So, sex – are you spaghetti or waffles? Teaching sexual abstinence is a booming area of the ‘lifestyle coaching' industry. Too bad it doesn't work
By BARBARA EHRENREICH
Author of Nickel and Dimed and winner of the 2004 Puffin/Nation Prize
If things are not working out as planned, you might want to consider a career in the expanding field of abstinence education. The need is staggering: Four out of five people I surveyed on the street thought abstinence training is something you do with your midsection in the gym. Plus, unlike any of the rest of the coaching industry – career coaching, life coaching, sales training etc. – this form of training is generously subsidized by the U.S. government, and has been since Bill Clinton signed the 1996 welfare reform bill, which provided abstinence training for impoverished women (though not, alas, for him).
It's not rocket science, either. In fact, there've been men in my life who were naturals at abstinence training without the slightest formal preparation: One renounced dental hygiene; another developed a passion for Frank Sinatra – leading me in each case to embrace abstinence without any regret. In yet another case, marriage alone was enough to induce that sanctified state.
Most people, though, require a bit of training to get into the abstinence training business, so I went to the website of WAIT Training to look at the sample curriculum for an abstinence course. The suggested syllabus contained a lot about love, marriage and sexually transmitted diseases – none of it terribly technical – until I got to the part about how to explain the difference between the sexes, where the following demonstration was suggested:
Bring to class frozen waffles and a bowl of spaghetti noodles without sauce. Using these as visual aides, explain how research has found that men's brains are more like the waffle, in that their design allows them to more easily compartmentalize information. Women's minds, on the other hand, are more interrelated due to increased brain connectors.
Maybe my spaghetti brain wasn't up to this challenge, but it did seem to imply that sex would involve a mixing of waffles and pasta, probably with syrup and tomato sauce thrown in for juiciness. Well, maybe that's meant to be a surefire recipe for abstinence. My next step was to call Joneen Mackenzie, executive director of WAIT (the acronym for Why Am I Tempted?), to further pin down the requirements for becoming an abstinence trainer. Her program admits only college-educated people, but they can be of any age or sex.
“Do they have to be abstinent themselves?” I asked. Not at all, she assured me, confessing to being “like an animal” with her husband. How about gays? Well, yes, they could teach abstinence to gay teenagers. So – no barriers at all, and you can become a Certified Abstinence Trainer after only two days of training.
There is, however, one shadow hanging over the abstinence training industry. A study commissioned by Congress revealed in April that abstinence training doesn't work: Students exposed to such training turn out to be no less likely to have sex than those who are not, leading some to question the $100-million the U.S. government spends on it annually.
Ms. Mackenzie dismissed the study out of hand, saying it had been undertaken before serious abstinence training really got off the ground. But there's a deeper problem with abstinence training: It's being wasted on kids. What better way to make sex a big deal than to tell kids they can't have any for years, and then only after spending $25,000 on champagne and bridesmaid dresses?
Furthermore, kids have become more sophisticated thanks to programs such as D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education), the website of which proclaims that “cannabis can double chances of psychotic illness” and “just one cigarette can lead to addiction.” If you've known honour students who smoke marijuana, why should you believe teen sex leads to heartbreak and oozing genital sores?
Here's my advice for the abstinence training industry and any novice abstinence trainers: First, leave the teenagers alone and focus on the vast neglected demographic of middle-aged and elderly people, including the married. Many of them have thought they just weren't getting any, so imagine how happy they will be to see their lifestyle affirmed as a noble, proactive choice. Think of the market for silver chastity rings in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities.
Second (and I realize this may be more controversial), the abstinent training profession should be restricted to abstinent people. Would you undergo computer training with someone who hasn't touched a computer since 1987? Would you hire a flabby personal fitness trainer? No – nor do I think you should study abstinence with someone who behaves “like an animal” in bed.
Abstinence may be easier to achieve than you realize. Contrary to the assumptions of the framers of U.S. welfare reform, poverty – or at least sudden downward mobility – can lead to the rapid exit of significant others. You should welcome their departure and, if you are heterosexual, take it as an opportunity to withdraw into your own gender-appropriate Tupperware compartment – spaghetti or waffle.
