34 PM
There is no possible way the diagram as described by Prof. Myers could meet the legal (constitutional) definition of obscenity (thereby making it subject to regulation by the state), which is "whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest; wehther the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the state law; and whether the work, taken as a whole, lackes serious litereary, artistic, political, or scientific value." See Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973). I believe this is the standard applied currently.

#46771: — 11/02  at  01:46 PM
Mrs. Cottingham reminds me of Maude Flanders.

Maude: It shows parts of the body that, though useful, are nonetheless evil.

Boy, I hope that interview didn't include any picutres. That woman's poor daughter is going to have a shitty year thanks to mom.

#46773: — 11/02  at  01:52 PM
Oh please. She's reading seventeen. In case you've never opened the cover and looked at the first page thats all it advertises. Outter beauty and sex. If she's been reading that, she's not that innocent.. she knows what the parts do and how they work, just readin the articles.

#46774: John — 11/02  at  01:53 PM
Sometimes I wonder how the "sex-is-evil" crowd manage to have kids in the first place. If genitals are that horrifying, it's a wonder they're willing to do it at all.

I got relatively decent sex-ed in my Catholic high school, between my biology, health, and religion classes. Some parts could have been a little more detailed, but overall it was informative. Of course it was tinged with Catholic moral theology, but nothing like the horror stories I hear about some fundie-influenced places. Then again, the brothers who ran my school were on the liberal side.