MARRIAGEDEBATE.COM--MAIN BLOG

MOM AND DAD, STOP STIFLING ME--IT'S DAMAGING MY BRAIN: New Scientist

2010-03-12T10:30:00.001-05:00

reports:

Overprotective parents inhibit more than their kids' freedom: they may also slow brain growth in an area linked to mental illness.

Children whose parents are overprotective or neglectful are believed to be more susceptible to psychiatric disorders – which in turn are associated with defects in part of the prefrontal cortex.

To investigate the link, Kosuke Narita of Gunma University, Japan, scanned the brains of 50 people in their 20s and asked them to fill out a survey about their relationship with their parents during their first 16 years.

The researchers used a survey called the Parental Bonding Instrument (pdf), an internationally recognised way of measuring children's relationships with their parents. It asks participants to rate their parents on statements like "Did not want me to grow up", "tried to control everything I did" and "tried to make me feel dependent on her/him". ...

Stephen Wood, who studies adolescent development at the Melbourne Neuropsychiatry Centre in Australia, says the brain abnormalities cannot necessarily be blamed on children's relationship with their parents. He points out that the subjects studied may have been born with the abnormalities and as a result didn't bond well with their parents, rather than vice versa.

Wood also takes issue with the study team's decision to exclude individuals with low socioeconomic status and uneducated parents – two factors known to contribute to poor performance in cognitive tests. "The effect they found may be real, but why worry about parenting if there are other factors that are so much larger?" he says.

SINGLE PARENTS, AROUND THE WORLD: Catherine Rampell

2010-03-11T20:54:00.002-05:00

at NY Times Economix blog:

A sizable minority of children in rich countries live with just one parent — a parent who is likely to be female, and also likely to be working.

Those are some of the takeaways from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s recent coverage this week of women in the world.

Across the industrialized world, about 15.9 percent of children live in single-parent households. The United States is at the higher end of the single-parent spectrum, with 25.8 percent of its children living with just a mother or a father. ...

The purple bars represent the proportion of children who live with both parents (whether or not those parents are married). Note the length of the pink bars, which represent the share of children living with single mothers, relative to that of the blue bars, which represent the share living with single fathers.

The only country where single fathers look like more than a faint sliver is Belgium, where there are still nearly twice as many children living with single mothers as with single fathers.

BLACK MARRIAGE DAY EVENTS IN DALLAS AIM TO BUILD, STRENGTHEN TIES: Dallas Morning News

2010-03-11T19:18:00.001-05:00

reports:

Many people say the institution of marriage has taken a back seat to a lifestyle of "anything goes."

Some Dallas community leaders and faith-based groups have joined a national campaign to combat that trend in black families and communities through the eighth annual Black Marriage Day celebrations March 26-28.

Most Dallas-area activities are free and open to people who are married, courting or engaged. The events aim to promote and strengthen marriage by touting its benefits in seminars, film festivals, vow renewals and celebrations.

Sponsors include Anthem Strong Families, Muhammad Mosque No. 48, some churches and the Wedded Bliss Foundation of Washington, D.C.

During a ceremony from 5:30 to 7 p.m. March 26 in Dallas City Hall's Flag Room, both a newlywed and a longer-married couple will be announced and inducted into a Marriage Hall of Fame. Past inductees will be featured in an exhibition that will tour around Dallas. A documentary film also will be shown. ...

Wedded Bliss Foundation founder Nisa Muhammad agreed, saying in promotional materials that "much of what we hear about marriage in the black community is a blues song. ... We want to replace that blues song with a love song of joy."

SAUDI ARABIA STRUGGLES WITH CHILD MARRIAGE: Joel Brinkley

2010-03-11T19:14:00.001-05:00

with McClatchy-Tribune News Service:

Saudi Arabia has a serious child-marriage problem.

It's emblematic of the nation's struggle between modernity and traditional Islam. But the lives of thousands of little girls are being destroyed as the Saudi government ponderously debates a solution.

Child marriage has been acceptable, even encouraged, in many Islamic states since the religion was born. After all, among the Prophet Muhammad's dozen wives was Aisha, who is believed to have been 6 or 7 years old when the two were married. But in Saudi Arabia, at least, the practice slammed headlong into modern values last spring, when a Saudi court refused to nullify the marriage of an 8-year-old girl from Unaiza to a man in his late 50s. ...

Saudi Arabia is hardly the only state facing this problem. Last year, Turkey made it legal for 12-year-olds to marry, if their parents agree. The Turkish Statistical Institute estimates that one-third of the state's brides are under 18. In Yemen and Bangladesh, even among some sects in Burma, child marriage is commonplace. The victims, in those places and elsewhere: Little girls who are forced into wasted, often miserable, lives.

LONG-TERM NON-MONOGAMOUS MALE COUPLES: Tom Moon

2010-03-11T18:59:00.003-05:00

in the San Francisco Bay Times:

Blake Spears and Lanz Lowen have been together for over 34 years. They told me that they still have great sex, contradicting the common belief that sexual interest inevitably wanes in a long-term relationship. How do they do it? “One reason,” Lanz said, “is that we’ve been in an open relationship from the very beginning. If we hadn’t been open, we wouldn’t have been able to grow individually or as a couple.” But, they write, this was a journey they took “without a roadmap… Information about how couples navigate this terrain is surprisingly lacking. We were curious about the experience of others and assumed many long-term couples might offer valuable perspectives and hard-earned lessons.”

So, a few years back, they decided to use their combined training and experience in research and psychology to do an independent, in-depth study of other long-term open gay male relationships. ....

The study includes a summary of previous research on non-monogamy, in which the authors report that “Most research shows that approximately two-thirds of long-term male couples who have been together for five years or more are honestly non-monogamous,” and that “Multiple studies have found no differences in relationship quality or satisfaction between samples of sexually exclusive and non-exclusive male couples.”

Despite those findings, they had a hard time recruiting participants. They had no trouble finding non-monogamous couples, but relatively few who wanted to talk about it. One man who chose to participate said “Having an open relationship feels like a funny way of being in the closet again. Family and friends expect that we’re monogamous, and we don’t tell them we’re not. It’s like a secret….In our community and society, it feels like something huge isn’t being talked about or studied or understood.”

more (the study itself can be downloaded here as PDF)

WHEN THE IMMORAL IS NOT ILLEGAL: China Daily

2010-03-11T18:55:00.001-05:00

feature:

Sociologist and gay rights activist, Li Yinhe, continues to stun the country with her comments on hitherto taboo topics such as sex and same-sex marriages.

She has submitted, for the fifth time, to the ongoing 2010 annual sessions of the NPC and CPPCC, proposals to allow same-sex marriages, and rescind the ban on sexual orgies as a violation of the Criminal Law of the PRC. ...

In 2006, Li caused a flutter with her support for one-night stands and polyamory (multiple sexual partners). Explaining her stance, she says unmarried people have the legal right to one-night stands. And while it may be morally wrong for married couples to do so, there is nothing illegal about it. ...

She says polyamory offers important evidence for her sociological studies.

"I know of three lovers living together in harmony, in China and in other countries. They are straight and are not jealous of sharing lovers," she says, adding this proves that the human emotion of jealousy stems from social rather than physiological reasons.

OKLA. HOUSE PASSES PREMARITAL COUNSELING, COMMON-LAW MARRIAGE BILLS: Tulsa World

2010-03-11T18:45:00.002-05:00

reports:

A measure to require couples to undergo two hours of counseling before marriage won approval 51-45 on Wednesday in the state House of Representatives.

House Bill 2634 by Rep. Mark McCullough, R-Sapulpa, would also allow people who have eight hours or more of premarital counseling to receive a $45 discount on the $50 marriage license.

McCullough said the goal of the counseling is to expose couples to the idea that they can get help if problems develop in their marriage.

The measure would also abolish common-law marriage, through which two people who have not had a civil ceremony but present themselves as husband and wife are considered legally married. ...

The bill would also require educational classes for couples who seek to divorce, McCullough said.

REPLICATE BEFORE YOU SPECULATE TOO MUCH: Mark M. Gray

2010-03-10T22:10:00.001-05:00

at the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate blog:

More social science research findings regarding Catholic colleges and universities are being reported and discussed. The focus has been on an article in the peer-reviewed Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion called, “‘Hooking Up’ at College: Does Religion Make a Difference?”

The study concluded that Catholic women attending non-Catholic and Catholic colleges “display roughly a 72 percent increase in the odds of ‘hooking up’ compared to those women with no religious affiliation” (p. 544). The study also finds that women [Catholic and non-Catholic] at Catholic colleges and universities “are almost four times as likely to have participated in ‘hooking up’ compared to women in secular schools” (p. 544). Thus, there are results regarding Catholic women at all colleges and for all women at Catholic colleges and universities.

There are some important methodological issues to consider:

* A “hook up” is very widely defined as “when a girl and a guy get together for a physical encounter and don’ necessarily expect anything further” (p. 540). As the authors caution, “‘Hooking up’ may refer to a broad range of physical acts ranging from kissing to sexual intercourse” (p. 548). It is difficult to know just what respondents are reporting in responding “yes.” ...

* Thus, there are only interviews with 39 Catholic women attending Catholic colleges in the study. A conservative estimate of the number of Catholic women attending Catholic college at the time is 85,000. The margin of sampling error for 39 interviews generalizing to a population of 85,000 is +/- 15.7 percentage points.
* Furthermore, these large margins of error are compounded by the small number of Catholic colleges these women attended at the institutional level. ...

The authors have made no mistakes—what they have produced is rather standard practice in academic social science survey research (although I would have strongly recommended controlling for household income which is related to college enrollment and choice). They have identified a compelling statistical association in the data. Rightfully, they note the limitations of the exploratory analysis and welcome additional research. This is what is needed. Replication with a larger sample would tell us if this is an anomaly of small sample size or a real effect (for both religious identity and college affiliation).

OKLA. CONSERVATIVES DEBATE DIVORCE LEGISLATION: Associated Press

2010-03-09T16:25:00.002-05:00

reports:

Touching on a sensitive issue among conservatives nationwide, the Republican-controlled Oklahoma Legislature is embroiled in a dispute over whether lawmakers should remain focused on the state's budget problems and other fiscal priorities or delve into family issues, especially the state's chronically high divorce rate.

Republican members proposed three pieces of legislation imposing new regulations on marriage and divorce in Oklahoma. Two of the measures were defeated, but another — requiring counseling for those planning to wed, and therapy sessions for couples considering divorce — is awaiting action.

The issue has produced sharp clashes among conservative colleagues who normally find themselves in agreement. The debates have featured charges of hypocrisy and of betraying Republican principles against government intrusion into private lives. ...

The most recent federal health statistics in 2007 show the state has the third highest divorce rate in the nation, behind only Nevada and Arkansas. More than half of marriages in Oklahoma end in divorce. In 2007 there were 28,419 marriages and 18,851 divorces.

The divorce problem, which is attributed in part to poverty, teenage pregnancy and a tradition of marrying early, is particularly bedeviling because Oklahoma also has one of the highest rates of church attendance. Promoting family values is a staple of political campaigns at all levels. ...

A study released in 2008 by the Institute for American Values, a private, nonpartisan research group in New York City, estimated the taxpayer cost of divorce and unwed childbearing at $112 billion a year nationwide.

The Legislature debated a bill to require troubled couples to visit a therapist or a faith-based counselor before seeking to end their marriage and another to eliminate incompatibility as grounds for divorce if the couple has children or has been married 10 years or more. Neither were approved, but McCullough's measure to require pre-marriage and troubled-marriage counseling remains alive.

A Philosophy Lesson from Jeff Bridges: Marriage Is for Losers

2010-03-09T15:57:00.001-05:00

blog:

Just read an interview with Jeff Bridges. ...32 years later he’s still married, with three kids. What’s the secret?

JB: Not getting a divorce. If you’re married you’ll have tough times and you draw a line, then if your partner crosses that line you say: ‘Well is that it?’ or: ‘Am I going to enlarge my concept of what love is?”

WHEN THE HONEYMOON IS OVER: Laura Vanderkam

2010-03-08T22:02:00.002-05:00

in the Wall Street Journal:

Marriage remains a perennially popular institution—otherwise why would same-sex couples be clamoring to share in it?—and yet after the first bloom of love fades, marriage faces an inherent problem. You have to hammer out a life with another person who may not find it particularly easy to hammer out a life with you. Many couples work out what to do on their own. But what should clashing couples do?

Marriage counseling became a popular answer to that question after marital referees first appeared in the U.S. in the 1930s. As Rebecca L. Davis notes in "More Perfect Unions," a history of marriage counseling and the "American search for marital bliss," the Depression was a ripe time for troubled couples to begin looking for outside help. Economic upheaval destabilized many marriages. Americans increasingly were turning to social-welfare agencies for assistance with a multitude of problems, and the rising popularity of psychoanalysis promised that the sources of emotional troubles were simply hidden and awaiting discovery. "Specialists such as social workers, physicians, sociologists and eugenicists," Ms. Davis writes, "believed that they could perform the roles that village elders, parents or clergy might have filled in the past, shepherding youth to suitable matches and mediating their conflicts."

Counseling for couples gradually grew to be an entrenched social phenomenon. The American Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, founded in 1942 with 35 members, now has "approximately twenty-four thousand members; many times that number of professionals are licensed marriage and family therapists." Marriage counseling may be popular, in part, because it appeals to Americans' can-do spirit: Ms. Davis quotes an expert who says that counseling's message boils down to this: "There is an alternative to staying in a bad marriage or divorcing, and the alternative is to improve it." Ms. Davis, an assistant professor of history at the University of Delaware, deems it a "uniquely American obsession" to "hope that with enough effort and the right guidance, more perfect marital unions are within each couple's and the nation's reach.

THE SHAME CYCLE: THE NEW BACKLASH AGAINST CASUAL SEX: Jessica Grose

2010-03-05T11:33:00.003-05:00

at Slate:

Julie Klausner has slept with a lot of losers and perverts, she tells us in her funny, trenchant new collection of essays I Don't Care About Your Band. She is not permanently wounded by these encounters and yet she feels bad. And then she feels bad about feeling bad. "When you cry about things not working out, you're crying not only because a guy you slept with now doesn't seem to care you're alive," Klausner writes, "but also because you're ashamed of yourself for crying."

Why would she be ashamed? After all, Klausner is a feminist who doesn't believe there is anything wrong with casual sex. But she's not the only recent memoirist with regrets. Hephzibah Anderson had such deep ones that she decided to abstain from what she calls "penetrative sex" for a whole 12 months. "A tiny bit of me can't help judging myself, nor, presumably, can those women who consistently shave their own tallies in sex surveys," she writes in her memoir Chastened (out in the United States in June), which chronicles this self-imposed dry spell. "Liberated women that we are, we'll blame Victorian morality and its outmoded, repressive mores—we'll blame ourselves for succumbing and we'll deny our feelings."

From whence this confusing, shame-feedback loop? Compelling research shows that hooking up is not psychologically damaging, and only purity-ring-clutching evangelicals believe that it's wrong to have sex before marriage. Feminist Web sites advise that is it our "feminist duty to 1) seek pleasure and feel entitled to it and 2) to make the world a more orgasmic place for other women." And yet there seems to be something else at play in the culture that's making Klausner and Anderson regretful, some new wave of anti-orgasmic sexual conservatism that makes you hate yourself for what you did last night. ...

At the start of this decade, we have thoroughly internalized these recent conservative cultural messages about the importance of marriage: "73 percent of women born between 1977 and 1989 place a high priority on marriage," writes Hannah Seligson in the Wall Street Journal. If what Gen Y wants is marriage, then it follows that feelings about sex would be more complicated—and in some cases, deeply judgmental. A Princeton freshman wrote an op-ed last week about why her friend should not be allowed to claim rape after a night of highly inebriated sex, the implicit message being that she should not have been having inebriated sex in the first place. A poll taken last month in London showed that women were less likely to forgive a rape victim than men were.

MO'NIQUE ON SEX, OPEN MARRIAGE: ABC News

2010-03-04T19:21:00.002-05:00

fluff piece:

In the 29th and final "Barbara Walters Oscars Special," Mo'Nique opened up to Walters about her almost-four-year marriage to childhood friend Sidney Hicks.

Mo'Nique said it is an open marriage, which she defined for Walters as "no secrets."

"Open means, you know what, let me tell you my every secret, my fantasies, my thoughts, so that way, there are no surprises," Mo'Nique said.

When asked by Walters if the couple had sex outside of the marriage, Mo'Nique said: "Let me say this: I have not had sex outside of my marriage with Sidney. Could I have sex outside of my marriage with Sidney? Yes. Could Sid have sex outside of his marriage with me? Yes. That's not a deal-breaker."

more

[I'm not sure why the term "open marriage" is being used here, when what it sounds like Mo'Nique is actually saying is that she wouldn't divorce her husband if he cheated. That's a completely different thing. --Eve]

DC Same-Sex Marriage Leads Catholic Charities to Adjust Benefits: Washington Post

2010-03-03T14:52:00.002-05:00

reports:

Employees at Catholic Charities were told Monday that the social services organization is changing its health coverage to avoid offering benefits to same-sex partners of its workers -- the latest fallout from a bitter debate between District officials trying to legalize same-sex marriage and the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington. ...

The church faced two options with the approval of the new law, said Robert Tuttle, a George Washington University professor who studies the relationship between church and state. One choice was to expand the definition of domestic partner, as the Archdiocese in San Francisco did years ago, to include a parent, sibling or someone else in the household.

The second choice was to do what the Washington Archdiocese has done: eliminate benefits for all spouses.

"For decades, the church has been at the forefront of worker benefits, so this move cuts against their understanding of social justice and health benefits to all possible," Tuttle said. "But obviously, you can see they felt there was a real conflict between those values. They feel they weren't left with much of a choice."

LIVING TOGETHER DOESN'T MAKE MARRIAGE LAST, STUDY SAYS: New York Times

2010-03-03T14:26:00.002-05:00

reports:

Couples who live together before they get married are less likely to stay married, a new study has found. But their chances improve if they were already engaged when they began living together.

The likelihood that a marriage would last for a decade or more decreased by six percentage points if the couple had cohabited first, the study found.

The study of men and women ages 15 to 44 was done by the National Center for Health Statistics using data from the National Survey of Family Growth conducted in 2002. The authors define cohabitation as people who live with a sexual partner of the opposite sex.

“From the perspective of many young adults, marrying without living together first seems quite foolish,” said Prof. Pamela J. Smock, a research professor at the Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. “Just because some academic studies have shown that living together may increase the chance of divorce somewhat, young adults themselves don’t believe that.”

The authors found that the proportion of women in their late 30s who had ever cohabited had doubled in 15 years, to 61 percent. ...

The survey found that about 28 percent of men and women had cohabitated before their first marriage and that about 7 percent lived together and never married. About 23 percent of women and 18 percent of men married without having lived together.

CANADIAN TEACHERS' LAP DANCE "A LITTLE TOO FAR" FOR STUDENTS: Globe and Mail

2010-03-02T02:10:00.001-05:00

reports:

The kids are calling it “Two Teachers, One Chair,” and it has all the makings of a YouTube hit.

But school administrators and parents are hard pressed to find humour in a graphic lap dance caught on video between two teachers at a spirit rally at Churchill High School in Winnipeg last week.

The two teachers, one of whom was identified by students as phys-ed instructor Chrystie Fitchner, have been sent home without pay after the spirit dance before 100 students as young as 13 years old. The identity of the male teacher could not be confirmed. Efforts to reach Ms. Fitchner Tuesday night were unsuccessful.

The whole routine has since been distributed on the Internet, thanks to the footage captured on a student's cellphone camera. The Winnipeg School Division is investigating. ...

The female teacher threw her head back and thrust her one leg out as the male teacher continued to dance over her. There was butt-slapping and further gyration. Then the man dipped his head down between her legs and simulated oral sex.

ARE SPERM DONORS REALLY ANONYMOUS ANYMORE?: Rachel Lehmann-Haupt

2010-03-02T02:05:00.002-05:00

in Slate:

When Donor 3066 signed up with the California Cryobank, he offered some basic information about himself on a piece of paper: that he had a BA in theater; that his mother was a nurse and his father was in the Baseball Hall of Fame; that his birthday was Sept. 18, 1968. He made it clear that he didn't want to be found by signing a waiver of anonymity.

The sperm bank protected his anonymity, just as it promised. But that did not mean he couldn't be found. In an age of sophisticated genetic testing, the concept of anonymity is rapidly fading. With some clever sleuthing—tests that can track down ancestral origins, donor numbers, and bits of biographical information—parents and offspring can find out the donors. "With DNA testing and Google, there's no such thing as anonymity anymore," says Wendy Kramer, the founder of the Donor Sibling Registry. "Donors are choosing anonymity because they're not educated," adds Kramer. "If they were properly educated on the consequences, then many would choose not to donate." ...

Stories like Jorgenson's are profound on several levels. Sperm banks are not bound by the FDA to do genetic testing of donors, but if they were, these new tests could offer a way for donor offspring to learn not only about their ancestry but about origins of specific genetic traits that could be linked to disease.

They also challenge the long-cherished idea of donor privacy. Most sperm banks now offer identity-release sperm, which means that donors have agreed to let their offspring contact their donor when they turn 18. But the great majority of donors still prefer anonymity, and profits hinge on ensuring it. College students are lured by the promise of easy money for doing what they would do for free. Few banks advertise—or even counsel their donors—that one day this easy money could result in dozens of children who might be curious about their genetics and ancestral routes, and a genetic family that could rival the size of one on Big Love. ...

Some sperm banks are changing their policies for fear that anonymous donors might withdraw from the program and hurt their bottom line. Cryos International, a sperm bank based in Copenhagen, Denmark, that claims to be the largest bank in the world, has started to offer a new program that it's dubbing "Invisible Donors." It's a system where donors can offer very few registered characteristics so they will be more difficult to track, and the bank keeps track of them by fingerprints instead of donor number.

"I'm fully aware of the future child's needs, and I fully understand and support children who will search for their donor [and] half-siblings, but the fact is that it is wrong to search for a donor who claimed anonymity," says Ole Schou, the director of Cryos International.

TO AVOID FUNDING GAY MARRIEDS, CATHOLIC CHARITIES IN DC DENIES BENEFITS TO ALL SPOUSES: Amanda Hess

2010-03-02T02:01:00.001-05:00

at the Washington City Paper's Sexist blog:

The Archdiocese of Washington has been battling the D.C. government for the right to discriminate against gays and lesbians since D.C.’s same-sex marriage legislation got rolling last year.

One major point of contention: Once gays and lesbians are allowed to marry, the Archdiocese—which employs plenty of locals through Catholic Charities—will be required to provide health benefits to same-sex spouses, an act which it says would fly in the face of the Catholic church’s teachings on homosexuality.

The solution? No spousal benefits for anybody.

WITH PRESSURES HIGH, SOUTH KOREAN WOMEN PUT OFF MARRIAGE AND CHILDBIRTH: Washington Post

2010-03-02T01:44:00.002-05:00

feature:

SEOUL -- In a full-page newspaper advertisement headlined "I Am a Bad Woman," Hwang Myoung-eun explained the trauma of being a working mom in South Korea.

"I may be a good employee, but to my family I am a failure," wrote Hwang, a marketing executive and mother of a 6-year-old son. "In their eyes, I am a bad daughter-in-law, bad wife and bad mother."

The highly unusual ad gave voice to the resentment and repressed anger that are common to working women across South Korea.

In a country where people work more and sleep less than anywhere else in the developed world, women are often elbowed away from rewards in their professional lives. If they have a job, they make 38 percent less money than men, the largest gender gap in the developed world. If they become pregnant, they are pressured at work not to take legally guaranteed maternity leave.

Thanks to gender equality in education, the professional skills and career aspirations of women in South Korea have soared over the past two decades. But those gains are colliding with a corporate culture that often marginalizes mothers at the workplace -- or ejects them altogether.

Women who do combine work and family find themselves squeezed between too little time and too much guilt: for neglecting the education of children in a nation obsessed with education, for shirking family obligations as dictated by assertive mothers-in-law, and for failing to attend to the care and feeding of overworked and resentful husbands.

UK TEEN PREGNANCIES FALL TO LOWEST RATE IN 20 YEARS: Department for Children, Schools, and Families

2010-03-02T01:39:00.002-05:00

press release:

Teenage pregnancies have fallen to their lowest rate in over 20 years, annual statistics published today show.

The 2008 ONS conception statistics show that, despite a slight rise in 2007, the action from the Government's teenage pregnancy strategy has led to a decline in pregnancies among under 16 and 18 year olds.

The statistics also show:

- The rate of under 16 year olds falling pregnant decreased by 5.7 per cent between 2007 and 2008.
- Since 1998 there has been a 13.3 per cent reduction in the number of under 18s conceiving, and encouraging reductions in more than 120 local authorities and at every age range.
- England's under-18 conception rate for final quarter 2008 was 5.4 per cent lower than the same quarter 2007 and is the lowest fourth quarter rate since 1993, showing promise for the 2009 data due next year.

Coinciding with the statistics and to further the progress made in recent years, Children's Minister Dawn Primarolo and Public Health Minister Gillian Merron today launched Teenage Pregnancy Strategy: Beyond 2010. This action plan outlines new measures to tackle the root causes of teenage pregnancy, building on the successes of the last 10 years.

A new scheme to pilot one-to-one sexual health and contraception consultations for 16 year olds along with more support for parents, increasing help for teachers and improving school-based health services are among the announcements being made today.

WOULD YOUR BOYFRIEND BE "PLEASED" BY YOUR SURPRISE FETUS?: Amanda Hess

2010-03-02T01:33:00.003-05:00

at the Washington City Paper's Sexist blog:

Sexist pet peeve: the persistent myth that women are all privately obsessed with producing tiny widdle babies. Working to debunk that assumption is a recent National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy study [PDF] which surveyed thousands of young Americans, aged 18 to 29, about their thoughts and perceptions about pregnancy. Guess which group is more likely to be “pleased” at an unplanned pregnancy? It’s not the one with the silently weeping ovaries.

In order to gauge the “surprise fetus” reaction, NCPTUP researchers first isolated survey respondents who claimed it was “very important or somewhat important for them to avoid pregnancy right now.” Then, researchers asked them how they would feel about an unplanned pregnancy:

If you found out today that (you were/your partner was) pregnant, how would you feel: Very upset, a little upset, a little pleased, very pleased, wouldn’t care.

Results: Staggeringly gendered! Forty-three percent of young men responded that they would be “a little pleased” or “very pleased” by the news; only 20 percent of women answered the same. Men also proved more comfortable with an unplanned pregnancy at an earlier age: Thirty-four percent of men 18-19 said they would be pleased. By the time they reach age 20-24, 42 percent of men said they would be pleased. And over 50 percent of men aged 25-29 would be pleased by the news. Remember: this is only among men who deemed it “important” that a pregnancy not occur at this junction.

Meanwhile, the percentage of women who would be “pleased” by an unplanned pregnancy stays steady at a low 16 percent all the way from age 18 to 24. By the time women reach the 25-29 age range, the percentage of “pleased” women soars to 29 percent. Despite the jump, women in their late 20s still lag behind their male counterparts by 22 percentage points. I don’t know: Perhaps our joy is muted by the fact that unexpected pregnancies tend to put us ladies out a touch.

MASS MEDIA: Dahlia Lithwick

2010-03-02T01:31:00.000-05:00

in Slate:

Joseph Reyes, an Afghanistan war veteran and second-year law student, converted to Judaism when he married Rebecca Shapiro in 2004. When they split up in 2008, Rebecca won primary custody of their daughter, and Joseph got regular visitation. The couple had allegedly agreed to raise their child Jewish, but Joseph, seeking to expose his 3-year-old to his Catholic faith, had her baptized last November. When she learned that her daughter had been baptized without her consent, Rebecca obtained a temporary restraining order in December 2009, forbidding Joseph from "exposing Ela Reyes to another religion other than the Jewish religion during his visitation." In January of this year, Reyes again took Ela to Mass at Holy Name Cathedral, with a local TV news crew in tow. His ex-wife's lawyers demanded he be held in criminal contempt—with a maximum punishment of six months in prison.

Can a court really tell a parent what religion his child will be? And can a judge possibly back up such an order with the threat of jail time?

JUST MARRY HIM?: Adelle Waldman

2010-03-02T01:28:00.002-05:00

in More Intelligent Life:

The Sex and the City movie was not the only big event in the public conversation about women and marriage last spring. For the thinking woman, the vapid romance flick likely took a backseat to the real head scratcher: Lori Gottlieb's controversial essay, "Marry Him! The case for settling for Mr. Good Enough", published in the Atlantic in March.

Don't wait for true love, Gottlieb argued--not if you are a woman in your 30s and you want to have a family. Romantic passion is not as important as a second pair of hands for diaper-changing and meal preparation. A single mom in her early 40s who got pregnant by artificial insemination, Gottlieb has earned some street cred on the subject.

If I had read her essay five years ago, I would have been scornful. Now, I'm 31 and a lot more sympathetic. I'm no longer able to write her off as one of those bitter marriage-crazed women I was sure I'd never be.

Gottlieb gets a lot right about what it's like to be a heterosexual, middle-class, single woman in her 30s, and how different it is from being a heterosexual, middle-class single woman in her 20s. What took me by surprise is the extent to which the change is palpable, even for women like me, who haven't been planning their dream wedding since girlhood; who are in fact ambivalent about babies and marriage. ...

Meanwhile, it's not just the woman who gets older, but her parents too. Younger women can readily laugh off hints about grandkids, but as the years pile on and the parents' health grows less robust, it sinks in that they won't be around forever. Their desire to know their grandkids becomes more poignant.

CATHOLIC GIRLS GONE WILD?: Patrick J. Reilly

2010-03-02T01:05:00.001-05:00

at Washington Post's On Faith blog:

It was not so long ago, when singer Billy Joel's chiding plea to "Come Out, Virginia" resonated with thousands of young people born into the Sexual Revolution, many of them reveling in American society's defiance of the Catholic Church and traditional sexual mores.

According to a new study, Virginia may not be so reluctant anymore.

Researchers from Mississippi State University considered a survey of 1,000 college students nationwide and were surprised to find that "women attending colleges and universities affiliated with the Catholic Church are almost four times as likely to have participated in 'hooking up' compared to women at secular schools."

YALE DEAN'S OFFICE WEB SITE TO HOST ESSAYS ABOUT SEX: Yale Daily News

2010-02-26T21:07:00.003-05:00

reports:

Even the Yale College Dean’s Office is interested in Yale’s sex scene.

With the overhaul of its Web site this coming summer, the Dean’s Office will post a new student-generated essay collection under the title “sex@yale.” The site will include 500- to 1,000-word essays by current undergraduates, allowing them to reflect anonymously on their sexual experiences at Yale and their impressions of the sexual culture here.

The Web site will not be password protected, so anyone can read it, said Melanie Boyd, director of undergraduate studies in Women’s Gender & Sexuality Studies and the new special advisor to the dean of Yale College on gender issues. ...

Student organizers said the initiative will attempt to change Yale’s sex culture and overturn the perception that it is dominated by casual hook-ups. But Gottesdiener was careful to emphasize that the initiative is not against hook-ups per se; rather, it will elaborate on it by showing that sexual encounters at Yale go far beyond the hook-up scene, she said.

Boyd added that the content of the site will reflect core values of consent, desire and “being thoughtful.”