the abstinence myth – adolescents vs priests
I know it’s not a popular thing to admit in certain circles, but I am an animal. And I have lots in common with my animal relatives here on earth. I breath air, I have the urge to eat and drink, I require rest, and I have the urge to engage in sexual activity. These four vital things have kept the human race successfully trundling along for quite some time now. If we don’t breath, we suffocate. If we don’t eat or drink, we become dehydrated or starve. If we don’t rest, we become fatigued, manic, and prone to hallucinations. Apparently, if we don’t have sex, we’re virtuous and chaste. Eh?
Lots of Christian organisations promote abstinence to teenagers as the only 100% successful form of birth control. It’s hard to argue with that. If you’re not having sex, no-one’s getting pregnant. But that’s clearly missing the point. Can you realistically expect all teenagers with their raging hormones to stay abstinent? Perhaps I’m underestimating what faith in a god and some willpower can do.
To seriously consider the feasibility of an expectation of abstinence in teenagers, I thought it would be useful to compare them with another group of people who actively choose abstinence. Catholic priests are highly educated men, past the raging hormones stage, and they have a presumably extra strong faith in their deity. I expect their ability to stay abstinent is a good indication of the best that can be achieved. So I did a little internet research:
I’m sticking to straightforward, consensual, heterosexual relationships here as I don’t want to muddy the waters, but I think we get the picture. If the priests are struggling, what hope do the teenagers have?
Abstinence is one of the many forms of birth control that teenagers today need to learn about. But it is utter lunacy to suggest that teaching this alone will help prevent unwanted pregnancies. In fact, researchers at the University of Georgia have found that “states that prescribe abstinence-only sex education programs in public schools have significantly higher teenage pregnancy and birth rates than states with more comprehensive sex education programs”.
And if you don’t believe anything you’ve read here, just ask Sarah Palin.
You said it! But it is interresting how far are people ready to go to bend the reality, to fit it in their “values”. To decide not to see the complexity and problems in the real world as long as it allows them to feel good about their own moral “choises”. That is values they inhereted as a pre-wrapped package.
And it is not even funny, that if people go by teaching abstinence, as some sort of birth controll, to their teenagers, there might very well be a rude awakening at the end of that path.
There seems to be a greater misconception of ethics involved here. As if these adults did not understand, that what they are actually striving for, is an authoritarian controll society. It is by the teens, that most of us develope the sense of justice – a realization, that socially it is important to do the right thing, even if there is no one to controll us, or watching what we do. But choosing the right thing is not about doing as your dad says (or a holy book says), it is about understanding the possible reprecussions of our actions and inaction.
Perhaps this kind of asshat attitude of the abstinence only people have is a result of their inhereted cultural values, that they never want to question and feel they do not need to, because it is a divine command. A divine command may be totally insane, but if it is the god that demands such, then this god supposedly knows better than anyone of us who might recognize the madness of the command. And reality simply has to echo the divine. Or perhaps, it is the traumatical impact of children growing up. That a parent feels it is very difficult to let go of the child status of their offspring and so speaking about adult stuff, like sex, is painfull to the adult. The parent has an innate need to protect her/his offspring from the complex adult issues of the world as long as they possibly can. This same protection may become an illusion, that the parent hopes and deludes him/herself to be possible to be extended longer than realistical.
Certainly there are a lot of religions that pray upon this emotional problem of the parents and abuse it by turning sexuality – a perfectly natural element of human life – into a taboo.
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You as a man may not understand this – but teaching one’s daughter that she has the power to say “no” and that it’s her right to say “no”, is actually the ultimate pro-choice move.
It’s the choice of the girl what she wants to happen to her body.
You might not know it, guys, but you are messy. You cause all sorts of stuff, amongst others, yucky infections. At the best of times you’re messy. At the worst of times you can also be very destructive, depending on character and upbringing, and (sadly) mood.
Girls are as curious as boys about sex before they have it for the first time; but as opposed to boys, for girls that first time is rather painful, and the following few times too. Why should a young girl not be informed of that painful aspect? Why let her walk into that knife? Why not inform your daughter that sex causes pregnancy? Even at the tender age of nine! Yes, here in Africa some children are already active that young, and no government regulations, rules or laws can stop them. And (you guessed it) it’s usually the boy driving it.
On the other hand there’s a growing body of young working women who have one or no child, who refuse to have a boyfriend until well into their twenties because “I don’t want to fall into that trap”. What is that, if not the power of abstaining?
We used to protect our children from getting sexual too young (to carry the consequence). What’s happened to that?
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Well, of course girls should be taught they can say no. And boys should be taught, that when a girl says no, it means no. And the other way around also. That is not abstinence. It is the respect of the will of the other person regardless of their gender.
Humans are not biologically exclusively monogamous. There are very good biological and social reasons for mongamy. But the strength of human race is in our ability to adapt and concieve the reprecussions of our actions. Teens are not the most able individuals to understand the reprecussions of their actions, but rather than to punish them for that, it would be wise to teach them (boys and girls) not to be “messy” and hurt each other. And how not to become pregnant or transmit diseases, if they engage in sex. These are the choises we as societies make.
Is the first time not painfull even, if one grows older? If abstinence means abstinence from having more children, I am OK with it, but it does not require abstinence from sex. Scaring girls, that it is going to be hurtfull, is of course a way to make some of them not to engage in sex, but it is only necessary, if the girl does not understand why it would be better to wait for her emotional capacity to grow a bit.
I understand, that sometimes societies are structured so, that one can not change immidiately how those who have more power act, and then the change has to come from some other way. But abstinence is at best a crutch of a socially twisted society, than any sort of long term solution to the problem caused by inequality of the sexes.
Ten year old children are still in the age when their own comprahension does not take them very far and they need to have a trust in the adult telling them what to and what not to do, but when a teenager, say a 15 year old people are allready physically mature enough to reproduce, most often they are not so emotionally. The process is slow but by that age most kids should have developed most of their empathetic skills to understand why to act, or not to. Rather than just do as their parent tells them. It is natural for kids to gradually become more independent and rebel against their parents. And accidents happen. They have allways happened because girls and boys are equally curious about sexuality. So, instead of condemning the accidents, we should teach kids why such accidents are unfortunate and how to awoid the risk. That sexuality is not a “sin” but natural part of human life and how it works.
Abstinence is not a very effective way to achieve this. It seems it is most often preached by people who think they have a moral high ground, to condemn others, but find sexuality such a taboo, they do not even want to disscuss it with the teenagers. Let alone younger children.
Oh, and I am not “messy”. 😉
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“Humans are not biologically exclusively monogamous.” You’re correct. In fact from observation it seems as though many women are (feel) monogamous whereas men tend to be more (emotionally) polygamous, and given the chance, will take the chance. But of course on both sides there are the opposites too, just as there are also, for instance, gay people. (I wonder what adaptation that might be?)
“Is the first time not painfull even, if one grows older?” I suspect, more so!
“But abstinence is at best a crutch of a socially twisted society, than any sort of long term solution to the problem caused by inequality of the sexes.” Disagree. Abstinence is a choice. There’s nothing socially twisted about choosing not to have sex. In the ancient times, women used this as a tool to control men, at times. This shows how civilized we were already in the past, that the men actually allowed this. But of course one can abstain for a month, or until one is “old enough” (for some that is 15 and for some, 21); or for life, which does strike one as a bit odd. I have to add here that in a defunct marriage that stays together by choice, there is often abstinence – for years. It doesn’t necessarily mean that either spouse runs to get sex elsewhere. (Although it does in some cases, of course.)
“15 year old people are allready physically mature enough to reproduce” (sorry about the snippets but I’d insert my answers if I could). Actually, this day and age girls are physically capable of conceiving closer to the age of 9. This is a result of growth hormones in our food and tons of other factors. Capable of conceiving doesn’t mean in any way that they are capable of surviving a pregnancy! If my 9-year-old got pregnant, I’d take her to the doc for an abortion right away because I love her and don’t want her to die! But here in many of the primary schools, children are already experimenting at that tender age – and it’s 11-year-old boys, capable of fathering, having unprotected sex in the bathrooms with 9-year-old girls, capable of conceiving – and dying from it! The incident is called “bullying” rather than what it is, rape, because the boy is also still a child.
Those are not the abortions I’m kicking against. The ones I kick against, are the “social pressure” ones, where teens have sex (because they can, because there’s always that back door), and use abortion like a contraceptive, as in this newspaper article. Btw I blogged on it.
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Btw wanted to tell you: You’re very well-spoken. Thanks for your nice blog manners. 🙂
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“Abstinence is not a very effective way to achieve this. It seems it is most often preached by people who think they have a moral high ground, to condemn others, but find sexuality such a taboo, they do not even want to disscuss it with the teenagers. Let alone younger children.”
Sorry, forgot to answer to this one. 🙂
Essentially, abstinence is the best way to prevent pregnancy. LOL. 100% of people who don’t have sex, don’t get pregnant. As for the moral high-ground: Yes, it is. But as for sex as a taboo: That’s where the problem comes in. Parents have the sacred duty to discuss sex with their children, and abstinence as moral high ground as the most effective way to prevent pregnancy. A girl with a hugely condescending attitude to those permissive girls and randomly fornicating boys is much less likely to engage in sex and get herself into a teen pregnancy. The trick is to allow her to experience the moral high ground. And the moral high ground is not to condemn others (though that happens inevitably as part of it ) but to elevate oneself (in the case of this huge psychological trick, allow your daughter to elevate herself) above the “masses” and therefore onto a safe platform. The platform is only safe as long as two things hold up: Firstly her sexual arrogance, and secondly, that nobody criminally violates her. But it is still a platform. She can find out about all the “down and dirty” when she’s in her 20’s, self-supporting and ready to take it on.
Parental “uptightness” about the “taboo” topic of sex tends to have the opposite effect. So the parent who preaches that sex is dirty, is not only failing immensely, but is also a prime hypocrite (they’re a parent, right?). Children sense this and rebel. A much better approach is to let them know that if they are going to get pregnant at age 15 (“Mommy! How can you say something like that about me? I don’t even like boys!”) we as a family will make a plan and cope and help her raise the baby. She needs to know that she won’t be forced to stick with the little bastard who did this. (If of course he’s willing to wait for 10 years and then propose, well. Whatever. Still have to hear of a single such case. LOL.)
That takes care of the prime fear. But add into that: “Of course once you have a baby, you can forget about studying, having a career, going places…” A 15-year-old with sense in her head will “get” this and think twice before throwing her future down the drips.
Because aborting is in a way also an irreversible choice. You have to forever live with the person who chose to abort. Pamphlet-style activists tend to dismiss these psychological implications as scare tactics, yet they are real. Teen depression, teen suicide are huge topics today. So are the real psychological consequences of an abortion on the girl. This is the knife the activists allow these girls to run into, without a worry. But of course there will also be girls who don’t feel a thing…
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Interesting how this ties in with the pro-choice abortion post.
Humans are not the only animal that will kill its own young. Sows eat their new-born piglets – but only if under threat during birth. Humans are in fact the only animal that kills its own young randomly in order to have more space for more pleasure instead.
Monogamy and marriage are not at all unique to humankind. Many bird species are monogamous for life; many mammals stay together in polygamous marriages for life. This random f*ing around is more suitable to cockroaches. If we can be so mindless to want to fornicate like that, then perhaps pregnancy is Nature’s way to let people know of natural consequence?
But how can we as women expect more respectful treatment from men if we open our legs without worrying? Girls, be of good courage! Many generations of women before you have had the power of abstinence. It can be done! We don’t need to allow our base drives to rule us.
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“Many generations of women before you have had the power of abstinence. It can be done!”
Sigh. Yes, some people can do it, but, again, it’s ridiculous to suggest there is a high success rate. Look at the appalling history of the ‘Magdalene Laundries’ from the 18th to the 20th centuries. This is what happened to ‘fallen women who couldn’t keep their legs crossed’ in your Golden Age of Abstinence. And please bear in mind the women who were forced into these cruel institutions only represent a TINY proportion of the sexually active women in a time when the consequences were much more dire. Many, many more took the dangerous backstreet abortion route; some had supportive families who smuggled them away to have the babies in secret; and the majority resulted in hurried and forced marriage of the ‘fallen couple’. Honestly, it is RIDICULOUS to suggest abstinence can work. It NEEDS to be taught as ONE option in a comprehensive, non-judgemental, universal sex education package. You are making me into a broken record. 🙂
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The topic is too wide. This is where “pro-choice” is too much of an umbrella.
Abstinence in marriage has a 100% failure rate, namely at the moment at which the person abstaining stops abstaining. This much should be patently obvious. I have 3 children and didn’t get them by abstaining. (Not that they were accidents, either!)
But I didn’t have a child at the age of 14. This I did by abstaining. And it wasn’t difficult, in a culture where all my classmates also felt they were too young to indulge in sex and first wanted to finish their education. You see, it is very much culturally bound.
What worries me is this: Since when is it to be encouraged that 13-year-olds bonk like crazy in schools? I mean, some bonking was of course going on back then too, but now it’s a total culture. And when I was a kid, in fact when my mother was a kid there were already contraceptives. So how is it that today’s teens fail to use them effectively? (Personally I’m inclined to say, they get pregnant not because the contraceptives failed, but because they forgot to use them, were “carried away”, got “busy with their schedule” and slipped up on taking the pill, etc etc, I’ve used various types of contraceptives for absolute years (after I decided to stop abstaining because I was an adult) and they all worked 100%. All this would not be an issue if these kids wouldn’t be bonking morning noon and night!)
“Abstaining” is not a term the Catholic church has trademarked. Every sperm is certainly not sacred. But children should be sacrosanct, and as per many countries’ laws, having sex with an under-16 (in many cases even under-18) is considered statutory rape. Just because South Africa has over 60 000 murders per year doesn’t make murder legal here. Ditto, just because under-16’s bonk like mad these days, doesn’t make it ethically or legally right. It doesn’t destroy their self-image to teach them not to do that until they are of legal age. The sad part in this equation is the tragic lack of parenting and the cult of “soapies” on TV that just exploded this bad behaviour into epidemic proportions – and now we have a problem, and try to fix it via abortions?
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I don’t see anyone trying to fix the problem via abortion. It’s an option for any unwanted pregnancy but it’s not one that everyone takes. The most sensible way to fix the problem is by allowing teenagers to make informed decisions … education, information, personal responsibility.
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Now we are on the same page. But one also needs to take into account that it’s 1) cultural (e.g. in some cultures sex is promoted a lot more than in others) and 2) the influence of the media, TV, the school system etc. There are however still laws that make teen sex illegal under a certain age. You’d also teach your child not to shop-lift, and then hope that regardless what the teen culture is, she’ll stick to what you taught her.
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I’m feeling slightly concerned that we’re almost agreeing. 🙂
Yes, information that it is illegal and the law is there to protect them until society assumes they are ready to make an informed decision is part of it. But under no illusion that they will agree, and therefore preparing them how to have safe sex when and if the time comes. I don’t think that needs to be seen as a form of encouragement, but it’s irresponsible to deny that teen sex happens all the time, regardless of how committed teenagers are to the idea of ‘waiting’. Like I say, if the grown up, mega-committed priests can’t stick to abstinence, it’s ridiculous to assume that all kids can do it. And it does nothing for the pro-‘life’ cause to have a bunch of contraception-ignorant children ‘promising’ they won’t have sex.
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Right. However there’s a difference between informing your child that there is such a thing as a contraceptive (and also their dangers, failure rates and side-effects), and putting them on the pill. The latter is like giving them a carte blanche to getting started.
The rampant ongoing sex overload in schools is cultural. Pop culture promotes that to be “cool” you have to have sex. Somehow it didn’t seem to feature when I was at school. On the contrary it was “uncool” to have sex and it cheapened you. Those are only moral values, (and believe me it wasn’t taught to us in the shape of religion, it was simply called upbringing); but the societal moral values seem to have shifted from waiting until you’re of an age of consent, to that we’re so afraid of hurting our children’s self-image by warning them off sex that we fail to do it and let them walk into the trap.
LOL the reason that we’re “almost” agreeing is because we’re really talking about the same thing. The reason it concerns you is because you’ve lumped me in with the Catholic fundamentalists and pro-lifers. 😉 Which I actually find very funny. But seriously now, just because I don’t agree with the “pro-choice” stance (which is a huge illusion), doesn’t make me a “pro-lifer” either.
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Pleased to hear that! I wondered why you were occasionally making sense! 🙂 I think we have very similar views on the subject, but whereas your main fear is ‘a decline in the morality of society’, my main fear is removal of choice, and a blindness to the importance of impartial education.
So, are you real-life friends with Ark? I did wonder why he didn’t start picking on you. You initially seemed like one of his favourite type of targets. 🙂
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Hehehe! I like playing the devil’s advocate. So does he btw. But I have to say that this topic is close to the heart. It’s cultural if one wants to defend or punish a 13-year-old breaking the law by having sex at school. Some cultures also believe in never punishing their children for anything naughty they do… result, Ritalin.
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Please don’t get me started on punishment and obedience! I’ve had a hard enough time keeping up with your essays on abortion and abstinence!
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Sorry.. I don’t do celibacy. I got sidetracked after you wrote ‘I am an animal’ and had to go for a lie down…
Beautiful picture…what sort of flower is that, may I ask?
Apparently my daughter has about 20 pics a dragonfly which she took unbeknownst to moi.
I will nick them off her pc and see what’s what.
Good post…I did read it. 😉
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Thank you so much for asking about the flower! It’s a special gift for all my Catholic readers – from the passion fruit vine in our garden. Amazing flowers. I’ll copy from wikipedia so you get all the details:
The pointed tips of the leaves were taken to represent the Holy Lance.
The tendrils represent the whips used in the flagellation of Christ.
The ten petals and sepals represent the ten faithful apostles (excluding St. Peter the denier and Judas Iscariot the betrayer).
The flower’s radial filaments, which can number more than a hundred and vary from flower to flower, represent the crown of thorns.
The chalice-shaped ovary with its receptacle represents a hammer or the Holy Grail
The 3 stigmas represent the 3 nails and the 5 anthers below them the 5 wounds (four by the nails and one by the lance).
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Thanks for your brave writings. It is all very vital subjects that you touch.
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Thank you Justine, you’re welcome to leave your opinion on any topic. Would you describe ‘Actual Freedom’ as a cult?
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No. Actual Freedom is not a cult. You may have to do more work on it, even before suspecting whether it would be a cult or not. And I have no need, or interest, or time to prove either for it or against it. I am at PEACE! Thanks for your comment. I would like to enjoy more of your writings further.
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I hadn’t heard of it before, and only ask because when I searched for it on Google, ‘cult’ was the suggested (and therefore most searched, I would guess) additional word. I hope I have the opportunity to learn more about it. Apologies if I offended you. Please feel welcome to comment on any subject, as all points of view are welcomed and indeed encouraged.
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🙂
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I am SO screwed up from being raised Catholic. Intimacy issues out the wazoo.
If it had just been explained to me the dangers of having sex … WITHOUT the hellfire & evil part … maybe, I’d be able to understand how love & sex go together. My poor fiancee — got so unlucky.
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Yes that is where the screwed-up comes in, not at the celibacy part. The “sex is evil” concept. Better if parents were to teach their children, “sex has consequences, as does starting a credit card, in either way you’ll want to think about the consequences before engaging in the actions.”
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GREAT POINT! COMPARE sex with other decisions that the kids will have to make rather than isolate it as this awful, dirty thing.
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🙂 but I’d better stop commenting because there’s so jolly much to these interlinked topics, I’ll write a blog post in the comments!
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Well, this interaction one you a follower in me, anyway 🙂
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*LIKE!*
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Now, I am going to like it, because I like some of the thoughts, but I don’t agree with much of it now, ya hear?
I did read it quickly, though, it’s my bday, and I’m bitter 🙂
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Did you say your birthday or do I not understand comment shorthand correctly?? HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! (How old are you?) 🙂
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34. Will probably do an “inspirational” post in a little bit.
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No, he said it’s his bday. That’s one of those things in posh bathrooms, like a funny sort of loo, you know? Sheesh, you’d thing people would know this stuff already?
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I meant, I like your answer! 🙂 Thanks anyway for the like.
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I totally agree! There’s no point in trivialising sex, because it does has really serious consequences. But kids need to fully understand what the consequences are and it’s so patronising to just tell them ‘don’t do it’. Actually, it’s not just patronising, it’s completely irresponsible.
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Is the crazy catholic pro-lifer getting under your skin? I saw his abstinence post but never clicked.
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I think he’s great! I’m pleased that someone is putting such big balls of nonsense out to the world, instead of keeping them private. The opportunity to apply logic and have some open discussions about the topics he’s chooses to post is warmly welcomed! Hopefully other voices like Captain Catholic and askthebigot will chip in.
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The good Captain should indeed! And I do agree… letting these people spout their BS is actually healthy.
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I like reading the Captain’s words, but I get the feeling HE DOES TOO. Hahaha.
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Well, if that smug smarty-pants picture is anything to go by …. 🙂
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Whatever the ‘right’ approach to this issue is, religion should play no part. None whatsoever.
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Reblogged this on ACTUAL FREEDOM JUSTINE – Your Key to Success to be free from sorrow to Happiness and Freedom and commented:
People should start living with awareness. I welcome articles and authors like this to remove superstitions and myths to bring ACTUAL PEACE, HAPPINESS, AND FREEDOM TO SUFFERING PEOPLE!
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Fantastic! I’m going to spend way too much time archive binging….
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Just don’t expect an intelligible response.
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Was her daughter not in an abstinence program and got pregnant?
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I believe she was, but I think my point can be made by Sarah herself:
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And:
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