From The Dallas Morning News
April 24, 1997
Article by Sandy Louey

Students at Vines High School will get to play a card game in class this week. But to win, they have to understand what it is like to lose. That's the message of a Plano-based group that advocates abstinence as the only safe option to premarital sex.

Each student gets to pick a card that will outline a potential consequence of sex. One teenager may draw a sexually transmitted disease such as gonorrhea. Another may become pregnant. A third could get AIDS.

The exercise is one of the methods that Aim for Success will use to teach teenagers that premarital sex has consequences.

"The only way to win the game of safe sex is not to play the game of safe sex," said Eric Tooley, director of resource development for Aim for Success.

On Monday night, Mr. Tooley gave parents at Vines High School a preview of the program on sexual abstinence that the students will have the option of participating in Thursday and Friday.

A separate group of parents at Williams High School was also given a preview Monday night of presentations that will be made to Williams students on May 6-7.

The programs by Aim for Success are not part of the school district's sex education curriculum, which is abstinence-based. The PTSA groups at Vines and Williams are paying for the presentations.

Sex is one of the most difficult issues that teenagers are confronted with, so it is important that they are educated about their choices and the consequences, said Sherry Jones, programs chairwoman for Williams' PTSA.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's 1995 Youth Risk Behavior Survey of 10,904 high school students from grades nine to 12, 53.1 percent of students had engaged in sex.

Mr. Tooley said the 50-minute presentations cover the consequences of premarital sex such as pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases and emotional scars.

By developing self-control, self-respect and self-discipline, teenagers will be able to achieve their goals, Mr. Tooley said. Condoms are not foolproof, so abstinence is the only sure-fire way to prevent pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases such as gonorrhea or herpes, Mr. Tooley said.

People who have sexually transmitted diseases may not show any symptoms. However, that does not prevent them from being able to infect others, he said.

Mr. Tooley said the hope is that the facts given in the presentation will encourage students to wait to have sex until they are married.

Surveys that Aim for Success conducted of students who took the course in the period from 1993 to 1996 showed the majority of participants were not having sex, he said.

Of the 64,225 students that the organization surveyed, 89 percent of students 14 and younger had not had sex, while 57 percent of students 15 and older did not, he said.

Parents who attended Monday's meetings said they were pleased with the program.

Joan Wheeler, whose daughter is a Vines sophomore, said the program presented information in a nonthreatening way when it discussed the consequences of premarital sex to teenagers.

Cindy Borge, the mother of a Vines sophomore, said it is important that teenagers learn about sexual abstinence as an option.

Mrs. Wheeler said she talks with her children about being responsible, but she knows that the decision of whether to have sex rests with the teenager.

As a parent, she said her hope is that the values that she has instilled in her children will give them the strength to make the right choices, she said.

© 1997 The Dallas Morning News. Reprinted with permission from The Dallas Morning News.

From The Dallas Morning News
April 24, 1997
Article by Sandy Louey