Posted on 04/27/2008 2:15:06 PM PDT by wagglebee
It's not news to anybody these days - not if they watch any television or glance at the covers of the magazines lining the checkout counters at the grocery stores - that we live in a sex-saturated society where supposedly the majority of young people are "doing it," more often than not without "benefit of marriage." The "Playboy philosophy" is trumpeted by a thousand voices that glamorize casual sex, while most of the shrinking mainline churches present pitifully watered-down messages about morality that confuse rather than clarify. Academic institutions, particularly the women's studies programs, promote the idea that marriage is optional and young people are advised to "just do it!" The secular mantra, heard from middle school on up, is that sex will make you popular and happy; it's great recreation that is free and fun.
There is a mountain of media out there promoting a phony philosophy about the joys of casual, risky sexual experimentation; one need look no further than the junk advice featured in magazines like Cosmopolitan to see just how pernicious it is. Even the "Dear Abby" column in many daily newspapers spreads the expectation of sexual activity even for the youngest of our teens. This assault will not be neutralized until a brigade of those who know better find their voices to convince today's Sex in the City generation of young women that only discipline and restraint - it is having an attitude that says, "I won't mess up my tomorrows by fooling around today" - will open the gateway to achieving their dreams and ambitions.
Well, the time for some straight talk about casual sex is long overdue. Every young person needs to know the following three truths:
Truth #1: Casual sex impairs the ability to establish a lasting emotion bond. When natural human emotional responses are repeatedly denied, the person is hardened and the capacity to bond is weakened. Dr. Donald Joy published groundbreaking research in the early 80s and has updated it periodically in the intervening years. He chronicles the ways that intimacy produces bonding. His research indicates that human beings respond to sexual intercourse by bonding, and they are driven to make that bond permanent and exclusive.
Dr. Joy reported on the work of a researcher at a hospital clinic in Detroit who worked with 1,000 couples for 10 years studying their marital problems and recording their sexual histories. He concluded that sexual intercourse is constructive only within marriage. His evidence is overwhelming that one or the other of the partners in casual sex (usually the girl or woman) experiences immediate emotional pain even in the absence of acknowledged injury. The experience of casual sexual intimacy produces memories that can contaminate future relationships and create lingering problems later on, when the person eventually marries. When the married couples in his research had problems, he said, "The pain in the marriages was rooted in their promiscuity."
Truth #2: Casual sex leaves young people alone and lonely. Counselors tell us that sexually active girls are three times more likely to be depressed than their abstinent peers. Among the boys, sexually active ones are depressed twice as often. Sexually active teens are more likely than their abstinent counterparts to attempt suicide (girls 15 percent to five percent and boys six percent to one percent). But the most telling fact is that the majority of teenagers, 72 percent of the girls and 55 percent of the boys, acknowledge regret over early sexual activity and wish that they had waited longer to have sex. So much for the cultural mantra that "sex is no big deal!"
On another front, replacing marriage with casual sex is especially harmful to young women's long-term well-being. The marriage rate in the United States has dropped by nearly 50 percent since 1970. In 1940, less than eight percent of all households consisted of people living alone; now more than a quarter do. The number of unmarried couples living together temporarily in the U.S. is 10 times as large today as in 1970.
Truth #3: The so-called "sexual revolution" has produced dramatic increases in sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Sadly, 65 percent of STDs appear in young people under age 25, and fully 20 percent of all AIDS cases are among college-aged young people. In the U.S., over 15 million new cases of STDs appear annually, a number that is triple what it was six years ago. Having three or more sexual partners in a lifetime increases a woman's odds of cervical cancer by 15 times.
The National Center for Health Statistics analyzed data from the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth and found two startling facts. Among young women who used contraception at first intercourse, the probability of giving birth at each age is roughly half that of those who did not use contraception. Further, the probability of a sexually active female giving birth approximately doubles between 18-20 years of age whether the young woman uses contraception at first intercourse or not.
A young person's choices about sex reveal his or her attitudes about others. Is sexual activity merely fun and games? No. Treating sex as something casual can never actually make it a casual matter. The Scriptures raise the age old question, "Can a man take fire to his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?" (Proverbs 6:27, NKJV)
Sexual intercourse can be an intense and pleasurable experience, but it is more - much more. Sexual intimacy triggers the strongest and deepest, most exhilarating passions in life. Its purpose is to bond a man and a woman into "one flesh" in the deepest intimacy that human beings can share. Further, sex is designed to both create life and build a strong relationship to protect and provide for that life. Little wonder that the Creator fashioned the means of creating life in such a way that it is one of the most awesome forces in our lives and then linked it to marriage so as to signify to us, "Priceless. Handle with great care."
It is impossible to ignore or dictate to nature. Young people need to choose carefully. Sex can never be free; choices always have consequences. We cannot expect young people to act responsibly when adults - whose thinking is sometimes clouded by their rationalization of their own hurtful and toxic sexual experimentation - are irresponsible by not providing the best possible information to encourage self-discipline and self-control, which are the surest keys to young peoples' long-term well-being.
The problem is that the left believes that life should be totally free of consequences.
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This is a really good article; I saw it on the “Townhall” email a couple of days ago. It just makes you want to beat your head on the desk!
Ping for future reading
I’m glad this was posted because I wanted to get something off my chest. My husband and I were watching CBS TV I believe on Monday. It started with a show called, HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER..The whole show was about having casual sex. This show is not on Prime Time, I believe it is 8pm. The jokes were not casual, they were GRAPHIC. Next show - TWO AND A HALF MEN. The whole premise of this show is about a man who has nothing but casual sex...although they try to make him seem unhappy sometimes, he is glorified..by the men and the women...All the women are portrayed as either self-centered control freaks or bimbos..there are no real in betweens. The sex is constant, talked about in a graphic nature. EVERY joke is about sex. Period.
Next up - RULES OF ENGAGEMENT about a married couple...a couple who are engaged but living together and their single friend who is an out and out hound dog. AGAIN, sex, sex, sex - trying to have a baby - and sex.
I looked at my husband and I just said, think about what we just watched for an hour and a half...pure, unadulturated meaningless sex WITH NO CONSEQUENCES. It was sobering...really. I am no prude, (as well you know) but what has become of us? Where are the censors? The joks are so graphic. I wonder how kids deal with all of this...well..I think we know...drugs and violence and sex.
Our country - particularly Hollywood, should be ashamed of themselves.
This was on regular CBS broadcast TV?
“On another front, replacing marriage with casual sex is especially harmful to young women’s long-term well-being. The marriage rate in the United States has dropped by nearly 50 percent since 1970. In 1940, less than eight percent of all households consisted of people living alone; now more than a quarter do. The number of unmarried couples living together temporarily in the U.S. is 10 times as large today as in 1970.”
Am calling BS on this segement of the article. The explosion of divorce is not a direct result of casual sex. A more plausible candidate would be the post WWII exodus of women from the home into the working world and higher education.
Benefit of marriage...
What the hell is that, a guarantee of a divorce?
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Too much junk science in this article. Confusing correlation with causation (maybe the depressed girls turn to sex to gain affection, instead of the sex causing the depression). And slight myth making (referring to the number of “college-age” AIDS patients, when few college students have AIDS, and it’s the unprotected gay sex recipients, and the needle abusers who have it.
Why didn’t you change the channel or turn off the TV?
What happens is that a life free from consequences is a life without meaning and a life without meaning is meaningless. I never waited till marriage but I did marry the only one I’ve ever had sex with. I had been taught from an early age that relationships were to find someone for marriage not to find someone to sleep with. It wasn’t about recreation it was about finding a mother for my future children and a good wife. People would be a lot happier if they thought about relationships that way and chose a mate based upon criteria other than how much they excite them.
What the hell is that, a guarantee of a divorce?Most of us married folk are never getting a divorce. A minority get them often and that makes the stats look bad.
The benefits:
Doing God's Will, nurturing the next generation - the future, having a friend for life, preservation of capital (divorce is devilishy expensive), preservation of culture, and never being alone.
Agreed. A second reading only exposes more flaws and fallacies. Remind me to ignore this unreliable source in the future.
Survival of the fittest.
Natural selection.
Whatever.
I think part of it is that commercial TV is becoming obsolete and the networks will do ANYTHING to save it. The other part is that I don’t think there is any possible way to claim that Hollywood IS NOT pushing agendas.
Poking a stick into a hornet’s nest:
Sex is a financial transaction. The man gets the promise of offspring. The woman gets a protector and provider.
If the man pays up (gets married), but doesn’t want a child, he bought an empty box. So few of these men will marry.
If the woman gives it away (sex), she is cheating herself out of a large (one half of a man’s lifetime assets and earnings, probably a million dollars) payday.
In our modern world, government has assumed the role of protector. And thanks to education and gender equality hiring laws, women have a chance to earn very good wages. A husband is not needed to provide.
If the woman and man both agree they don’t want kids then sex has little value. It’s just recreation.
I don’t deny there is a bonding aspect to sex. I just believe that the dirty socks on the floor (for her) or putting up with the PMS (for him) overwhelms this and without the financial dependence or need for protection, there is much less to hold the couple together.
I know, I know, companionship. Let’s discuss the popularity of dogs...
I think it was the 60's free love generation followed by the feminist movement of the 70's that reduced marriage to an oddity.
TV, like all mediums, is becoming increasingly fragmented. There are more television shows on today than ever before, each of them catering to their own little piece of the market.
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