clipped from: www.alternet.org   

The "Abstinence Chic" approach is not only encouraging kids to refrain from sex until marriage, but is packaging an old-school conservatism of anti-abortion, anti-birth control and anti-sex ideologies into a new, shiny teen trend. What is being pitched as "new" and "in" is in fact the oldest -- and most dangerous -- of ideas.

That's why conservative ideologues have taken abstinence-only discourse outside of the classroom and are trying to woo students through a different strategy: by making abstinence the teen trend of the year.

Stenzel and Deltano use comedy as their guise, pushing scare and shame tactics to convince teens to mock the idea of having premarital sex -- that not only is sex not cool, but to make fun of the losers who "risk their lives" with it.

educators like themselves need to assist teens in developing a critical eye for misinformation in these messages they're given
bortion "does not pose a psychological hazard for most women,"
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