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  Truth For Youth - Passes and Plays. Comic #05. Art by Tim Todd - © 2004 Revival Fire

Passes and Plays - Truth For Youth #03-03  (SSEX.03)
Art by Johnathan Kolsch - © 2004 Revival Fire Ministries

Marcy likes Skip, Skip likes Marcy- so he’s going to get a first down on a safety while icing the kicker. Or something. In this comic, Truth for Youth takes on the entire idea of safe sex, while engaging in wordplay so hackneyed it should be outlawed.

First Published: April 10th, 2010

 

Page 1 ⇑ ⇓

Andrew	I can picture the planning for this comic. “We’ll call it Passes and Plays. Because Skip totally, you know, makes a pass at Marcy. But she’s just being played. Oh, sometimes I even impress myself!” (Languidly files nails with emery board).
Jessica	You would have thought they would have saved a sport as homoerotic as football for the comic on homosexuality but they went for safe sex, instead. Six of one, half-dozen of the other I supppose.

 

Page 2 ⇑ ⇓

Andrew	Ok, so we’ve got this guy Stats, who I guess is obsessed with statistics, natch. Well, football stats are one thing, but how does he keep track of Skip’s conquests? Does he interview them? Have hidden cameras stashed around? It’s just a mystery!
Jessica	I get the feeling that this is the sort of school where the football team's conquests are not only widely known but also highly touted. After all, we all know how degenerate everyone in "The World" is. By the way, what the HELL is that thing he's writing on? It's like someone's vision of an iPad from the 1970's!

 

Page 3 ⇑ ⇓

Andrew	Double entendres worthy of James Bond, no doubt. With such witty repartee, it’s no wonder Skip is such a ladies man. I’m astonished they didn’t make a reference to his “goal post”
Jessica	That "Wow! Tight!" line is making me sense whiffs of Minnie from the "Hairy Polarity" comic. I know Chick lets his stereotypes play out in his characters, but it seems like Tim Todd likes to portray all of his teenage blondes as total slutty ditzes who use outdated 90's slang like "Slammin'!" and "Bummer!" making them all come off like horrible Bill and Ted wannabees. "Wow, Skip! That's tight.... UNLIKE ME!!!!"

 

Page 4 ⇑ ⇓

Andrew	And heeeeere comes the black guy, conveniently named Reggie, a la Reggie White. While Truth for Youth is consistently more multi-culti than Jack Chick (nearly anything would be), I can’t say I’m surprised that it’s the white guy pursuing sex and not the black guy. Can’t have that there miscegenation!
Jessica	"Wow, are you talking to me, TOO, Reggie?" This chick is just completely sausage-crazy. One gets the feeling she's destined for a career in stripping or hooking, followed by a long retirement servicing out-of-town businessmen in dark alleys behind the local HoJo's. Grow some self-esteem for Christ's sake!

 

Page 5 ⇑ ⇓

Jessica	Ooooohhhh... cock-blocked. Looks like Reggie is gettin' all up in Skip's kool-aid. I would personally find it hilarious if Reggie had the old "John 3:16" written in his eye blacks. I don't think high schools typically enforce the old "Tebow Rule" (although they bloody well should!)

 

Page 6 ⇑ ⇓

Andrew	I know all those things are my idea of fun. Why be such a killjoy, Reggie?
Jessica	If you have sex outside of wedlock you WILL get pregnant and you WILL get a sexually transmitted disease! Cause and effect bitches!!!

 

Page 7 ⇑ ⇓

Andrew	No offense folks, but I think Marcy is kind of begging to be used here.
Jessica	Yeah, she doesn't seem like the brightest crayon in the box, does she. But how much self-respect can she really have when it's clear that Skip has plowed most of the rest of the cheerleading squad? She clearly has to know this is casual sex at its basest, and if she's fine with that, who's to argue? How is it really disrespecting her when she's clearly asking for a drilling?

 

Page 8 ⇑ ⇓

Andrew	Yeah, see my comments on the last panel.
Jessica	You know, the more I think about it, the hotter I think it would be if Marcy and the angel from that Catholic comic went at it.

 

Page 9 ⇑ ⇓

Jessica	Yeah, protect you in the same sense that never getting in a car (or leaving your house, for that matter) will protect you from injury in a car accident. Everyone knows seatbelts aren't 100% effective! Better stay away from cars, guys!

 

Page 10 ⇑ ⇓

Andrew	And heeeeere comes the science and statistics. However, Stats is a little off. According to Stanford’s Sexual Health Peer Resource Center, the failure rate of condoms for pregnancy is more like 3% for correct use. It goes up to 14% when the condom is used incorrectly or inconsistently. So yeah, they’re not perfect. It helps if you combine two varieties of contraception, like condoms and the pill, or Norplant, or whatever. Unfortunately, it looks more like Stats gets his information from www.family.org, better known as Focus on the Family, one of the standard fundamentalist groups. That’s not exactly where I would go for unbiased information. I’ll take my chances with Stanford and Planned Parenthood. I like that Stats specifies that they are “unmarried” teens, as though married teens get different results from their condoms. Oh, yeah, and HPV, which causes cervical cancer. Would that be the same HPV that there is now a vaccine for, a vaccine that certain religious groups are fighting because it removes a source of fear from their toolbox?
Jessica	Yeah, no type of birth control is 100%. But when you mix and match them (and utilize them properly) you get pretty darn close. FAAAAARRRRR closer than just barebacking it, which is what a lot of these evangelical teenagers who have false information on safe sex do. Didn't you know? A "Biblical Marriage"™ changes the inherent chemistry of one's blood, making it caustic to the viruses and bacteria of sexually transmitted diseases. That's why no married couples anywhere have any STD's of any kind. And everyone knows we should listen to the advice of those "Major US Government Health Agencies", whomever they may be.

 

Page 11 ⇑ ⇓

Andrew	Blitzed and sacked. This Alexander Pope-esque witticism apparently comes from Revelation 21:8. That’s totally whack!
Jessica	You're a poet and don't know it! ...aaaaaand Skip is paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair for life... No? I guess instant Karma doesn't exist in this comic's universe.

 

Page 12 ⇑ ⇓

Andrew	You know, I’ve found that people in the health field talk about “safer sex” instead of “safe sex.” That’s a way of acknowledging that there’s no way to reduce the risk of pregnancy, aids, or getting hit by a falling piano to 0%, other than by completely avoiding those situations. However, the results for so-called “abstinence only” sex ed haven’t been so good. Just look at Bristol Palin. The reason places started pushing for safe sex was a basic acknowledgment that a lot of people, particularly teenagers, were going to have sex no matter what they were told, so you might as well reduce the risk of bad things happening. On the other hand, the religious groups would prefer to go head-to-head with human instincts. Self control is valuable, but it’s a lot to expect from a 16 year old.
Jessica	Yeah, I don't know if it would be right to advocate for regular, anonymous sex with multiple partners. But kids these days are doing it younger and younger so it's mostly a choice between them doing it with some knowlegde of how to prevent pregnancy and disease, or going into it totally ignorant. Doesn't take a coin toss.

 

Page 13 ⇑ ⇓

Andrew	I should sure hope that they don’t tell you that in sex ed class- because they’d be wrong! Oddly enough, Planned Parenthood puts “vaginal intercourse with a condom or female condom” into the “Low Risk” group. I guess not too many people score field goals with the HIV virus.
Jessica	I think the half-assed reasoning behind this little nugget is that condoms are made from the same latex as doctor's gloves and those gloves do have holes big enough to let some things through. The main difference is while gloves are dipped in latex once, condoms are dipped twice, probably owing primarily to the fact that while one goes on your hands the other goes on your junk. And frankly, one is a bit more sensitive and vunerable than the other. While latex gloves can fail quality tests at forty per thousand prior to rejecting a batch, condoms can only fail FOUR per thousand, so clearly the quality control is far higher for the latter. Chick is also fond of parading this one out, as can be seen in his tract "That Crazy Guy". So we aren't alone here. Humorously enough "That Crazy Guy" also draws a lot of its "facts" from Focus on the Family. How ironic. You'd almost get the impression they publish scientific journals.
Andrew	It's a little like saying "Airplanes are made of (among other things) aluminum, baked potatoes are wrapped in aluminum. Therefore, if you get on a plane, you're gonna get cooked!"

 

Page 14 ⇑ ⇓

Andrew	And here we get into it. “Didn’t buy our dubious and one sided science? Try this on for size: It’s not God’s Plan!” So God didn’t plan for people to have casual sex, though he gave them the drive to do so. That’s like designing a house and placing it on a faultline, and then getting upset when an earthquake demolishes it. There it is again- marriage leads to safe sex- unless you were one of the unlucky people who got HIV from a blood transfusion during the 80's, and transferred it to their spouse. I know, I know, that kind of thing is less likely now, but my point is the risk is not zero. The risk is never zero, and nobody, other than these people, is trying to claim that.
Jessica	Yeah, reading comics on the internet... totally God's Plan. He had that set up from the get-go. And a lot of those people who picked up HIV from blood transfusions get to live the rest of their short lives with the stigma behind the assumption that only screwing around gives you AIDS. "God hates Hemophiliacs" indeed.

 

Page 15 ⇑ ⇓

Andrew	Jesus time. And now we learn that Marcy is not in fact some wide-eyed innocent, but that she’s already been “sleeping around”- which is not usually a term people apply to themselves.
Jessica	Stats is only 67.6% certain. Did you know 89% of statistics are made up? It's true! And if you've got something incurable because you didn't use a condom, yeah, it is too late Marcy. Deal with it.

 

Page 16 ⇑ ⇓

Andrew	I don’t think a Bible would make a good contraceptive. Just sayin’.
Jessica	Ewwww..... paper cuts.

 

Page 17 ⇑ ⇓

Andrew	Oh, you clever people, all future Noël Cowards no doubt. I’m impressed they waited the whole comic to make a pun on “conversion.”
Jessica	I suppose there are worse things you could receive, but I'm hard pressed to come up with any at the moment.

 

Conclusion ⇑ ⇓

Andrew	Truth for Youth leaves us with a nice simple equation. Don’t have sex outside marriage + frequent Bible reading = no risks of any kind. However, my blood transfusion example from earlier shows it’s not bulletproof. Abstinence sounds like a smart idea, but in practice, people only talk a good game (see, I can do lame sports puns as well!). I think it’s unrealistic to get teenagers to stop having sex entirely. It’s hard enough to get them to use condoms, and abstinence only can give us the worst of both worlds- people who are sanctimonious about sex while simultaneously having it and not knowing how to properly use contraception. The other odd phenomenon is a reported rise in teenagers having anal sex, so that they are “still virgins.” I doubt that’s the outcome the promise ring people had in mind. You can call me a cynic about getting teenagers to stop having sex, but actually I’m an optimist. I tend to think that if people are educated in an honest and unbiased way about both the potential consequences of having sex and how to use birth control, they won’t be so stupid about it. However, stuff like this is part of the problem. This comic’s misinformation and scare tactics encourage people not to use condoms out of some misplaced fear, but don’t help them to make smart decisions about sex.
Jessica	I think that is basically what all of this comes down to. The Religious Right and their "Abstinance Only" sock puppets are of the impression that the solution lies in just getting teens not to have sex. What they all fail to realize is how unrealistic that expectation is for a demographic that is known for making rash, poorly considered, hasty descisions and is practically dominated by their sex hormones. It's like telling recovering drug addicts to "Just say 'No.'" Yeah, that's the ideal course of action, but frankly it's a bit more complicated than that.

 

Further Reading ⇑

• Product page at Revival Fire Ministries
  


• ⚜ Vintage Page