OPINION: Abstinence does not equal success
Saying “success comes to those who wait until marriage to have sex” is like comparing the consumption of massive amounts of green beans to alcoholism — it’s untrue, laughably nonsensical and something you could only find in Utah. Unsurprisingly, an ad ran in the Cache Valley Transit District’s buses claiming those who abstain from premarital sex are bound for success. This statement is so blatantly false that it hardly requires a breakdown; but for the column’s sake, let’s do it anyway.
The first problem lies within the first word: Success. What exactly does success mean? My favorite dictionary definition I found said, “The favorable or prosperous termination of attempts or endeavors.” Another said, “The achievement of wealth, fame, etc.” Yet another said, “Any outcome.”
Clearly there is no way to define success, since for every person it means something different, and — equally important — because success is so transient. If I graduate next summer, I will be rolling in successful bliss, and so will those who hate my columns — but six months later when I still can’t find a job, I may not feel quite so successful. See what I mean? Success is such a broad term that it really can only be used when describing an individual’s personal feelings, and not an entire group.
The next great flaw in this premarital proposition is directly related to the first — this is that “those,” meaning everybody who waits to be intimate, will find success. In 2002, 95 percent of Americans polled had sex before marriage, according to Public Health Reports. Are the 5 percent abstaining the same people being protested on Wall Street, because they’re the ones making all the money? Of course not. They are average people, living average lives, just like the 95 percent who engaged in physical intimacy before marriage. While there is some correlation between premarital sex and high divorce rates, this does not mean causation, and there are many possible explanations.
If it were true that all successful individuals are those who wait for marriage to have sex, I would expect that Utah — and especially Logan — would be filled with people bursting with successful happiness. Au contraire. Utah is No. 17 in the nation for most suicides, and the Utah Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health has seen a dramatic increase in patients treated for methamphetamine addiction. Utah falls just higher than the national average for divorce rates and is about average for rates of bankruptcy. None of these things sound particularly dismal compared to other states, but they certainly aren’t the rosy picture you would expect from a state that generally practices abstinence until marriage — keeping in mind abstinence equals success.
When I spoke with Nathan Coats, the director of the CVTD, he said the only objection to the original ad run in the buses was the word “sex,” since apparently calling something what it is makes people squeamish around here. However, Coats said that any ad could run, whether funded by a private party or a business, as long as it met certain standards. These standards, while not necessarily expressing the opinions of the CVTD, are in accordance with the Utah Code, and include — but are not limited to — “false, misleading or deceptive; sexual, pornographic, obscene, or harmful to minors; promoting alcohol or tobacco use; promoting antisocial behavior; or demeaning toward a minority group.”
I would personally consider the ad in discussion to be false. When I discussed with Coats the possibility of running a counter-ad in the bus system that proclaimed the irrationality of a connection between premarital sex and success, he saw no problem in publishing it as long as it did not cross the guidelines in the Utah Code. These ads are relatively cheap to purchase and reach out to a large number of people every day. Rather than writing an ad that goes tit for tat with the original, the goal here is to create one that is focused around making educated decisions about every choice — including sex — and thereby let young, impressionable people know that their success in life does not depend solely on what they do in the bedroom.