Student Attitudes toward Guidance in Sexual Morality

The increase in illegitimate pregnancies & the higher venereal disease rate coupled with other evidences of the decline in teenage sexual morality, have become a major source of concern for parents, educators & counselors. Kirkendall has suggested that negative & authoritarian prohibitions on premarital sexual activity should be abandoned & that teaching greater concern for interpersonal relationships will diminish promiscuity by reducing sexual exploitation for personal satisfaction. Poffenberger has challenged this view, claiming that any further deviation from a standard of absolute chastity can only result in more promiscuity. 113 students in Marriage & Family Living classes at the U of Alabama were asked to read reprints of the Kirkendall-Poffenberger Exchange (see SA0000) & choose which protagonist they would support. All but a few of these students were from Mc, Protestant, Ur homes in Southeastern states. In answer to 4 specific questions 41% of the students thought that Kirkendall had the more workable method for sustaining morality while 43% agreed with with Poffenberger (13% insisted both were necessary); 90% felt that Kirkendall's Interpersonal Relations Method would not presently be enough by itself; about 51% felt that someday in the future it might be possible to educate young people to reject premarital sexual experience because of the desire to protect interpersonal relationships; & 76% indicated that they believed that most young people would welcome more definite sexual proscriptions from their parents. The reasons why such guidance is not given are analyzed, & it is concluded that soc changes, including the acceptance of change itself as a value, the downgrading of chastity, the inability of young people to discriminate between permissiveness with affection & sexual exploitation, & the questionable workability of other proposals for controlling premarital sex relationships, have so bewildered many parents that some are not suggesting any standards for premarital sexual behavior & some are tacitly or actively sponsoring premarital sexual relations by their silence or by the giving of contraceptive advice. It is proposed that counselors & educators should seek agreement on standards as the first step towards solution of the parent's dilemma. AA.