Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Review of "Hooked: New Science on How Casual Sex is Affecting our Children."-Overview

For years the Abstinence Only Education has been a hotly contested topic.  For the most part, those in favor of AOE have been very proud of the fact that they are "following God's plan for marriage."  Virginity pledges, father-daughter balls, and purity rings are all the rage and always laced with the religious underpinning that sex outside of marriage is wrong/immoral.  Now that there is actual evidence to back up the claim that AOE doesn't work, some proponents have finally realized that evidence is important if you are going to make claims against the scholarly consensus.

Enter the Medical Institute for Sexual Health, a conservative think tank created to "identify and evaluate scientific information on sexual health and promote healthy sexual decisions and behaviors by communicating credible scientific information."

I came across the Institute through a book exchange with someone I disagree with on the issue.  I suggested Sex and God by Darrell Ray and she suggested Hooked: New Science on How Casual Sex is Affecting our Children by Joe Mcilhaney and Freda Bush.  McIlhaney is the founder and President of the Medical Institute and OBGYN and has served the CDC in an advisory capacity on HIV/AIDS.  I've been looking forward to reading this book as it purports to provide the latest and best scientific evidence for AOE.

After reading the first chapter though I'm starting to get concerned about the validity and objectivity of the book.  So I decided to record my thoughts and research and make it into a multi-part blog post.  Each post will review and fact check a single chapter.  From what I've seen so far, that still might be too much for each post so we'll see what happens over the next week.

Contents:
Introducing Hooked
Chapter 1: Let's Talk Sex
Chapter 2: Meet the Brain (Part 1: Dopamine)
Chapter 2: Meet the Brain (Part 2: Oxytocin)
Chapter 2: Meet the Brain (Part 3: Vasopressin)
Chapter 3: The Developing Brain and Sex

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