'Sup.

I am currently enrolled in a West Australian Catholic school, year 12, only a term from graduating and getting the hell out.

One of the unfortunate prices i have to pay for attending a school in which every second person isn't going to offer me drugs (only other choice i had) we have to take an RE class for 3 periods of the week. Its nothing bad, I'm getting A's in it and its a good time for catching up on my other work.

Today, we had to attend a lecture on NFP; Natural Family Planning... or as normal people call it, the rhythm method of contraception. I walked in expecting a short sex ed class that trys to teach that condoms are the devils socks or some bullcrap, but instead was greeted by a short woman that opened the lecture by casually telling us that she has been bonking her husband for 10 years and has had only one pregnancy, which was completely planned... What did she attribute to this luck? NFP, of course!

After a half hour long powerpoint about the delicious process of ovulation, she ends with the quote of the century "NFP is 98% effective".

I almost lost it right then and there. NFP has a stupidly high failure rate, and teenaged girls attempting to use it is just going to drive the rate higher. Not only that, but the 5 or so "bed anyone" girls are now going to fuck without a condom, assuring their victim that they aren't ovulating and that its perfectly safe...

We have a follow up lecture tomorrow... I just wanted to know what others thought about this, maybe i can string together a coherent argument and get them to stop lying outright.

I'd just look out of the window and let them get on with it (especially if you're in a Catholic school!) You're certainly not going to win the argument here and I doubt anyone else in the class is going to be any more convinced than you are, anyway.

The reality is, you can prove anything with statistics and I'm sure this lady has dozens of studies which appear to support her figures. The only statistic you can rely on is for total abstinence. Proven to be 100% effective as far as I'm aware.
;-)

Get one of those male contraceptive pills and bed one of the 5 girls
Or all 5? ^_^

Poor bloke. I went to a Catholic school for grade one and never after that! I wanted to be in public school and that's where I went. My parents wanted to send me to a private school or an independent, but I simply didn't want that. Even when my sister went to one. And drugs were never a problem, nor was anything else; drink, drugs, violence, sex etc... That stuff happens more on T.V. than in the reality of any particular type of school. In my experience.

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As for this natural planned parenting stuff. There's solid logic to it, women aren't made like bombs that are just waiting to burst out pregnant at the first touch of sperm from anywhere and at any time at all. Fertility goes through cycles, just like with any animal or plant, or fungal species
Humans are fertile a bit more than usual though... and you're right, that it's a bit complicated to manage to make sure of all the time.

The biggest danger though is the spread of STDs. That's the thing condoms are best at preventing. Anything that undermines their use by young people isn't a great thing.

At my school the only one of those that is really a problem is drugs. Almost all the kids do soft drugs. But I think that's more a city-wide problem than just in my school.
Some guy in my friend's school threatened their principal with a crowbar a while back, though.



That's exactly what I was going to say.
Even if your school, being religious, doesn't agree with condoms, they should definitely still promote them as a way of avoiding STDs if these kids are going to sleep around anyways.

Well, once in a rare while, the woman still gets pregnant. Ask Mary.

Will, I don't think it will do any good and arguing with her will only get you in trouble. People like that are not reality based. I have the same problem with an arch conservative acquaintance. I have tried again and again to show him the fact about the bush administration and neo conservatives and the fact roll off him like hot oil off Teflon.

Best just to smile, get an A, and get out of the class. Pick your battles. Save the truth speech for your own kids, and don't bother trying to change her.

OH, now that was just so freaking evil! XD

But pretty much, I don't think you can do anything in this case, other than to hope that your class mates aren't that stupid and use some common sense.

Oh wait... We'er teenagers...

I once did preach to my fellow classmates that we need to have a specific class to teach common sense. If we had a class like that, I'm sure kids would start to THINK before they ACT.

Just pull out at the last moment. Its about mind over matter.

The technical term for people who use NFP (which includes Kyupol's technique) is Parents.

This is the sort of open Stupidity that makes people like me so hard on religion. Whenever this sort of topic comes up, i have to take a deep breath, count to 10, and remind myself that many of the smartest people i have ever met were deeply religious.

It's not religion that makes people stupid - it's just that stupid people are really stupid about religion.

Doesn't always work. There is semen secreted by the male before ejaculation. Just having oral sex would be much more effective.

NFP works better than nothing, but sounds like your teacher had very regular cycles which made it effective. Many women don't so it won't always work. If you plan to bounce from bed to bed I would not recommend NFP because the odds will catch up to you. Use something just a bit more effective like a condom or make sure each of your partners is religiously using birth control etc.

Some women are also more fertile than others.

As far as Mary, the original texts of the Gospels indicate that she may have been merely "young woman Mary" not "Virgin Mary". A virgin birth is one of those things often attributed to the mother of a messiah figure. Christianity happens to be one of more successful ones. Comparative religion can take all the belief out of faith.

while "virgin births" are possible, (as seeing it's been documented in captive female animals who didnt mate with any males due to the lack of one, and not to meition the techology today), the chances of that happening in humans naturally are highly unlikely.

That aside... I have to agree that "Natural family planning" is certainly not for everyone. While that method may work for some females and males, the surefire way to ensure that such methods are "100%" is if you actually combine it with other methods of safe sex, such as condoms, etc.

It's called Parthenogenesis. Don't confuse the issues.

I knew that, and I wasn't confusing the issues. That part about the so-called "virgin births" was more directed at the people who brought up "Virgin mary", more than the actual topic at hand. :P

And if you will notice, I also addressed the topic at hand in the second part of my post.

That. Is. So. Stupid!

some girls in my class actually believe in that logic *PALMFACE* !
condoms are really important ... I am in a school were liberal thinking is revarded .. I´m athiest and so I am very .. strange in my school since most of the people there are like INSANE religious and some of them believe this ... oh my gawd ... why am i surrounded by idiots .. but concerning you ... just argue¨!! that´s what I do *grin* I argue with the teachers all the time and they actually find it fun !! :D just point out the fact that this does not work all the time for all females or all males !

This is stupid;
first of all alot of theese girls may still be going through puberty and during puberty girls don't ovulate in a regular pattern.
Secondly 98% is actually pretty crap since even if only one hundred couples had sex like this logicly two would fall pregnant.
Third, it is stupid to everyone to use this method perfectly, there will be mitakes.
there is nothing wrong with condoms and there is no reason why more than one form of contraceptive methods could be used.
i forgot my other point but it was a dam good one...

Talk about your dead beat dads, He didn't even lift a finger to save Jesus from the Romans.

What a no show!

Maggie Estep had a great spoken word piece about implanting unwanted feotuses into the bellies of pro life men.

Fact is most conservatives wail about contraception and abortion and yet the first thing they want to do is cut funding for all those kids produced by failed abstinence and NFP.

Rich folks will always be able to secure birth control and abortion, laws to the contrary are at best people being moral noseybodies and at worst veiled class warfare.