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Condoms can’t be trusted and boys don’t cry in Catholic Paraguay’s first sex ed program (apnews.com)

submitted 2 months ago by girlfreddy@lemmy.ca to c/world@lemmy.world

26 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Ahead of her 15th birthday, Diana Zalazar’s body had gotten so big she could no longer squeeze into the dress she bought for her quinceañera to celebrate her passage into womanhood in Paraguay.

Her mother sought help from a doctor, who suspected that growing inside of the 14-year-old Catholic choir girl could be a giant tumor. Next thing Zalazar knew, a gynecologist was wiping down the probe she’d applied to her belly and informing her that she was in her sixth month of pregnancy.

It made no sense to Zalazar, who had recently had sex for the first time without realizing it could make her pregnant.

In Catholic Paraguay, which has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in South America, many young mothers explained their teen pregnancies to The Associated Press as the result of growing up in a country where parents avoid the birds and the bees talk at all costs and national sex education is indistinguishable from a hygiene lesson.

“I didn’t decide to become a mother,” Zalazar said. “I didn’t have a chance to choose because I didn’t have the knowledge.”

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[-] icerunner_origin@startrek.website 105 points 2 months ago

As an ex-Catholic, I would like to say, fuck the Catholic church. For this bullshit and their many other crimes, moral failings and abuse.

[-] ravhall@discuss.online 92 points 2 months ago

The hilarity of assuming your kid had a tumor before assuming they were pregnant

[-] cmoney@lemmy.world 39 points 2 months ago

It's a parasite

[-] ravhall@discuss.online 15 points 2 months ago

I fucking love him. Those writers are the most cynical I’ve ever seen. They can destroy anything.

[-] PrincessLeiasCat@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 months ago

Man - somehow I missed this show when it was on but it looks goddamn amazing. I need to remember to stream it.

Also - was that Ashley from The Boys?? Nice!

[-] ravhall@discuss.online 9 points 2 months ago

Nah that wasn’t her but it kinda looks like her. The show is good but when the main cast changes it goes down a bit. Since it’s pretty episodic, you can just stop unless you’re invested in the ongoing plot, which is… meh, imo.

[-] CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 2 months ago

The arch of House and Ritter (the detective) was probably the worst.

The arch of House going to rehab and then dealing with the fall out is the best.

[-] ech@lemm.ee 10 points 2 months ago

Friendly fyi - it's just 'arc'. Arch is used with structural things like bridges. It could also be used to describe the attitude of an over the top antagonist.

[-] Crashumbc@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

I forgot about the detective, I think I blocked them mentally and skipped those during rewatches...

[-] dutchkimble@lemy.lol 2 points 2 months ago

Can imagine the gynae whipping out in the best Arnold voice they could muster - It’s not a tumaaah

[-] cygnus@lemmy.ca 60 points 2 months ago

Joke's on Diana — kids getting knocked up is exactly what the church wants.

[-] Sanctus@lemmy.world 52 points 2 months ago

Sounds like a factory that produces mentally ill people

[-] Mammothmothman@lemmy.ca 43 points 2 months ago

Yes have you not heard of Catholicism before?

[-] InvertedParallax@lemm.ee 5 points 2 months ago

You think that's something you need to visit the south.

Jesus is coming to take them away on his spaceship just before he nukes the jews, atheists, catholics, and all other non-Christians any day now.

[-] Dasus@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago

Not just the non-Christians, the wrong Christians as well.

[-] otp@sh.itjust.works 9 points 2 months ago

I don't think ignorance is a mental illness

[-] rockhstrongo@lemmy.world 47 points 2 months ago

I went to an all-boys Catholic highschool. I had a teacher that was a Christian Brother. One day he had an argument with a classmate over how effective condoms were. He basically argued that condoms don't work. (Even arguing that a Ziploc bag couldn't keep semen from escaping.)

This teacher was pretty popular because he was a character, who'd sometimes make crude jokes.

After graduating, some friends and a I ran into him at a mall. He asked us "What are you guys up to? Picking up little girls?"

We laughed it off thinking he was still his same old jovial self.

Not long after, I heard that this same teacher had been arrested for being involved with minors. His "joke" that day seemed like some major projection.

[-] acosmichippo@lemmy.world 20 points 2 months ago

even for crude humor that's just gross.

[-] TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world 40 points 2 months ago

I grew up with religious parents. Looking back, they restricted me from doing things, even innocuous, without explicitly stating we to why. But I know that it's because they are afraid I "might get ideas". Fortunately, I have been to good schools and got taught about basic sex education. Ironically, my parents sending me to good school taught me better than being "taught" by my parents who don't want me to "get bad ideas".

[-] Danquebec@sh.itjust.works 6 points 2 months ago

I wonder how she thought she'd get pregnant.

[-] The_v@lemmy.world 27 points 2 months ago

For many religious groups it's common for teens and even young adults to not have a clue where babies come from. The biological urge to have sex is still there. So teens experiment around and figure it out but often don't understand the consequences.

Teens are going to have sex whether you teach them anything about or not. Comprehensive sex ed reduces teen birthrates and STD transmission. It also delays the age when they initiate sex.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1525/srsp.2008.5.3.18

[-] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 2 points 2 months ago

You'd think knowledge of where babies come from would be the worst kept secret ever, but here we are.

[-] Danquebec@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I understand, but it's the "It made no sense to Zalazar", which seem to imply that she thought she knew how she could get pregnant.

[-] GoodEye8@lemm.ee 9 points 2 months ago

Maybe she was taught the "when mommy and daddy really love each other" way of getting pregnant.

[-] militaryintelligence@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago

I learned abstinence only bullshit in school. Many pregnant teenagers in high school

this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2024

362 points (99.2% liked)

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