Sex cannot be comparable to sleep or food. Sleep is a physiological need comparable to breathing. Death is eminent when either of these are deprived. Health declines and diseases and disorders ensue when these are diminished.

Sex is an inclination that emanates from the procreation instinct. Deprivation of sex doesnt result in death or illness.

What Saletan fails to mention regarding the sexual practices of teenagers in America is that they are NOT representative of all teenagers throughout human history, or throughout the world. They are not a scientific sample, rather they are representative of America's societal mores, social customs, idiosyncracies.

American social practices are no more representative of a universality of human social norms than Russian social practices, or French.

People who don't have sex develop mental and physical problems.

More importantly, abstinence programs have been shown to increase the sexually transmitted disease rate and pregnancy rate in people under 18. Ignorance is not bliss.

and all over the world first age of sex varies from not much younger than the us to not much older than the us.

http://chartsbin.com/view/xxj

Some people do not enjoy sex or want to "save" it. That's cool. But some people are hot sex monkeys and are going to start at the youngest possible age and get diseases and spit out babies unless properly taught.

So I guess I agree with your point- people are different. All of them. In every culture. So you need to give them information to protect themselves and then leave them to their natures.

Your premise regarding sex is loaded with fallacies and myopia.

1) The failure of the abstinence program was foreseen given the overall prevailing social and moral circumstances which the program could not overcome. Putting sharks in the water with chum and live bait and telling them to abstain is ridiculous. Sex outside a/o before marriage is actually culturally acceptable, if not encouraged. American pop culture is sexually provocative, porn is widespread, music encourages sex and values sexual relationships above all else, teen youth are co ed and intermixing from sun up until into the night. A 50 minute class isn't going to reverse all of this.

2) STDs do not emerge from no where. Hence, STDs were already present in the community as a result of widespread fornication.

3) The chartsbin link is not credible and is suspiciously lacking data from billions of people.

4) Moreover, moral standards and social norms are not equal throughout the world. Hence, there are many nations and cultures which expect youth to abstain until marriage. The problems facing these nations is poverty, western cultural propagation which promotes sex before and outside of marriage, and more. Hence, Western powers have promoted their social standards around the world as a form of cultural colonization and proposed Westernization as a form of globalization. One cannot then cite such a nation as Phillipines as in agreement with the West when it was a colony of Western powers for centuries and remains a poor subjugated nation rather than representing some distinct culture which just happens to coencide with the universality of the Western way.

here are many nations and cultures which expect youth to abstain until marriage

And yet kids keep having sex and babies.

The only way these cultures successfully prevent it is by separating the sexes and actively monitoring them. The kids are not different-- the fact that they are closely monitored is what is different.

and even so... that prevention of sex by these strict cultures is still a myth.

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Increased homosexuality and anal sex since it doesn't count.

This is like american teens who think of themselves as virgins when they've done everything *except* having intercourse.

But hey, if it helps you sleep at night- keep believing most humans don't like and don't have sex whenever possible.

You cited the anecdotal hearsay 'so-and-so said her friend said when she was in Middle East...." discussion forum from a notorious anti- Islam propagandist website.

And this justifies teen kids having sex at will, just as long as they use condoms?

You have not yet expressed credible knowledge or insight into Muslim world. Ive travelled to all the regions that your link mentioned- Turkey, North Africa, Saudi Arabia- and I know personally and through personal contact with local people how things are there.

My first recognition is that satellite TV is an strong cultural presence which has nothing to do with family values, the local community that one lives in, the laws of the province or nation (except that Saudi govt censors and blocks much of it). Egypt is by far the biggest propagandizing nation of the Arab speaking nations that advocates Western 'liberal social relations'- sex outside and before marriage. Egypt also produces pornography which it broadcasts throughout the region. Egypt's secular elite support this propagandizing cultural values most likely on behalf of America. Turkey also produces a great deal of satellite media- TV, movies, music, etc.- which Arab channels broadcast throughout the Arab nations.

In effect, this media force in the Arab region is controlled by the secular, Western educated elites and supported if not protected by the Western protected authoritarian govts, such as Egypt's which has run by martial law for 30 years and of which Obama warmly recognizes.

Saudi Arabia is one of the most conservative Arab nations, but there are wealthy Saudi elites who advocate Western secular liberal social standards and do so by financing secular sexualized TV channels in Beirut and Egypt to be broadcasted eventhough they are blocked in Saudia.

All of these observations as well as the facts that the Arab nations are ruled by authoritarian regimes that allow corruption, stagnation, and the perpetuation of chronic social problems shows that they are NOT representative of the Islam, rather the Muslim people individually struggle against the tide of social trends to maintain their social standards, but are loosing.

That goes to the point that ( which Daniel Pipes would relish) is that the Colonization of the Muslim world has not ended, rather it has continued for decades, even it has intensified since 9/11/01 under America's command. The people of Egypt would overwhelming support a more conservative society which enables their youth to have universal education, literacy, as well as promote marriage. As would most Arab nations, and Turkey is increasingly moving in this direction despite the decades of following Western liberal social norms. But America and its allies, the secular Arab and Turk elites who control their respective nations, have stepped up their propagation of the standards which YOU believe are universally compatible with youth- that they will just have sex before marriage just as if they are chimps running around following some evolutionary path.

Sir, you apparently do not have children nor value the purity of a child who abstains from sex. So be it. To you be your way, to me by mine, and we will know the truth and rightness of these things on the Day of Judgement.

Well said, indeed.

Because we all know judgment day is coming (notice it's judgment not judgement, common mistake I've made as well, I think) and it's going to be judgment time for you fornicators.

You'll get up to the pearly gates, St. Peter will look at your file - "Went to church a couple times a year, donated to charity, helped abused wives and animals, fed the homeless, worked your whole life to provide, ......wait a minute.....what is THIS!?! you had sexual intercourse with a woman outside of the sanctity of marriage! You played seven minutes in heaven with someone you weren't interested in!? TO THE BOWELS OF HELL WITH YOU, YOU SICK FOOL!"

Hey Usama -

How much time for gentle purity did Aisha get before Mo got his hands on her?

Nicki,

When you can master classic arabic, ride a camel at full speed, fast 30 days sun up to sundown, I'll answer you.

Meanwhile, go back to your mocha latte half and half with your Gucci manpurse and botox facial cream.

Ah, I see - it is one of those "need to see it in context, in the original" to understand the situation. A mere translation, showing all that blatant anti-semitism, pederasty, and mysogenistic vitriol is all we get to see - the real facts are beyond us mere infidels.

I'll just stay "unclean" and proud of it, thanks - and happy to defend Rushdie, to defend Danish cartoonists, and the rest of the folk who get death threats from your co-religionists.

No. Its about you being blinded by your way of life, percieving the world and history through myopic, self affirming, selfserving lenses.

Meanwhile, you are blind to the devastation and misery and tyranny your way of life propagates and generates (except perhaps you believe in global warming).

Nonetheless, you feel entitled to judge people far above you and quite different from you whom you have no knowledge of except in a cursory newsflash which you emotionally react to with Pavlovian prejudice.

Dine and wine and ally with Rushdie. I will love the Prophet Muhammad (saaw), God willing, and we will see which of us are on the right way on the Day. Until then, to you be your way and to me be mine.

No blindness here, Usama... just legitimate concerns about an ideology that needs its own special statement of human rights, because the one the civilized world produced was a bit too nice to women for islam to tolerate... or because it contained a bit too much emphasis on free speech. Can't have free speech, now, can we? It might mean more people getting to know about the death sentences for those stinking apostates!

But what do I know. I don't spend time riding camels, which you peculiarly seemed to think was an important requirement here.

Happy for you to go my way and me mine. The further I am away from islamic ideology, the happier I will be.

Infidel... if I am unclean by your ideology, I am proud of it.

Nah.

We don't feel entitled to judge you. We *are* entitled to judge you.

When 3,000 people died. When those Danish Cartoonists were threatened with death.

We absolutely gained the right to judge you and more if need be.

You are so over the top, I'm assuming you are a troll. But if not, then the very tone of your posts gives me the right to judge you, stop you, block you, and defend myself against you and your horrific beliefs.

Maxo, I realize your reality of the rest of the world began on 9/11/01, but the rest of the world has known about America's actions for decades. Assasinations, coups, double crosses, cavorting and supportind dictators from Idi Amin, to Saddam, to Mubarak, to Islam Karimov (America stopped supporting Karimov NOT after he boiled a young man alive, but when his troops freely gunned down 100s of unarmed men women and children, and only when Bush was pressured by others did he withdraw support).

Maxo, your govt supported the coup of the elected leader of Iran to install the Pavlavi monarchy, you overthrew the British installed monarchy in Egypt to install a military autocracy called the Free Officers Movement which has controlled Egypt since 1950s. America even installed the Baathists parties in both Iraq and Syria. Not to mention supported the Indonesian coup by Sukarno. In fact America has been the biggest friend to tyranny and dictatorships in the Muslim world, that includes in Nigeria from where America recieves a great deal of oil. To no surprise, American foreign policy is despised as are American supporters of it, but people still have the decency to distinguish between the govt policies and the average person.

The difference between you and I:

I never supported or condoned 9/11, while you and yours support the uninihibited bombing and killing of millions of innocent Muslims indefinitely.

You think its ok to kill, torture and rape because you believe in and follow the 'survival of the fittest/strongest'- law of the jungle. That's what American conservatives have committed to and in which liberals are now complicit. And then you are outraged that anyone has the audacity to oppose and resist your 'freedom' to kill, torture, and repress at will.

The sad thing is, this is not a new story in human history. Pharoah was as brutal and savage and thought himself the pinnacle of civilization too.

And you left that caveat- "and more if need be"- the true colors emerge.

Meanwhile, your leadership of the world, how is that going? Gave trillions of tax dollars to teh financial industries didnt you? And your beliefs are to let the poor starve, let the sick go without medical care, let the weak fall prey and let the rich become richer and more powerful. Destroying the planet, polluting the air, seas, lands with your ways? Arming countless people against each other? Supporting tyrants that give you cheap oil? Yes, all that you do and support, you too are being judged. And we shall see who is right on the Day of Judgement.

What a ludicrous wretch of a human being you are, Usama. Bigoted, ignorant and so full of loathing.

If you look back a few lines in this thread, you'll see that your latest screed is a pathetic, ad hominem effort to divert attention to a question you seemed to struggle to answer. Recall, you stated that you presumed Maxo did not "...value the purity of a child who abstains from sex."

Now, maybe I misunderstood you... maybe you meant "value the purity of a child" as you took her into your bed, mimicking old Mo', and following the guidance of the delightful Ayatollah Khomeini. But maybe not - maybe you meant something else...

So, I ask you... how do you square your strident and pompous ramblings with the widespread pederasty of your co-religionists? Or do all those child brides need to be "taken in context" alongside the references to pigs and monkeys? Maybe you can answer without presumptive personal attacks, or repeated references to needing to be willing to engage in high-speed sex with camels to be able to understand.

I remain, sir, an infidel: unclean by your faith and proud of it.

Of course I do not believe in those things.

As an american citizen, I've lost all ability to control the government. It's mostly controlled by corporations. I'm not willing to sacrifice my life to stop them.

A lot of the events in your post would justify fighting back and I've felt that way in the past. I disagree with your sexual and other societal values but agree that the actions taken by american (and japanese and etc.) corporations justify resistance.

If a nigerian terrorist were to kill the president and ceo of Exxon, a lot of people would understand and sympathise (because of the terrible things that company is doing in Nigeria). But if they kill 100 british subway passengers, all it does is royally piss everyone off. If on 9/11 they had assassinated the leaders of goldman sachs and several other financial firms, people would have been shocked but understoodn. Instead they destroyed buildings, including old people, pregnant people, firemen, etc. They come across as wildmen capable of killing anyone.

It makes it very easy for the government to sell the "all islamics are out to kill all caucasions" storyline. It's turning our society fascist (and then it will be even harder to resist the corporate powers that be).

I'm sure they thought, "Hurt the civilians and the government will stop" but it didn't work that way. Time to change tactics. Even attacking the government and the military doesn't work. You kill a bunch of clueless 22 year olds in uniform on a ship and all it does is piss the civilians and the government off. Start paying attention to the corporate leaders who are really running the show these days and things will actually change. The corporate leaders do not give a damn if thousands of civilians or soldiers are killed.

That being said, I think your culture and my culture are fundamentally unmixable. The longer the conflict is put off, the larger it is going to be in the end. The conflict is unavoidable unless we stop population growth on all sides and islamic population growth is very high so the conflict over resources will occur.