Shelly Donahue's abstinence education "WAIT Training" (VIDEO)

The Denver based WAIT ("Why Am I Tempted?") abstinence-until-marriage program has used over $8.2 million in federal funds to bring assemblies like ones illustrated in the clips below to public schools, churches and community centers throughout the state. The abstinence program, demonstrated by Shelly Donahue, is the subject of this...

By Andy Kopsa

August 11, 2011

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The Denver based WAIT ("Why Am I Tempted?") abstinence-until-marriage program has used over $8.2 million in federal funds to bring assemblies like ones illustrated in the clips below to public schools, churches and community centers throughout the state.

The abstinence program, demonstrated by Shelly Donahue, is the subject of this week's cover story, "Forbidden Fruit."

Despite being cited for using shame and guilt-based methods as well as providing medically inaccurate information, WAIT will receive over $220,000 per year for the next three from the state of Colorado to do more of the same.

You can watch the full WAIT Training seminar video over at Boulder Community Media's Vimeo page. Below are a few clips mentioned in this week's story.

The Tape Example Donahue performs one of several optional in-school activities outlined in the WAIT Training curriculum. Here, she uses a piece of tape affixed and reaffixed to a young man's arm to demonstrate how sex can ruin a teen's ability to bond later in life to a spouse. Donahue also points out in this excerpt how the tape represents the girlfriend: once-clear, now tainted and covered with bits of the boy's dried skin and hair (his DNA). Donahue repeated the process over and over again. Each time the tape -- the girl -- pulled up more debris and lost more of its ability to make a tight bond.

The "Hoover Vaccum" Despite state and federal mandates that Title V recipients provide medically accurate information, WAIT Training's Shelly Donahue tells Loveland High School students that if sperm gets anywhere near a girl's vagina, her vagina will turn into a "little Hoover vacuum" to suck it up.

"Spaghetti and Waffles" Abstinence-only programming repeatedly seeks to reenforce gender stereotypes. Here, Donahue implements WAIT's boys' brain as waffle vs. girls' brains as spaghetti, an analogy to highlight differences in boys and girls thinking and behavior.

"Fireworks Sex" Donahue seeks to entice teens early in her WAIT Training presentation by leveraging the act itself. She tells them as she walks through the WAIT Training talking points that she wants them to have fireworks sex, not "squirt gun" sex. "Fireworks sex" can only happen after your married. Everything before that seems to fall into the "squirt gun" category.

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