The aftermath of abstinence-only education

Found at Abyss2hope
A personal account of experiencing abstinence-only sex education

A study done on the virginity pledges found that teenagers who sign a pledge do delay sexual activity eighteen months longer than their peers who do not pledge - far short of marriage - but are one-third less likely to use contraception upon initiating sexual activity than students who do not pledge. Students who pledged also had the same rates of sexually transmitted infections as their non-pledging peers, but are less likely to seek testing or treatment for a sexually transmitted infection.

This pdf file clearly outlines some of the problems with abstinence only teaching, whether it's a government-mandated school programme or within a religious setting.

As someone who didn't take such a pledge - it was simply expected by default, and as a young teenager I was given symbols to represent and remind me of my purity - I've also grown up with the awareness of how much harm these programmes can cause.
The writer of the article above focuses on the harm of pressure and misinformation associated with the abstinence-only programme to teenagers who will choose to have sex anyway, or instead to engage in risky practices seen as compliant with the pledge - oral and anal sex.
I seem to recall the youth of my culture weren't allowed to get as far as playing with a girl's hair or kissing on the lips... don't recall too many loop-holes there.

Would it surprise anyone that those symbols I was given are a source of deep shame - that I own them still, and never look at them, never get them out? Each girl who attended one particular class on the importance of saving oneself for marriage was allowed to choose a piece of jewellery to represent their purity and intent to 'save themselves'. My mother didn't understand why I picked a piece that included earrings for pierced ears, because I didn't, and still don't, have pierced ears. They were coloured glass, and I thought they were pretty. It didn't matter to me that I couldn't ever wear the earrings.
I've never chosen to go against the abstinence-only teachings of my youth.
I've also never indicated to anyone around me, most especially my family, that I didn't even manange to keep my virginity intact through my teenage years.
I failed.
No, I didn't have a choice. But I still failed so much, that I didn't even reach the minimum standard set for me.

Somehow, I think things would have been different if virginity hadn't been such a big deal. Probably I'd still not have wanted to have sex... because really, it's hard to think of anything more yucky. Probably the world at large would still blame the rape victim and encourage the perp; the whore/virgin dichotomy would still be active regardless of whether the defiled female wanted to have sex or not.
But one thing I think is that if it wasn't such a big deal, there wouldn't be that heavy blanket of enforced silence - for self-protection.

in which I forget the purpose of posting

It's been a while.

This is the second physical move since beginning this blog. The first time, I brought one dog and two cats downcountry. In the meantime a kitten turned up at the cowshed and she lived with us for nearly eighteen months. A month before moving she decided to go feral. I saw her, relaxing on the hay bales or crossing a paddock near where I was working, but every time I saw her my faithful canine companion was at my side. Two different worlds... the dog and cats don't mix.
Again, I move with a dog and two cats. We're all three years older. My sister says I have a wrinkle. The first cow has already calved, several weeks before her due date. I had four seven-week old calves and am expecting her to adopt the one she's been feeding for the last two days.

I don't write much because I focus on other things. Mainly bovine.
I had three things to put in this post and I have forgotten what all three of them are.

I've been cooking all day, putting food in the freezer to subsist on during the busy months of calving. I've decided it takes more muscle to be a cook than it does to be a farmer.
Tho it helped when I moved the pastry board and mixing bowls to the floor (yes, I do carefully maintain good hygiene - I don't know who else might end up sharing the food I'm preparing). The counters in the new house are designed for six-foot tall people. My table I'm in the process of stripping down to treat for borer and re-varnish.
This house reminds me constantly of my lowly origins. It's the smartest house I've lived in yet, provided with more switches than I know what to do with and things I don't understand - there's a fan over the cooker, another fixed to the ceiling, one activated where you'd expect the bathroom light to be. And I'm expected to know how and when to use these.
My previous house I left with the vegetable garden set to produce through the winter. This house has none. The farm owners 'weed' with round-up and when I went shopping the other day (late at night to avoid those confusing car thingy's, but then I still managed to get lost leaving the supermarket) I realised I needed to buy vegetables, because there were none at home.
In the current harsh times I don't know if I'm better off than other farmers or not, because I've come from a background of growing vegetables and making do and wearing second hand and going without. That's an ethic I've grown up with and one that dies hard even as I mix with people who think nothing of spending on a treat or convenience, of paying for someone else's time rather than using their own. Sometimes it's easy to adopt such ways for a little while, other times it feels like being in a foreign land.
But I have the excuse of being Scottish. Short arms, deep pockets as they say. I don't have to explain why I don't take expensive holidays or buy things I don't need right now. It's all good humour, evidence that Scots really are all they say.
And nothing to do with being one of the kids who grew up hungry and learned how to spin a pound out twice as far as anyone else.
Sitting in my flash house, I'm in a foreign land. Rattling around in too much opulent space. Unable to reach my own kind from the midst of affluence and businesswomanship.
Class doesn't matter.
Class does matter.
Class doesn't.

I have no class.
I don't belong.
When I got here, I thought - you can't take a simple person out of simplicity. But I've got used to it, a little. But in the simplicity there's privilege that I miss, that was linked to necessity. I can't fathom having a large area of land around the house and not having edible stuff growing on it.
I want a ride-on vacuum cleaner.
Why haven't they invented them yet?

Obessing about weight in terms of not obsessing about weight

The other day I picked up a copy of 'The Athletic Woman's Survival Guide' thinking it might contain some tips to help maintain weight through the busiest part of the farming year.

It turns out it's not that sort of book at all (though I suspect in a round about way the later chapters will probably contain information that is useful to my lifestyle). It's written for women who are maybe considering deliberately losing weight while already active... because of ill-informed coaches, parents, friends telling them they need to lose weight, or because of self-hate due to their inability to achieve an ideal (body shape) that isn't possible or simply because the image of normal presented to girls by the media *isn't* normal.

None of this really touches me. I don't own a set of weigh scales or a mirror of any size. I don't have to search for cellulite either... though I didn't know that till I used the self-timer on my camera to check out what some new undies looked like. No point in obsessing over what I hadn't even known existed before.
I have wondered for years how come I could develop such big shin and thigh muscles I couldn't get skinny jeans past my knee when I'd been doing a bit more walking than usual... but whereas some people with far less muscle could display them clearly defined and rippling under their skin, mine never show.
The book explains it. With genetically different body types, I suspect every rippling-leg-muscle guy or gal I've ever seen has been a natural ectomorph. It probably wouldn't matter how skinny I got - I already know that in peak fitness and underweight, I don't have a great deal of visible muscle definition.

Right now, I have some shorts I can barely button. It'd be nice to be able to wear everything in my wardrobe - but to be realistic, those clothes are tiny and to keep a healthy weight year round I do need to get fatter than the clothes will permit at this time of year. Maybe the book will tell me my approach is wrong - I don't know. One thing I fear is getting slightly skinnier for every year that goes by, or losing excessive weight on a frame that can't afford to lose weight and maintain good health at the same time.
So every year I expect to - and aim to - gain around half a stone between Christams and July. Come August, that weight melts away and it doesn't matter how much I eat, I'll be too active to achieve any more than weight maintenance for the next several months.
My natural weight on a less active lifestyle is the same or a couple of pounds more than the pre-calving weight I like to be. So I don't think it's an unrealistic, or unnnatural goal. I think the half a stone lighter spring and summer months are the less natural part.

I like the light weights too. There's advantages to both. I don't feel more attractive at the lighter end of the spectrum, but I think I get more attention for being perceived more attractive. Gaining weight for me is an effort, most of the year, and if it wasn't for the fear that there is a point at or not far below my lightest 'normal' weight at which my health would suffer, I might not bother.

Reporting on a 1950's study into the effects of restricted calorie intake on healthy men:
The physical changes included a 40 percent decrease in basal metabolic rate, dizziness, headache, hair loss, decreases in strength, and tingling of hands and feet. This study demonstrated that a semi-starved state, brought on by chronic dieting, produces significant physical and psychological problems in men as well as women. It showed that dieting is one cause of disordered eating behaviours and that some psychological disorders are related to dieting.

Simple observation has taught me that in cattle where a certain number of cows for every hectare is not enough to control the grass and a little more is just right, there's an upper limit where the 'most efficient' line has been crossed and while the milk production per area of grass might still be at high levels, the cattle are suffering.
Essentially, as a herd manager you'll observe the health breakdown of the cows due to under-nutrition. I know I've worked on farms that were right on the edge of that efficiency line. For one year I managed a farm that was well over it, and saw the effects on cow health.
But even there, an uninterested observer could miss the cause. Maybe most of the herd looks healthy - but a slight disease challenges knocks them over. Or normal problems are occuring at a slightly increased rate - more mastitis, more foot problems, more evidence of eczema.
This year and last, I'm certain that I've been over the efficiency line in my own herd due to the difficulties of managing drought. My ongoing aim is to return to the lower side of that line, to see the cows look fat and sleek again. Then I'm certain they'll have an increased ability to shrug off any disease challenges they encounter.
It's nutrition. There's no other cause to it, so far as I can see. Get the nutrition right and optimal health will follow. Get the nutrition right and weight will stabilise.
Get it wrong and you've got big trouble on-farm.

Much of this early part of the book focusses on having a healthy relationship with food... and outlining the reasons why many women *don't* have a healthy relationship with food.

A 1996 survey of Australian girls ages 14 to 17 reported that 63 percent thought they were overweight, even though only 16 percent were (slightly) overweight. Fortyseven percent were dieting and 33 percent had disordered eating practices.

Whether I've seen the results of this particular study before or not, I've seen very similar statistics and they have never surprised me.

As a 16 year old - or until around 16, I'm not sure which - I believed I was fat.
I've never been overweight.
I've searched through old photos for evidence of this grossly fat person, and never found any.
My second little sister was very fat too. I've never found any childhood photos of her with any spare fat either. I don't remember her ever being fat. As an adult, she carries up to 2 stone more weight than I do, on a similar genetic body type, and she looks wonderful. She's still not fat.

I believed it because certain very skinny relations told me, and my second sister, repeatedly, that we were fat.
I believed it because other children at school had taunted me with the word fat when I was a little kid, because my name happened to fit into a popular rhyme. Five year olds will never pass up a good rhyming opportunity.
I believed it because I found a chart once that showed my weight/height just below the upper average line... I've no idea what that chart was supposed to be for, because that represents a BMI of around 21. The yearly class photo the school took should have been enough to inform me that my position was reserved for the smallest and lightest child present.

But I still believed I was fat.
Luckily, I never tried to do anything about it.

A bit of silliness...

I been thinking, 'bout my extreme annoyance at not being able to buy full briefs, 'bout what I see around.
I think I have the right to live in a world that caters to my religious beliefs, extreme or otherwise.

There are things I don't understand. Like, my world is steeped in certain values. That is the way the world works. Right down as deep as knowing goes, I know that it's not okay to reveal bare shoulders. It's not okay to reveal either the shape or actual thighs. It's not okay to pierce holes through your skin and ears, or to chew gum, or to fart for fun. It's not okay to sit with your panties showing. It's not okay to drink coca-cola or to waste money or to write on your skin. It's not okay to wear face paint, or play with the little temporary tattoos that used to come with sweets. It's not okay to read books with sex scenes in them, or to watch movies rated for 13 yr olds or over (no matter how old you are). It's not okay to say 'oh my God' unless you're actually addressing God in the proper manner - kneeling, head bowed... It's not okay to use any words expressive of exasperation or pain.

It's simply not okay. You don't do these things. You ignore or gently reprimand other people who do. You walk away if someone tries to encourage you to do something wrong. You fight - to the death - if someone tries to force you to break that all-important behavioural code.
And then you are a martyr, in Jesus' bosom, all happy because you've never done anything He wouldn't do, because you've stood up for your 'values'.

Christians - some anyway - learn martyrdom with their first solid food. They learn not to give ground - that it is blessed to be hurt, to be spat upon and decried for their beliefs. They learn that nothing matters more than pleasing God. And our examples, the people we are taught to look up to, are people who refused to lie to save their lives, who refused to compromise their standards.
Miraculously, some of these stories end happily, with an unharmed Christian left to go about his Christianity. Or a troupe of young men thrown into a raging furnace so hot it killed their captors, walk about in there and emerge unharmed. And then of course, there are the ones who die and receive their glory in Heaven.

Me, I don't want to take the chance of the furnace being a safe place. I don't want to suffer for my religion.

So I think the world should bend to meet the demands my religion makes of me, and allow anyone else who wishes to keep those same standards to do so. Because I don't know about anyone else - but those things you have to do, you're expected to stick to even until DEATH.
And I'd much rather not put myself to great exertion over something like... wearing modest knickers.

A lot of the school uniforms out here have extremely short skirts. I wonder if our mother would simply not have sent us to those schools, if she would have found another school or home-schooled us rather than let her kids go out in public with their legs sticking out.
Who really cares about what knickers you wear, or even if you wear any?

She did.
It's not even written into the code of being a mormon - it's her personal interpretation that being a good person included not wearing knickers that 'have the appearance of evil' - bikini briefs, hipsters. As children, if we even glanced at such things in the shops we'd be told off.
So what can I do now that it's no longer possible for me to walk into a store and purchase the approved type of knicker?

Ask a normal person. Who cares? Wear what you like.
Ask a privileged person. I'm sure you can find what you're looking for if you look hard enough/pay enough.
Ask a fundamentalist. Oh dear. Well, you'll just have to learn to sew, won't you? Sister Ark has some very nice designs for modest underwear, why don't you ask her to show you what to do. Don't have time? Well, we must all make sacrifices...
Ask another fundamentalist. You should go to the temple and get your endowments out - you're more than old enough, and it'll solve the little panties problem because the church will provide.

Can you see why none of those examples of helpful advice are acceptable?
And the quandary wouldn't exist in the first place if the world-at-large would just cater specifically for me and my needs...

The fact is, it *doesn't* matter to me as long as they're comfortable, I don't care whether the waistband sits on the waist or on the hips (I do care whether the leg bands cut into sensitive areas or risk flashing fur should some child peer up the required Sunday skirt). It's not as if anyone else knows or cares what I'm wearing under and completely covered by my clothes (apart from the fact that clothes in general have gone the same way as knickers and often do reveal underwear etc.)
But if my mother finds out, I'll be in for yet another lecture.
And I'd like to avoid that.
And just maybe, the sisters in Church might find out and purse their lips and talk behind your back.
I'd like to avoid that.
Or I might have to listen to discussions on modesty that speak out vehemently against women who wear hipster briefs - while having had no choice but to attend the discussion in hipsters and be one of those evil women under discussion.
I'd like to avoid that.
Or I might die and at the day of reckoning Jesus will say - your mother told you to wear modest underwear, why didn't you do it?
Believe me, I'd like to avoid that.

A good person would die before compromising their beleifs and standards.
I'd like to avoid that.
Without questioning whether it really *is* my belief and standard, or just something for which deviance is strongly punished in childhood to ensure it becomes one's belief and standard.
Because that part doesn't really matter.

Real

PTSD is what happens to people who look the world in the face and see her as she really is.

Reality is the cause, the root of the struggle.

Some have glanced, and turned away. Keenly aware, should it be remembered, that it wasn't our own merit, or even good luck that distances us on these issues from another who has seen and lived the reality.
But the mere vagaries of chance.

We like to think it was us, and to listen to those around us who praise us for having made 'a good life' on 'our own merits'.
It leaves us free to judge another for having 'failed', when in all honesty we know that in her shoes we might have walked.

It's a bit belated but I suppose I should say this

The young woman portrayed on Country Calendar a couple of weeks ago as 'the only single female sharemilker in New Zealand'

is not me.

Sorry to disappoint.

There's a few more single female sharemilkers kicking around the country - I know of about four or five including myself. And that's only the ones I've met in the course of farming.

More inane phone conversations

If I had my camera at home I'd take a photo of my cat right now...

She's resting on the bookshelf, her head tucked against a stuffed dog I was given a long time ago, front legs and chest kinda sprawled over the heap of library books and an igauna and collection of rubber spiders resting under her tail... she's asleep, so it must be comfortable enough.

Phone person: So Sophie, do you help your husband out on the farm?
Sophie: I run the farm.
Phone Person: Oh. My. Gosh.

long pause.

Phone person: That must keep you busy.

It gets old. It gets very, very old.

Actually, I spoke to ... oops, a library book just toppled. That woke her up. ... a person the other day who told me there was a programme on television about 'the only female sharemilker in New Zealand' and asked if it was me.
"Not that I know of. And I can name a few other women sharemilkers."
"I didn't think that was right."


I have no patience for this anymore. No, I never had patience for it.