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.

2005 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.