Sunday, October 07, 2007

Tell Them You Want Them to Wait...That's an Order...

I'd love to embed the execrable new abstinence PSA that my tax dollars are sponsoring (during football games, no less!) here on the blog, so you all could see what I'm about to discuss conveniently. But, alas, the geniuses at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services have yet to discover this newfangledy technology called the YouTube what might allow them to disseminate their message of ignorance and Victorian sexual panic to the masses more speedily. So you'll have to go over to their website to watch it and then come back.

The ad features children addressing the camera as if they were speaking bluntly to their parents. "Talk to me about sex," they plead. "Otherwise, I'll learn everything from the Internet, which will likely result in a life-long diaper fetish."

It's a little weird, but there's nothing so horrifying about most of this content. The kids in the commercial are uniformly to young to be having sex...only a real creep would object to parents instructing an 8-year-old to reconsider before trying out his first Hot Karl. As Bob Saget might say 100,000 per hour without getting a single laugh, "That's just wrong!"

But the last little section of the commercial really rubbed me the wrong way, no pun intended. A disembodied but stern voices pipes up and instructs you to "Tell your children to wait until marriage to have sex."

Um...what? Why should I do that? I mean, I don't even have any children, but if I did, I think I'd be okay with them having pre-marital sex. I'm 28 years old and I've never been married. If I had taken this advice to heart as a young man, I'd pretty much be a Judd Apatow movie at this point.

Did we have some kind of vote making this society's Accepted Carnal Standard that I missed out on? Cause the last time I checked, the only people who made a moral commitment to abstaining completely until marriage were religious weirdos. Granted, I'm getting an inaccurate sample because I've spent my entire adult life in Los Angeles, but I'm not certain I've ever known any single, celibate individuals my own age, at least since high school. (And back then, celibacy amongst my peers was not so much a personal choice as an unfortunate state of affairs.)

That's not to say it's a bad choice. If no sex until marriage works for you...hey, best of luck. Seems kind of irresponsible to me, like making a major purchase without shopping around for the best deal first, but I try not to judge. But why is our government buying up air time with my money to peddle this notion?

It's a rhetorical question, of course...I know why...Because these bureaus have all been stocked by lifelong conservative fundie whackjobs and Bush cronies, and thus they no longer represent the majority of Americans, but a small sliver of extremely vocal crazy people who want to enforce their own narrow, theocratic agenda on the rest of us.

Still, all the blog posts and books and newspaper articles laying out exactly how this cabal took hold of and exercised power over every level of our national leadership doesn't prepare you for actually witnessing their handiwork on television. What a disgrace...

[Hat tip: Yglesias]

2 comments:

GimmeDaWatch said...

Parents, tell your kids not to have sex until they're married in order to ensure their future dishonesty with you on the subject, as well as to discredit yourself in their eyes wrt practical issues in their lives. I prefer the "keep the jimmy on extra tight" theme.

Anonymous said...

Maybe the government recognises that sex before marriage just causes alot of avoidable problems..

Maybe it has nothing to do with Fundies at all?

Maybe if people would stick to doing it with ONE person their wouldn't be so many STD's and HIV victims in the world. Which cost the government money in medical expenses.

Maybe if people waited til marriage to have sex, there wouldn't be so many unwanted pregnancies and abortions from people having casual sex or unprotected sex (most often unaware of their susceptibility). Which also costs the government money - to do the abortions, to care for those who are pregnant and financially unprepared.

Saving it 'til marriage will also reduce the amount of messed up people in the world, scorned from relationships where they were 'used for sex' - reducing the cost of mental health initiatives.

This might be a wild stab in the dark - but I think the government, like always, were more concerned about their finances and the welfare of the people, than those Fundies you suggest.