Hand Holding: Gateway to Sexual Activity

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Oh, Tennessee. We can’t say gay, you’re teaching creationism in schools, you insist on abstinence-only education when it comes to sex, and still manage to have one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the country and now this? Hand holding?

Yes, in their battle to be known as the most draconian state in American history, Tennessee lawmakers passed SB 3310, a bill that upholds the circa 1500’s abstinence-only law already on the books and adds something extra. Hand-holding and kissing are now defined as “gateway sexual activities.” This hysteria stems from an unfortunate incident in 2010 when an AIDS awareness group visited a school, and demonstrated how to have safe sex using a “sex toy” and a condom.

Yes, I would probably freak out if someone visited my son’s 9th grade class and chatted amiably about oral sex while waving a dildo around in the air. Odds are, however, that my son and his friends would be laughing so much, they would miss the entire lecture. But the traumatic event that started the shit storm that is now SB 3310 happened TWO years ago, and the group apologized and changed the way they speak and demonstrate to schools. Current props may include a banana, a Ziploc baggie and an aspirin.

Just say no to hand-holding, kissing, dating, just stay a virgin until you get married education doesn’t actually work. Want proof? Bristol Palin. Ms. Palin was taught abstinence and look where it got her. Knocked up by a guy named Levi who went on to pose for Playgirl and whine a lot. Bristol went on tour, with her son, preaching about abstinence and what a super duper idea it is. That’s a hard sell-holding your baby on your hip as you lecture others about premarital sex. Sort of like standing in front of a crowd of teenagers, railing against drug use with a needle full of heroin dangling out of your arm.

I had my first kiss at the ripe old age of 15. I was a virgin until I was almost 19, not because I was taught abstinence, or told that if I had sex before I was married, I would go to hell and be thrown out of the house. No, I waited because I wanted to be in love, and I was too busy living my life to worry about sex. It wasn’t a big deal to me. But, I’ll bet you $10,000 of Mitt Romney’s money that if my parents had said “You will not have sex, sex is icky and bad and if you have premarital sex, you are a harlot,” I would have lost my virginity a lot earlier than age 19.

Statistics show that teens who take “virgin pledges” are less likely to use contraception the first time they have sex. That makes sense. If you’ve taken this pledge, which is pointless in my opinion to begin with, and you decide to fall off the wagon, you are not going to be on the pill or have a condom in your wallet. And if the person with whom you are having sex is not a virgin, you are exposing yourself to pregnancy and STD’s and even AIDS.

We’re explained to our son that sex is a really cool thing, and if done correctly and at the right time, can be a loving act engaged in by two people who care for one another and are committed to one another. Having sex in high school just so you can brag about it to your friends does not fall into the category of “good reasons to have sex.” Nor does “all my friends are.” We’ve also shared that IF he decides to have sex before college, he better use protection, because we live in the country and the last thing I need is Joe Bob storming my house with a gun, dragging little deflowered Suzy behind him.

Tennessee. What the hell are you doing? Holding hands does not lead to sex. Hormones lead to sex, and the only way to deal with those is…um…there is no way to deal with those. So teach your kids to be smart, to be responsible and to use common sense, but don’t teach them to “just say to” to sexual feelings and urges. That didn’t work for the Catholic church and it’s not going to work for you.

I do believe this will create jobs, though. Think of all the out-of-work blacksmiths who will now have hundreds of orders for chastity belts. This bill will also help the adult entertainment industry, since most teens have the Internet, and if they can’t hold hands, well, guess what they’ll be doing at 1AM when Ma and Pa are sound asleep? They’ll be masturbating, which is probably the next thing to be banned in Tennessee. No saying (or being) gay, no sex, no self-gratification, no kissing, no hand-holding. Yeehah.

Thanks to Daily Kos and Center4Research.org for contributions to this article, and my friend, Larry Henson, for making me aware of SB 3310.

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