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Article ID: CBB001213536

From Birth Control to Sex Control: Unruly Young Women and the Origins of the National Abstinence-Only Mandate (2013)

Canadian Bulletin of Medical History/Bulletin Canadienne d'Histoire de la Medecine
Volume: 29, no. 3
Issue: 3
Pages: 77-99
Publication date: 2013
Language: English

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Birth control; contraception; sterilization Women and health Family planning Public health Medicine and politics Conservatism (political ideology) Sexual behavior Sexuality 20th century, late United States

In the early 1980s, conservative politicians in the United States argued that the federal government was promoting promiscuity by providing teens with confidential access to government-funded family planning services. Claiming the problem was not that young women were getting pregnant but that they were having sex, they promised a new national policy---one that would stress self-discipline and family values over sexual indulgence. As argued in this paper, the resulting abstinence-only federal mandate both draws upon and reinforces traditional sexual scripts, which hold young women responsible for keeping male passion in check, thus selectively burdening them with the work of doing abstinence. Au début des années 1980, un certain nombre de politiciens américains conservateurs ont argué du fait que le gouvernement fédéral promouvait la promiscuité sexuelle en permettant aux adolescentes d'avoir accès à des services e planning familial subventionnés, ce en toute confidentialité. Prétendant que le problème ne se trouvait pas dans le fait que les jeunes femmes puissent se retrouver enceintes mais dans le fait qu'elles avaient des relations sexuelles, ils ont promis une nouvelle politique nationale qui mettrait l'accent sur la maîtrise de soi et les valeurs familiales plutôt que sur la liberté sexuelle. Dans cet article, il s'agit de montrer que le mandat fédéral de promouvoir une éducation d'abstinence ( abstinence-only ) qui en a résulté repose en même temps qu'il renforce des scénarii sexuels traditionnels dans lesquels les jeunes femmes sont chargées de mettre en échec les pulsions masculines et ainsi responsables de la mise en pratique de l'abstinence.

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