kcobweb | (no subject)

See this amazing article here, about the cultural differences between liberal and conservative families around sex and teen pregnancy and whatnot. A few choice quotes:

During the campaign, the media has largely respected calls to treat Bristol Palin’s pregnancy as a private matter. But the reactions to it have exposed a cultural rift that mirrors America’s dominant political divide. Social liberals in the country’s "blue states" tend to support sex education and are not particularly troubled by the idea that many teen-agers have sex before marriage, but would regard a teen-age daughter’s pregnancy as devastating news. And the social conservatives in "red states" generally advocate abstinence-only education and denounce sex before marriage, but are relatively unruffled if a teen-ager becomes pregnant, as long as she doesn’t choose to have an abortion.

"Abstinence works," Knox said at the hearing. "Abstinence-only-until-marriage does not."

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Oh yeah, I loved that article!

Actually, you know, I love the New Yorker in general. I know it's supposed to be stuffy and parochial, but it really has some great reporting.

My dad got me a gift subscription to the New Yorker a few years ago, and I had to tell him not to renew it, because I just couldn't keep up with it. I usually enjoyed it when I got around to it, but that didn't happen often enough. (Now he gets me the Atlantic Monthly, which I can manage to read regularly. Once a month is just *easier*.)

Wasn't that fascinating? I was particularly struck by the detail that kids from liberal families are more likely to expect that sex will be pleasurable than kids from conservative families.

Wow, thanks for posting that. I never thought of it that way, but it makes total sense.

That's really fascinating.