FAQs about Abstinence: A Positive Choice

What are FAQs?  FAQs are “frequently asked questions.”  FAQs may be the questions you and your friends would ask if society treated the issue of teen sexuality more openly and more seriously.

Just what is “abstinence”?  Voluntarily refraining from intimate sexual behavior which could lead to unintended pregnancy or disease.  That is, actively choosing to avoid activities (such as oral, anal, or vaginal intercourse) which could harm one’s health or one’s partner’s health.

But isn’t “everyone doing it?”  Actually, everyone is not “doing it.”  In a national study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 53.2% of high school students had not engaged in sexual intercourse Youth Risk Behavior Survey

Wouldn’t it be embarrassing to say you’re a virgin?  That’s not true, either.  The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy studied teens and a majority (73%) do NOT think it is embarrassing to say they are virgins.

“I’ve heard that many kids who have had sex wish they had waited.”  Now, that’s TRUE!  The National Campaign found that MOST teens (both boys and girls) wish they had waited longer.

What are some of the reasons young people are waiting?  Values and morals  Avoiding pregnancy  Avoiding STDs and STIs  Waiting for the right partner  Expectations of parents and others  Wanting to have a rewarding future

Here’s our class strategy for looking at additional reasons abstinence is a positive choice:  Class will be divided into four groups.  Each group is assigned a “domain of health”: physical, mental, emotional, and social.  Groups will sit together to plan a skit to demonstrate why abstinence will help a student be healthier in the assigned domain.  Act out skits for classmates.