Special
Assignment: Teen Pregnancy ExplainedFebruary 7, 2002
by John Bloom
When teenage girls lock eyes with teenage boys,
It's difficult to marshall their attention.
Of all the battle-tested parents' ploys,
The Bush administration likes "abstention."
"Abstain" is an injunction mostly used
In Parliamentary bodies to denote
A party asking leave to be excused
From having any interest in the vote.
In war "abstain" means "I don't want to fight,"
In peace it means "Your argument lacks fire,"
But when combined with youthful appetite,
"I love you, mom," it means, "but I'm a liar."
In theory we could make her swear an oath
Refusing concupiscent consummation,
Opposing further population growth
And anything resembling fornication.
We could scare her with allusions to disease,
Discourse on abject poverty--but why,
When building up a thousand pious creeds,
Do all collapse when fingers brush a thigh?
"But we abstained!" some righteous parents say,
"We saved ourselves for marriage" (stated smugly),
Neglecting to reveal that, by the way,
They had no dates nor prospects--they were ugly.
Plain girls are always first to praise a virgin,
Shy boys are never advocates of swaining,
It's the ripe ones who are apt to need a surgeon
And the studs who have aversions to abstaining.
The shotgun has its uses in Kentucky,
The gruff demeanor sometimes scares away
The weaker type--besides which, if you're lucky,
Your daughter might befriend a boy who's gay.
Let's see, what else? There's always the stockade,
Which worked for neither Pyramus nor Thisbe.
You might try threats, or bribes, but if misplayed,
Your words will seem less weighty than a Frisbee.
Besides, their teenage ardor, when confined,
Enlarges, grows more monstrous by the day,
It sounds too silly shouting "You'll go blind!"
When they adopt the Joycelyn Elders way.
They have computers, beepers, mobile phones,
Like Talibanic warlords in their caves,
Plotting jihad, led by rank hormones
To secret trysts in malls, cars--Oh God!--raves.
We once considered condoms in the schools,
But that was shouted down as too suggestive.
The morning-after pill breaks all the rules,
And so young hunks and Sweet Sixteens grow restive.
They fumble in the back seats of our cars,
They grope and sweat and pant beneath the bleachers,
Their G-spot knowledge tops their triple R's,
A wisdom oft as not bestowed by teachers!
So now our national war against teen birth
Is bolstered with the President's authority.
His "Just say no to sex" implies a dearth
Of insight into kids' views on seniority.
Of course, he has two daughters of his own
Who made it through their teens without mishaps,
But their reports of who they kissed are prone,
Like all young girls, to feature many gaps.
My own suggestion, though it may seem coarse:
Look to Mexico! where dads have clout.
When teenage girls are caught in intercourse,
Dads throw a wedding, then they throw her out.
Thus lusty youths are made to understand
That anything they gain by subterfuge
Is soon converted into something bland--
No, worse, a prison sentence, something huge.
But this abstaining business is confined
© Copyright 2002
United Press International and Joe Bob Briggs
To prove the proposition of Saint Paul--
Or was it Macchiavelli?--Never mind:
Forbidden fruit soon brings about a fall.