Posted on 10/24/2007 4:46:57 PM PDT by wagglebee
When a faithless society delivers the message that pre-marital sex is okay (regardless if you "get caught"), and when parents -- either through word or action -- fail to convince their teens that sex outside of marriage is wrong, you get what we've got: a real mess.
Remember a few years ago when Abercrombie & Fitch got themselves into hot water with a highly sexualized catalogue aimed at their young teen market? Parents raised a pretty big stink, and A&F seemed to get the message.
In those days, it was just another news story to me. But now, with a young teenage daughter, I had occasion to be in one of their stores recently. At the checkout desk, where nobody could miss it, was a large poster showing a boy and girl naked from the waist up. The girl faces front, with the boy's arm stretched out to cover up just enough of her breasts to stop it from being full-frontal nudity. It was in-your-face pornography for teens and it was outrageous. Maybe it's time Abercrombie & Fitch got another loud wakeup call.
Teens are assaulted by sexual images everywhere they turn: from Abercrombie & Fitch posters, to the "Gossip Girl" book series, to television, movies and music lyrics. It's difficult enough for parents to counter the peer pressure their children encounter when it comes to sex without corporate America sinking to new depths of depravity by using sex to sell to teens.
A 14-year-old girl who is the daughter of close friends recently told me that she knows eight girls her age who have had sexual intercourse. Were they negatively influenced by the culture? Probably. But sadly, parents must share in the blame. According to this ninth grader, in many of these cases, parents actually purchase the birth control for their kids.
An acquaintance of mine with a 13-year-old daughter was recently bemoaning the fact that her daughter had been caught "under the bleachers" with boys on more than one occasion. It caused her some anxiety, naturally, and she wondered aloud how soon she could put her on the Pill. I wondered if she'd ever even tried to connect sex with morality when talking with her daughter.
Thanks to schools and the media, our young teenage daughters know all about "safe sex," or "smart sex" as some call it. Despite the fact that a valiant few fight the good fight to teach abstinence, I would venture a guess that a large majority of teenage girls think that it's unreasonable to expect them to wait until marriage before having sex.
It doesn't help when a school like King Middle School in Portland, Maine, offers a range of contraception to children as young as 11, including birth-control pills and the patch -- and parental consent is not required.
It is, sadly, another sign of the troubled times we live in, yet another indicator that secular values have trumped once-dominant Judeo-Christian values in our country. Kids see sex everywhere. Why? Because adults -- whether parents or corporate marketing executives or record company moguls -- allow it. Even promote it.
And many parents, having no value system themselves to draw upon, adopt the attitude that there's no point trying to stop what's inevitably going to happen. One mother whose children attended King Middle School was quoted as saying that critics who are shocked that 11-year-olds have sex should "get over it." In other words, it's okay as long as you can get away with it.
It's okay as long as long as you don't get pregnant. But of course, even if you could count on an 11-year-old or a 13-year-old to use birth control "responsibly," babies happen. Sexually transmitted diseases happen. AIDS happens. Because the bottom line is that there is no such thing as safe sex.
The consequences of taking morality out of sexual behavior are all too evident: sexually transmitted diseases are rampant among teens; out-of-wedlock births are commonplace; fatherlessness is epidemic.
And telling a teenager that having sex outside of marriage is "immoral" or "wrong" is meaningless unless it is done within the context of faith.
Society no longer says it's "wrong." In fact, society says quite the opposite. If we stop teaching children that God is the ultimate arbiter of right and wrong, if we stop teaching them that obedience to God is what matters, then we are de facto teaching them that they are free to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Then we are complicit.
Very true.
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No, it would be much better if the girls got pregnant and had abortions, or had babies at age 11. That would be just great. [/sarcasm]
Our culture is sexist to the extreme.
The message young girls get loud and clear is: Your health and well being is not important. All that matters is that you be sexually available for males to have zero consequence sex.
What do you care - it’s not libertarian business.
This hits the nail on the head. It is the result of feminist teachings and it cheapens women. Feminists rail against how pornography objectifies women and turn right around and tell young ladies it is fine to dress, act and rut like a prostitute.
And the feminists complain about women being used.
Men now have more free access and no consequence sex available than ever, with the willing complicity and encouragement of the girls, their parents, and the feminists themselves. They’re doing to females the very thing that they condemned men for doing; turning females into sex objects.
Wake up will you... do you really think an 11,12 or 13 year old will take a pill every single day at the same general time of day without fail? Giving them pills just encourages sex with multiple partners, not necessarily threesomes but serially as they will want to take advantage of this “freedom”.. I’d bet 99% of them think they can just take 1 pill before sex and be protected; remember they are doing this behind their parents back making it even more likely it will be used in an innefective manner and result in MORE pregnancies.
Birth control for children???? Are there no adults out there questioning the child to find out who may be pressuring the poor thing into having sex? Neighbor, uncle, older cousin, daddy?????? To give a child the pill and then send her on her merry way is criminal.
This article is wonderful! I still want to go out there and shake those parents that send their kids to that school everyday. I wish all the parents up there would pull the kids out and homeschool instead. Take responsibility for your children’s souls!!! It just makes me sick!
I have grown up in western Europe where we have a completely different morality than in the US regarding premarital sex. It is quite common to have sexual relationships from sixteen years on since the 70ties. Of course sex between eleven year old kids is horrible BS. We Europeans have such weird problems too, especially among the lower class. Nevertheless - from my point of view it absolutely not common to start such contacts before being at least 15 years old on our side of the big pond. Our kids are well advised in the use of contraceptives and to my knowledge we have much less teenage pregnancies and generally lower AIDS-rates than in America.
Therefore I have to say that my personal experience was rather the other way around to what you were saying. Since girls are usually a littlebit faster in their general development they turned us guys into the objects of their obsession or turned to boys who were old enough to keep up with their needs. It was not me that seduced, I was seduced. Nevertheless my male ego (which is probably quite developed) never suffered from that and I do not want to miss this adventure. Women and girls who know what they want and who do what they need are usually much more interesting to us men than those who do not.
I am well aware that such behavior is a religious problem. Furthermore sexual activity opens more of ourselves than anything else we are doing with our partners. It makes us extremely vulnerable. Therefore I think everyone has to decide on its very own whether he/she wants to start a premarital sexual relationship or not when he/she reaches the maturity to do so.
BTW - My own premarital experience never took the ability to build up stable relationships from me. I am a happy and faithful husband since 11 years and I am the father of 3 great kids although I had quite a few girlfriends when I was a young guy. This would be probably not the case if we Europeans could not act freely as young people. If I would have been forced to marry my first girlfriend to satisfy my physical needs (that are simply present from a certain age on) I would be a really unlucky man today. Thank God I am not.
This culture thrives on sex, and both men and women have been turned into sex objects through the sex industry, be it porn magazines, movies, or strip clubs, and birth control. I saw an interesting quote that referred to real feminists celebrating the lifegiving power of women. They celebrate that women can give birth to children. Feminists should see it reeks of a male dominated culture when women are posing nude, having sex on camera, taking off their clothes, causing their bodies to malfunction through birth control, and even killing their child through abortion to fit into today’s world.
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Yeap! There it is! That pesky religion. Definitely a “ problem”! (sarc 0ff)
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