The Abstinence Clearinghouse Blog

A recent article by Jeff Fecke begins:

I know the St. Paul Crowne Plaza Riverfront hotel like the back of my hand. It used to be the base hotel for the Minnesota YMCA Youth in Government program, in which I participated as a student and adult volunteer. I spent better than a month of my life there, stretched over a dozen years.

So as I descended to the pool level on a Monday afternoon, I was walking into familiar territory. And yet, as I got off of the stairs, I couldn’t help feeling like I was in very alien territory. It took me a long moment to put my finger on why things felt disjointed; it certainly wasn’t that a convention was set up on that level. More than once I’ve walked through on the way to a meeting only to have to wade through a conclave of insurance salespeople or someone’s holiday party. No, it was more strange than just that — more like someone had gone into my living room and replaced all of my furniture with bean bags. It just wasn’t right.

And then I became aware of one of the booths, which was advertising “Just 4 Girls” and “Just 4 Guys” magazines. I looked a moment longer, and realized it was a booth for the Human Life Alliance.

Then it clicked.

I was in the middle of the National Abstinence Clearinghouse’s convention floor.

I should have expected it, I suppose. I was there, after all, to cover the event.

One would think that HR has a general expectation of its employee’s presence of mind, but maybe not. I for one would be worried if the journalist I sent to cover an event was absolutely dumbfounded when he discovered that there was, in fact, an event being held. The article doesn’t get much better.

In parts it’s merely confusing, like when Mr Fecke seems scandalized that the Abstinence Clearinghouse sells purity rings with Christian messages (one gets the impression this reporter would be equally scandalized to discover that most secular newspapers have religion writers). He is melodramatic in referring to the “notorious” purity balls the Clearinghouse hosts, and is naive in asking, “who plans for divorce?” Mr Fecke is apparently unfamiliar with prenups.

He is disingenuous in dealing with at least one speaker:

Like many abstinence advocates, [Luis] Galdamez is a late convert to the movement. He has children, and though he doesn’t say it directly, it’s implied that at least some of his offspring resulted from his youthful days of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. His spiel smacks a little of the “sex for me, but not for thee” ethos: “Sure, I had lots of sex when I was a kid, but if you do it you’ll destroy your life!”

Mr Fecke fails to acknowledge that the reason Galdamez chose to abandon promiscuity isn’t that he was bored. It is because it actually was destroying his life.

He pokes about with some numbers, criticizes some studies, and dutifully cites the Mathematica Study’s findings (without noting any of the copious reasons not to base anything at all on that study). In the end, he gives one at-risk teen credit for choosing abstinence, but quickly discounts her for being a girl. Every tired old argument against abstinence education is spilled out, some of which could just as easily be used against “comprehensive” sex ed. You can take your pick; abstinence education is:

Sexist
Heterosexist
Religiously driven
Unscientific
Anti-feminist
Unsupported by the public (especially parents)

And before I forget, Mr Fecke intends some grave charge when he writes, “[Leslee] Unruh has been quoted by Planned Parenthood as saying masturbation is ‘the first step to sexual addiction.’” I might remind Mr Fecke that Planned Parenthood has been quoted (by me, right now) as saying that children by the age of 5 need to be taught that masturbation is normal and that by age 7 they ought to be taught to embrace their sexual fantasies. I suppose all this could go on another post.

In short, Mr Fecke just doesn’t quite get it.