ZOMG! Don't be like those godless Europeans: Abstinence-only in 1915

[bellatrys]

What's the opposite of nostalgia? When you go digging into a past you've run far and hard from, with the wary caution of post-apocalyptic scavengers looking through the ruins in a Stephen Vincent Benet story? (Aside: goodness gracious, By The Waters of Babylon is from the Thirties?! Well, so was The Black Flame. Sigh. We were given to understand in

Comments

[jenny_islander]

I wish I could remember the title of a little paperback on sex education that was in my church library. (FTR, I was raised Lutheran.) It was intended for preteens. The chapters of the book ran somewhat like this

[sajia]

Most of it actually sounds like pretty good advice to me.

[jenny_islander]

The thing is, I can't remember the title or the author and Google availeth not. So I find myself wondering: Was there actually a peck of good advice to a bushel of bad? Was I just so dizzily relieved by the absence of the usual "Ladies, if he harasses you, it's your fault" garbage that I put the best possible spin on everything else in the book? I haven't found anything like it since--not in a Christian bookstore, not in the library, not at my new church. There was an analogous book for adults that focused on reclaiming sexuality from the Scylla and Charybdis of the Good Old Holy Double Standard and our present cultural obsession with reducing everything to sex. But nothing to prepare preadolescents for the oncoming hormonal storm.

There's also a certain disingenuousness inherent

[bellatrys]

since I assume that they're not going "BE VERRRRRY VERRRRRY CAREFULL!!!!1" about all the other kinds of daily life decisions that can equally or more so screw up your life - getting married and having children within holy wedlock, going to church, going to school, applying for a job, going out to dinner at a restaurant, joining a sports team, joining the military, chipping ice on your driveway, getting a pet, becoming a doctor, taking your first job working for your family business, playing poker - I assume they didn't have the same DIRE WARNINGS about, say, smoking a cigarette or eating shellfish (in or out of summer) because it doesn't sound like they were Wild Hardcore Puritans, and only wild hardcore puritans take the "We never eat cookies because they have yeast" stuff seriously

Re: There's also a certain disingenuousness inherent

[jenny_islander]

IIRC, the book was solely about sex and the single teen and was published about the time that you could buy cute socks in teenage colors emblazoned, "If It Feel Good, Do It." (My sister owned a pair.) So the general tone was, "Here are the consequences. Here are the things that popular culture leaves out because they harsh the buzz, man. You can't wish your way out of them."

Of course, you also had to believe in the Christian viewpoint that two people who have sex are connected forever whether they desire it or not, whether they feel it or not, hence casual sex is an oxymoron. It also referred to the story in Genesis that explains sexual desire as the recognition of the Godhead in each other, so using this desire for unity to have a one-night stand is as wrong as using (what was the metaphor?) a silk shirt to blow your nose on. Or something like that. I do remember being astounded that the writer spoke more harshly about casual sex than about masturbation.

So, did they also have titles on "Your College Major" and "Snacks"--?

[bellatrys]

IIRC, the book was solely about sex and the single teen and was published about the time that you could buy cute socks in teenage colors emblazoned, "If It Feel Good, Do It." (My sister owned a pair.) So the general tone was, "Here are the consequences. Here are the things that popular culture leaves out because they harsh the buzz, man. You can't wish your way out of them."

Call me cynical, but I'm bettin' they didn't have anything like that, nothing going: "sure, everybody's telling you Be an English Major, it's fun & Easy! Everyone's saying it doesn't matter what you get your degree in so long as you get one and keep your grades passable - but here are the terrible, terrible, life-wrecking, life-threatening consequences of just taking that easy popular route!!!" or "Yes, you think those occasional twinkies and bags of pretzels are harmless - after all, everyone's doing it, even your parents - but WHAT ABOUT HEART DISEASE?" or "Your elders and peers all tell you that what matters is getting a steady 9-5 job at some stable company

Re: So, did they also have titles on "Your College Major" and "Snacks"--?

[jenny_islander]

The exegesis was roughly, "Made in the image of God--created male and female--Adam's reaction when he meets Eve--he was seeing for the first time somebody else who was made in the image of God--the next passage states that therefore people marry--the union and individuality expressed in the Body of Christ and the Doctrine of the Trinity also express themselves in sex." IIRC, it was prefaced by a warning that the young reader was about to venture into theological territory deeper than he or she had probably gone before.

I don't know if that author wrote any books about other major life choices. I can't even remember who wrote the thing.