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November 7th, Two Thousand Two
Subj: Save 30% on "Epidemic: How Teen Sex Is Killing Our Kids"
by Meg Meeker
Date: Wednesday, November 6, 2002 11:36:52 PM
From: book-news@amazon.com
To: hcorinna@aol.com
Dear Amazon.com Customer,
We've noticed that many of our customers who have purchased "The
Underground Guide to Teenage Sexuality: An Essential Handbook
for Today's Teens & Parents" also enjoy books by Meg Meeker. For
this reason, you might like to know that Meg Meeker's "Epidemic:
How Teen Sex Is Killing Our Kids" is now available. You can order
your copy at a savings of 30% by following the link below.
In this fact-filled but overheated report, pediatrician Meeker
cites medical studies and her own clinical experience to argue
that adolescent promiscuity has led to skyrocketing rates of sexually
transmitted disease and increased depression and suicide among
the young. Spicing up her statistics with...
To learn more about "Epidemic: How Teen Sex Is Killing Our Kids,"
please
visit the following page at Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/089526143X/ref=mk_pb_tsa
Sincerely,
Ben Reese
Editor
Amazon.com
Dear Mr. Reese,
It appears my email address was added to a mailing list of yours
which gave you the mistaken impression that I would like to receive
religious and right-wing propaganda in my mailbox.
I'm not sure how it happened, but perhaps you have me confused
with someone who would like to read work by an author whose tour
appearances include visits to the 700 Club, and whose book is
embraced with weeping madonna drama by such charming and credible
souls as Dr. Laura Schlessinger? Books by an author who also scripted
Restoring the Teenage Soul, which includes such "fact-filled" tidbits as: "We now have more than 25 significant STDs. Before 1960, we had
two syphilis and gonorrhea. "
An interesting statement, considering that she chose to leave
out mentioning granuloma inguinale, lymphogranuloma venereum,
and chancroid as well as the fact that up until 1960 there were
many other such diseases and infections but they were not RECOGNIZED
AND NAMED until that time (but I'm not a doctor, so what the hell
do I know). Tell me pubic lice didn't exist until 1960, and I'll
tell you to go back to high school history class -- bring that
before a medical board and see how long you keep your license.
Chlamydia is a microorganism that has appeared in people and birds
for ages. If Hepatitis didn't exist until after 1960, perhaps
Dr. Meeker would care to explain how it was that in WWII, thousands
of troops who were to enter yellow fever belts received a vaccine,
one which was being stabilized by human plasma -- some of which
came from HBV-infected donors. About 50,000 servicemen developed
Hep B. Were they infected by some space-age time traveler from
the future? According to Dr. Meeker, all we have to blame for
these things -- in her selective history -- is "promoting teenage
sexual promiscuity." Which, by the way, those of us who teach
comprehensive sex-ed do all the time. Why I'd get tired trying
to think of how many times in a day I say, "Hey there, wallflower! Get your ass out there and go get fucked!
-- go on, it's good for you. All the cool kids are doing it. But
don't forget to use a condom, and remember EACH member of the
home and visiting football teams needs to use his OWN condom!"
Perhaps you thought I'd enjoy a book which includes a chapter
titled, "Younger and younger: what statistics reveal about the age at
which today's kids are becoming "sexually active," when any novice history buff over the age of 12 knows full well
that given most people are no longer being married off at 13 or
sold into child prostitution, teens today are actually often sexually
active LATER than most of their ancestors.
Or, perhaps you thought I simply must find out that "the sexual freedom allowed by birth control and condoms promoted
the rise of STDs." Which I appreciate, really. After all, it's important I know,
in the interest of my work with public health, that there are
apparently birth control methods and condoms jam-packed with viruses
being spread around. To whit, statements like this support what
we all SURELY know -- that feminism stuff sure ain't what it's
cracked up to be.
Perhaps you were trying to do me a public service? Trying to inform
me that in our current culture and administration, even doctors
who appear to be fairly well educated cannot for the life of them
simply state the actual facts and allow the rest of us to make
what judgments we will, but instead feel compelled to take the
facts and twist and turn them to meet ideologies to which we SURELY
must subscribe, despite what we know about human history, the
daily realities of the population being discussed and biology?
Really, there was no need. I am painfully aware of these things
already. But thank you for thinking of me.
When a doctor who is so well-informed as to include in her book
things very few people are aware of -- such as the immunological
differences in teens which make STD and STI transmission more
likely in that population -- states things like, "What we know right now is that what we've been doing for the
past fifteen to twenty years, which is condom-based education,
isn't working because STDs are on the rise," when, in fact, what's new in the last TEN years as the rates
have been skyrocketing is that teens no longer GET information
on condom use and other safe sex practices, it's pretty damned
clear. Especially since we have reports in our hands which show
that abstinence-only sex education is NOT WORKING, by such oh-so-questionable
resources as the World Health Organization and SIECUS; studies
such concerned parties as Dr's Laura and Meeker refuse to even
look at, or give weight to because family values are simply more
important than sound healthcare and medicine. Jerry Falwell tells
us so. When an educated woman says, "I think people believe that abstinence programs are run by people
who aren't informed of the medical facts -- which is certainly
not true -- and [by] people who believe that sex is a bad thing,
which also isn't true," when, in fact, most abstinence programs are NOT run by people
with any background or current information in STD/STI transmission
or human sexuality and abstinence funding REQUIRES they not discuss
those items, I am all too aware. Abstinence-only or abstinence
unless married programs, to receive federal funding (now in the
millions, annually, a sum comprehensive sex-ed never came close
to getting), MUST teach that:
- abstinence is the only option for unmarried people.
- sex outside of marriage is mentally and physically harmful.
- abstinence is the only way to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted
diseases.
Recipients of federal abstinence-only program money must agree
not to provide any information that is inconsistent with the abstinence-until-marriage
message. Therefore recipients often:
- provide no information about condoms or other contraceptives except
to mention their failure rates.
- ignore topics including HIV and AIDS, STD and STI transmission,
lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender population issues, and
abortion.
"Sex Respect, [a] popular abstinence-only curriculum that has
been put to use in many a Title V-funded program, describes abortion
as "killing the baby." The curriculum, written by Colleen Mast
-- who also authored "Love and Life: A Christian Sexual Morality
Guide for Teens" -- teaches kids that premarital sexual behavior
can lead to anything from selfishness to death. "Even the practice
of petting before marriage can develop negative habits that carry
over into marriage," according to the curriculum, which also refers
to AIDS as nature's way of "making some kind of a comment on sexual
behavior." Sex Respect -- which has been the subject of two lawsuits
that charged it provided medical misinformation and religious
teaching -- also refers to homosexuality only in the context of
AIDS." (http://www.salon.com/health/feature/1999/09/23/abstinence/)
To comply with funding for abstinence-only ed, schools are often
simply required to purchase a "manual" for teaching -- like this one -- to be qualified to teach the subject. Given over 40 states
have ZERO requirements or qualifications for teachers to teach
sex ed, one is left to wonder how we're all wrong in thinking
these folks probably don't have any background in what they're
teaching, save a basic curriculum or manual. But can a teacher
not learn everything they need to know to teach abstinence-based
sex ed from such a handy 40-page manual as this, you ask? You
bet they can.
How to respond to arguments against abstinence-until-marriage
education -- the philosophy of abstinence education versus that
of comprehensive sex ed -- practical advice on working with school
boards to develop abstinence-until-marriage education policies.
(From the manual's promotional page)
It's uncanny, really, how much sex education curricula can sound
like a lay missionary manual. Who'da thunk it? But there it all
is. Exactly what they need to know to teach abstinence-based sex
ed.
Oh no, they aren't saying sex is a bad thing. Only if you're gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered,
intergendered, any other brand of queer, unmarried, nonmonagamous,
kinky, using birth control, HIV positive, a heathen, un-American,
or the like. For ALL the rest of us who aren't any of THOSE people,
sex is just swell, especially since the advent of Viagra. Hell
no, they aren't misinforming anyone! I expect to drop dead due
to unmarried sex any day now. My pediatrician told me so. I can't
tell you how hard it's been watching so many of my friends and
lovers perish in this fashion.
If AIDS doesn't kill you, well you know... God will.
It's funny, really, my getting this email from you. You may be
unaware that every day, over 5,000 teenagers worldwide come to
visit Scarleteen.com, a comprehensive sex education site I have run for four years
now. Every day, we talk one-on-one to handfuls of them on our
message boards. Every day, I have the fine pleasure of seeing
just how great a job the abstinence lobby is doing. What, between
the endless lines of kids who are having anal sex and oral sex
unprotected -- because you know, it isn't intercourse, so it must be safe, and
do it safely? Safe sex? That's like... pulling out, right? -- to those who are wallowing in guilt and self-loathing because
they're certain God will strike them down where they stand for
having touched their own or someone else's genitalia, to parents
who feel lost and helpless as to how to educate their children
because, like this current brand of sex education, what they got
in the fifties and sixties gave them NO real information, only
value messages (and we all know how oh-so-very-low the rates of
teen pregnancy were in the fifties -- when, in fact, they were
far higher than they are right now) -- I know very well how influential
abstinence-only sex ed is. I am also the child of an epidemiologist
-- a person whose profession and course of study IS infectious
diseases, and NOT merely general pediatrics. And who parks her
religious beliefs at the door when she goes to work, because she's
supposed to be a healthcare professional, not a minister. But
then, as well all know, plop a "Dr." in front of someone's name
and we all get to suspend our disbelief and believe they must
be a Dr. in every possible subject they can address. In what other
culture would a throng of people give credence to psychological
"expert" advice from someone like Laura Schlessinger, whose doctorate
is in PE, and who has stated numerous times she is accredited
in a field (psychotherapy) in which she is not?
I know, too, that getting "accurate information" published without
the value messages right now is nigh unto impossible, and I know
this because in trying to sell a book of such over the last two
years, I have never seen more publishers running for the hills
terrified in my life. Dr. Meeker, on the other hand, surely had
an easy time of it. After all, if in our book, we said, rather
than "you can choose to be abstinent," instead, "You HAVE TO be
abstinent or you will burst forth with pustules, die, then burn
in hell... or bypass that by claiming to be a born-again virgin,"
we'd have a publisher faster than I could find a case of gonorrhea
of the throat in a churchgoing beauty queen. Which is pretty darned
fast.
If I have received this mail because years ago I purchased The Underground Guide to Teenage Sexuality: An Essential Handbook
for Today's Teens & Parents (a book which is fairly lame, but which is based in comprehensive
sex education) I am amazed to discover that you find this new
tome related. But if you do, I certainly hope Dr. Meeker and her
ilk will be receiving mail in turn pointing her oh-so-helpfully
to, say Psychopathis Sexualis (which includes a few case studies on periodical insanity and
dementia she may find of interest) or The Whole Lesbian Sex Book. Because I'd really hate to think I'm the only one who has received
such helpful and apropos bulletins pertaining to what I'd enjoy.
With great affection,
Heather Corinna
(It is worthy of note that the review from Publishers Weekly provided in part in the email I received was cut off in just
the right spot to make us think the review was largely flattering,
when instead, it read entire: "In this fact-filled but overheated
report, pediatrician Meeker cites medical studies and her own
clinical experience to argue that adolescent promiscuity has led
to skyrocketing rates of sexually transmitted disease and increased
depression and suicide among the young. Spicing up her statistics
with obscene rap lyrics and lurid reports of teen orgies and the
high school "craze" for oral sex, she blames the usual suspects: post-60s permissiveness, the
misguided equating of condoms with safety and sexualized media
imagery in, for example, Cosmopolitan and Ally McBeal. In opposition to a "conspiracy" of sex-ed "bureaucrats" to "maintain
sexual freedoms rather than prevent disease," Meeker advocates teaching teens to "postpone sex as long as possible"
and, when they don't, to reflower themselves as "secondary virgins." In the end her advice to parents boils down to the age-old injunction
to talk to their kids, with tips ("ask how he felt when he saw
sex in a television show") that make this awkward task not much
easier. On the other hand, forcing teenagers to read her unsparing
and truly alarming descriptions of the ravages of venereal disease
should kill their mood for quite a while. ")
I don't suppose I'll hear back from Amazon on this, but I did
ask why I'd never received anything like this before and what
the publisher or agent for this book was paying for this sort
of targeted (in every sense of the word) promo spam. Because I
have a very hard time believing it's randomly generated, as this
particular comparison is a bit like saying, "We've noticed that many of our customers who have purchased "Necessary
Illusions" by Noam Chomsky also enjoy books by Billy Graham."
Uh huh. |
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