Ruth Institute Blog

People who have heard my lectures may remember me referring to Discount Sex. I explain the concept of Discount Sex, or WalMart Sex in this video clip.

Way to break it down. This is what they wanted to do. This is what they did. Thanks a lot. I miss the 50’s (had I lived during them).

by Joanna Bogle

As possibly one of its last acts as government, British Labour bids to make sex education compulsory.

Sex education. The very words strike a note of gloom. Long, long ago, back in the 1950s when schoolgirl pregnancies were a rarity, and anyone who gave children contraceptives and urged them to enjoy “safe sex” would have been arrested, things looked different. Read more…

Yet another fantastic way to screw up kids.

Carolyn Moynihan

The sexualisation of children’s entertainment has reached a new low with the arrival of an online game in which kids can “hook up” and play strippers and prostitutes with avatars. Read more…

Way to go, PM! Way to voice your opinion even when it’s so horribly unpopular. . . and when you’re right.

Carolyn Moynihan

Horrors! The next prime minister of Australia might be a man who advocates virginity for young people.

Here is this week’s shock-horror story from Australia: the country’s next prime minister might be a man who advises his daughters not to throw their virginity away on just anyone. Fair go, that’s what he dared to say during an interview with a women’s magazine. You probably heard the resulting outcry in America, above the President’s State of the Union address, above the iPad hysteria: ‘What a chauvinist! What a pontificator! What a hypocrite!’ — to recite only the more flattering epithets. Read more…

My money is on the horrible movies and tv shows geered toward teens. Just a preview for an American Pie movie was enough to make me want to retch.

Charlie Butts – OneNewsNow -

Teen pregnancies were up three percent in 2006, which is the latest reporting period available. Proponents of comprehensive sex education are blaming abstinence programs for the increase. Read more…

The Internet TV show, Bump+ is up and running. The Party reveals more about Hailey, Katie, and Denise, and follows their individual stories as they struggle to make a decision about their unintended pregnancies.  New episodes will follow every Monday and Thursday through March 15, 2010.  And of course, the conversation between viewers continues around the clock.

Marni Soupcoff points out that the main concern about sexting is that kids have gotten the idea to do it in the first place. Here’s my favorite excerpt:

“Sexting is just the silent canary in the coal mine. It’s the sign, not the cause, of the dangerously cavalier attitudes to sex and sexuality that have been building up in teen culture for years now. The only sure-fire cure is a full-blown evacuation — a complete retreat from the mainstream movies, videos, video games and songs of the day that sexualize kids before they’ve even reached puberty (or, in some cases, potty training).”

“Sexting” isn’t a good idea. That’s just common sense. At least it should be — the pitfalls of using a cell phone to send nude photos or sexually suggestive messages speak for themselves. Unless you are a teenager. (Or Tiger Woods, but that’s another column.)

This, I am told, is why the Canadian Centre for Child Protection has launched a website and pilot program, to be used in 100 schools, to warn young people off sexting.

The result — TextED.ca — offers up discussion pages and specific guidelines for “safe texting.” The latter include the reasonable, Read more…