Modern-Day Scarlet Letters
Feb 14th, 2008 by nick
Republican state representative Larry Liston apparently believes that he has an innovative method to prevent teen pregnancy. During a recent meeting, he said,
“In my parents’ day and age, they were sent away, they were shunned, they [young, unwed parents] were called what they are. There was at least a sense of shame… There’s no sense of shame today. Society condones it. … I think it’s wrong. They’re sluts. And I don’t mean just the women. I mean the men, too.”
Wow. I guess it’s not too surprising that this guy’s from Colorado Springs.
To be fair, I should note that Liston subsequently issued the following statement,
“The derogatory term I used was offensive and inappropriate and I would like to apologize for using it.
“Because of my unfortunate choice of language, the message that I was trying to get across about personal responsibility, and parental responsibility, has been overshadowed. I certainly regret using the term I did.”
So he apologized for using the word, “sluts,” but not for the underlying sentiment or antediluvian approach to teen pregnancy. In other words, he’s still nostalgic for some scarlet letters.
At least he’s consistent, in that he claims he thinks the men are sluts too (oh sorry, or that they should also take “personal responsibility”). Because in his “parents’ day and age” only the women were shunned and shamed. The men weren’t considered sluts, they were studs (and still are). Of course I think that both the women and the men should be considered when talking about teen pregnancy, but calling the men sluts as well is not the right way to go about it.
His implication is that a sense of shame, or the threat of shame and ostracism from society, will cause young people to stop having sexual intercourse. I’d like to know where his evidence comes from. According to psychological research, shame-based methods of discipline have never been very successful in changing children’s behavior. Teenage pregnancy is a complex problem that cannot be solved simply by going back in time. One of the underlying causes is that many children reach adolescence starved for affection. In a survey of pregnant teens, over 50% admitted that they had not really wanted sex at all. They just wanted to be held, but they thought that their boy friends wouldn’t be satisfied unless they had sex.