Sex, Engineering, and the Difficulty of Satire

An an engineer, I resent....

Wait a minute... how long have I been an engineer?...

Is it too late to change my major after 29 years?

Well, on the one hand, I am an engineer, but on the other hand the lack of sex in my early life was a result of being cripplingly shy, not because there weren't opportunities. I doubt I would have done any better in the sex department with any other career choice.

I think it's more a case of "engineering fields tend to attract guys who are too shy to ask women out in the first place" than "being an engineer means you aren't going to be able to have sex".

I'm inclined to agree with tceisele (#2).

It seems to me that the money spent on campaigns such as this would be better spent on campaigns that recognize the fact that teens and young adults are going to have sex, and focus on educating them on making responsible and informed choices.

It seems to me that the money spent on campaigns such as this would be better spent on campaigns that recognize the fact that teens and young adults are going to have sex, and focus on educating them on making responsible and informed choices.

That's based on the mistaken assumption that the people pushing these campaigns actually care about the welfare of young people...

That's based on the mistaken assumption that the people pushing these campaigns actually care about the welfare of young people...

Very true. They seem not to let reason get in the way of ideology.

On the other hand I had a friend in high school who was a very good student and very talented musician. He was trying to decide which music school to attended. He then discovered that condoms occasionally break. Being a husband and father at 18 meant getting a job to support a family. Last I knew he, his wife, and kids were doing well so it is not a tragic story, but I wonder, I don't know if he does, what might have been?

Do we want to live in a society that accepts "it feels good, so it must be good" as our moral standard?

@Jim C

Do we want to live in a society that accepts "it feels good, so it must be good" as our moral standard?

Umm...I do within reason. Smoke pot? Sure. Drink like Paris Hilton? Go nuts. Have more sex than Ron Jeremy and Genghis Khan put together? Sign me the hell up. Drive drunk/high/horny? You've lost me.

However, I think that our society is best built upon the notion that if something makes you happy-and it doesn't infringe on the rights of others-you should get to do it as much as you can stand. And you should be allowed to make your own judgments about whether or not something that feels good is good in your instance. As an example, I love hot wings and fries, and I mean absolutely adore them. They feel good in my mouth, they have an amazing aftertaste and it makes me feel good. Until later, when I've suddenly gained 30 pounds. That's why I don't eat them; I've decided that I'd rather be fit than enjoy those wings. Another of my friends is almost 240 pounds, but has decided he'd rather eat hot wings and fries than be fit. The great thing about America is that is his choice.

I'm going to address your story as well. Firstly, it is a terribly tragic story. His potential was wasted, and not because the condom broke but because he and his girlfriend didn't pursue EC, an abortion or an adoption. I don't know how old you are, but I will presume that you went to high school in a time before Roe v. Wade and EC was widely available. No one, as far as you've told us, forced this young man to become a husband and father; it was his choice. I happen to think he made the wrong decision, because you say that everything worked out all right, but that is the exception and not the rule.

Pre-marital sex is the norm today, and rather than trying to force the world back into a Victorian moral environment (where men regularly visited prostitutes, mind you, and often brought VD home with them or left their "regulars" with children) we should be adopting all the options available to help make sex as hassle-free as possible.

That's why I support sex ed in 5th grade, condoms distributed freely in 8th-12th, EC prescriptions available widely and abortions on demand. Further, pharmacists should be severely punished for trying to make anyone's sex life harder.

And I support these things because they were available to my friends when I was in high school. Too many fell victim to exactly your friend's issue: their condom broke. In one particular instance I was privy to what happened after the break. Luckily, I went to high school in an enlightened era and my friends just kept EC on hand for such an emergency. The girl also happened to be on the pill, which probably was enough to keep her from getting pregnant, but they took no chances and their story has a happy ending: she is now in law school at Boalt Hall and he is an agent at William Morris.

We talk occasionally, and while your friend might sigh wistfully while wondering what might have been my two high-powered friends shudder.

What an offensive and enraging bit of propaganda.

@Jim C
I'd rather a society which valued human pleasure and worked to inculcate critical thinking in its citizens so they can analyze costs, risks, and benefits and make good decisions. Better that than the hideous "if it feels good, it must be bad" bullshit promulgated by that nutjob Paul of Tarsus and his intellectual progeny.

@tceisele
Yeah, that's pretty much my story. My wife has a theory about gifted kids, how they're told they're in the 90+th-percentile, and how that gives them a life-limiting aversion to risk. They excel in certain subjects and don't don't pursue new activities they don't immediately excel at because their inevitable failures challenge their "90+th-percentile" label. The fear of failure (the root of shyness) can be crippling and while it can be overcome, IIRC there's no emphasis placed on overcoming it within the educational system (this is different from self-esteem issues which do get addressed.)

But "we" don't really want our kids to get critical skills and self-confidence because they'd start thinking for themselves and become unmanageable.

"On the other hand I had a friend in high school who was a very good student and very talented musician. He was trying to decide which music school to attended. He then discovered that condoms occasionally.... Do we want to live in a society that accepts "it feels good, so it must be good" as our moral standard? "

Comprehensive, reality-based, age-appropriate sex and sexuality education might well have prevented your friend's predicament by teaching him that (1) condoms can break, so use a backup method; (2) it's possible to indulge sexual urges without intercourse; (3) marriage is not the only appropriate response to unintended pregnancy (I'm sure your friend's girlfriend would have appreciated the opportunity to do something besides get married right away).

The point of sex-positive sexuality education is not to tell teens that they should be having sex. The point is to accept that sex will be a part of life for most of us, some will become sexually active in their teens, and that sexual activity entails risks and responsibilities.

@Jim C:

We, as a society, do seem to want to punish the young people who get "unluckily pregnant" for their sexual choices. Maybe if your friend and his girlfriend wanted to keep and raise their child, we, as a society, could have helped it not mean then end of all of their dreams. A bit of help with daycare and housing while one or both parents pursued further education could have made things a lot easier. It might not have taken much.

On further reflection, my response to the billboard is simply "Whatchoo talkin' 'bout, Willis?"

The billboard is as grotesque as this hypothetical reversal: "It's my future! I want to be a porn star. Engineering can wait!"

In one High School Math class where I was a substitute, one young lady Senior was discussed at lunch (faculty cafeteria) by her teachers. She was smart, but had clearly decided to do no schoolwork at all, voluntarily throwing away the whole year, and graduation.

So my question became: WHY don't you want to do any schoolwork? What do you see yourself doing in, say, five years.

"I want to be running a strip club."

"Okay," I said. "I'll give you credit for having a specific plan. But let me explain why strip clubs are a high-risk low-margin business, with cash flow skimmed by your employees, requiring huge payoffs to local cops and gangs. And if you don't know the Math, you have to hire a CPA who does..."

Hey, don't be mocking the message of the highest ranked Abstinence Education program.

I'll give that a moment to sink in.

At this point, my brain's only hope for a comprehensible universe is learning that this billboard was produced by irony-fueled hipsters who infiltrated the "Sex can Wait" organization on a lark.

@phisrow: We can only hope. I credit DEVO with giving me the coping skills to deal with the insanity we see on a daily basis. That Mothersbaugh & Co. have been supplying jingles to the ad industry for decades gives me hope there's a graphic designer whose rent is paid by subverting and grifting the abstinence-only wingnuts.

I've been traveling and am catching up. That picture made me laugh out loud -- which I don't think is the reaction that they intended.

MKK--married 2 EEs, but, as Jordin says, in series not in paralell (one of Jordin's 3 degrees is EE)