Don’t F*!% With Her, by Arthur Tebbel & Chris Toia – Pop Art… and Chris #26

June 2, 2009 Arthur Tebbel & Chris Toia 16 Comments

Dear Art & Chris,

We had a P.R. coup this week. We got our new Teen Ambassador interviewed in People Magazine. In this interview, she changed the game on the comprehensive crowd by saying, “If girls realized the consequences of having sex, nobody would be having sex. Trust me. Nobody.” I think we’ve finally got the condom crowd on the run. What patently ludicrous arguments could you guys possibly come up with to refute this learned scholar on sexual development?

-Neil Cole, founder, The Candie’s Foundation

Neil,
Future consequences have never stopped anyone from pursuing pleasure. By way of illustration here are 20 examples. Our current financial crisis, hard drug users, thieves, adulterers, lactose-intolerant people eating ice cream, that time the writers of this column played Rock Band for 7 solid months instead of having social lives, drunk drivers, people who date strippers, watching the game instead of studying, spending money frivolously, crossing Michael Davis, backyard wresting, eating a can of frosting for lunch, watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy in one sitting, agreeing to see a friend’s one-man show, playing truth or dare while drunk, going to Williamsburg (either New York or Virginia), staring at an eclipse, getting a film degree, fucking Bristol Palin without a condom. See it happens all the time.

Everyone over the age of, like, 6 understands that sex can lead to pregnancy. Or at least aware of some weird stork story. Teens are certainly aware that sex can lead to pregnancy. Unfortunately they have about 5 million other thoughts in their head; 4.9 million of those thoughts are, “man, I want to have sex right the fuck now.” The other thoughts are about how they’re going to twitter about the sex afterwards.

We don’t really understand the endgame of this whole abstinence movement. Do you just want people to get married ludicrously young? Or to the first person they want to have sex with? I can’t believe that would solve the problem. In fact, instead of deemphasizing sex as an aspect of love doesn’t it bring it right to the forefront? It’s like the movement nowadays to teach solely to a standardized test instead of focusing on having children learn the most. It turns one’s romantic life into a sex-fueled quest for marriage. If your marriage is predicated on some weird hormone-laced fuck frenzy then the odds are perilously low that the marriage is a well thought out rational decision for the rest of your life.

Abstinence is the only sure fire way to prevent pregnancy. Contraception is the only way to keep high schools from having to build day-care centers. There is no compelling evidence that abstinence-only education works. In study after study it neither changes the number of sex partners nor the median age of becoming sexually active. However, abstinence-only educated teens have a lower rate of using any form of contraception. Condoms are essentially free and, when used correctly are amazingly effective. But that only works if kids are aware of where to get them and how to use them. In fact, that’s the only painful consequence of having protected sex is the embarrassment of obtaining contraceptives as a youth. So, Bristol, if you knew that you could save people from going through these dire “consequences” by simply using protection shouldn’t you be telling them to do that instead of to deny their staggering biological urges?