‘The Real Deal’ on teen sex (Scarborough Country)

Scarborough Country (MSNBC) ^ | 5-21-03 | Joe Scarborough

[cgk]

‘The Real Deal’ on teen sex
Media also has to be responsible
"The Real Cancun" featured body shots aplenty.
COMMENTARY by Joe Scarborough

May 20—  A new study on teen sex should serve as a wakeup call for Americans. Almost 50 percent of high school students across America engage in teen sex, a large segment of those teenagers reporting as many as four sex partners per year.

       AS YOU KNOW, all that means more unwed teenage moms, more cases of kids getting AIDS, and more reasons why the federal government is taking more of your tax dollars every year.
       The United States now has the highest rates of teen pregnancies, births, and abortions in the world. If you wonder why, just look at what our culture feeds into the minds and souls of teenagers. 13-year old girls have spent the past 5 years idolizing pop acts like Britney Spears. She went from Disney girl to slithering MTV teen faster than you can say “sex sells.” Teenage pop star Christina Aguilera also played teenage sexpot last year by doing a soft porn spread in a popular magazine, while other videos and reality-based shows on MTV did nothing short of promoting the concept that teen sex is hot. The winner of the shameless sexploitation of teens has to go to Euro-teen trash act t.A.t.U., which is made up of two young girls making out in wet t-shirts on stage and on TV.

[Lorianne]

"AS YOU KNOW, all that means more unwed teenage moms" and unwed DADS.

[The Toll]

I really can't speak to your girl but I can assure you that the girls you described are by no means in a safer place when it comes to sex.
Girls like that from nice homes usually do hold out a little longer but when they leave for their freshman year of college things can get really ugly. I am still a young man and I see this often. If they are able to retain some of their current peer group at college they will be much better off.

[bvw]

Do you have kids?

[bvw]

Callous bastards do not make a decent nieghborhood, and without decent nieghborhoods every marketplace becomes sleazoid rat-trap. Why then do you celebrate callous bastards?

[KantianBurke]

Are you a guilt ridden absentee parent?

[fml]

absolutely silly comparison. TV covereage was new then, today a good parent knows what not to let their kid watch.

[bvw]

So, every elementray school should have a sex bar? I mean why not? It'd halp pay the slaries, right?

[bvw]

No, but I see YOU can not rise above the stink to answer a straight question. You're no follower of Burke -- he had a higher sense of personal morality. AND you are no fan of Liberty, for Liberty can not survive a mud-level sexual ethos that youth are thrown into.

Answer the question: Do you, yourself, have children that you are raising?

[fml]

Huh?????

[bvw]

Ri-i-ght, Can't follow a thread, can you?

[KantianBurke]

lol. I take it that the answer is a yes. Quit posting on FR and go check in on your kids. Then again, judging from the inanity of your posts so far that might not be such a hot idea.

[bvw]

You still haven't answered the FIRST question you were asked, so like some rat in heat you scamper off.

[laurav]

For any parents out there... was discussing this with friends the other day (I am in my 20's and don't have kids yet). I know from life and high school that you can tell your kids over and over to not have sex until they're married, and they'll ignore you. You and their school can warn them about pregnancy and STD's, and your teens may well use condoms, but they'll still have sex. You can bring them to church every week and they'll still have sex. You can make it very difficult for them to find a time and place (ie, not let them go to unsupervised parties or on unsupervised trips, enforce curfews, etc.) and they'll still have sex.

Since I don't want my future children winding up as pregnant teenagers (or causing pregnancies in others), would they actually listen if I told them not to until they were older than 18 and not living in my house? Since they probably wouldn't wait until they were married, it might be wise to ask them to wait for something they might actually wait for. Thoughts?

[junta]

Hot damn you must be one them thar sofisticats I been hearin about, you plum smart Ill bet. Next time you post about rural types it will probably be about white trash sluts who cant keep their legs crossed.

[KantianBurke]

once upon a time parents actually took responsibility for raising well adjusted children instead of blaming McDonalds, candy bars, TV, video games, radio towers, the sun, cigarettes, The Simpsons, Beavis and Butthead, not getting sex ed, getting too much sex ed....

Keeping that in mind what possible relevence does my having or not having kids have to do with anything other than a blatant attempt on your part to appear to be somehow more enlightened. Once again, go expend some of that defensive energy on your kids like you should!

[fml]

I do my best but you are making no sense at all.

[CyberCowboy777]

Make it easier but not right?

It is either right or wrong as are most crossroads in life.

Seeing the compromise of morality from the parents only makes for a weak child. If you feel sex out of wedlock is okay then be honest with your kids, let them be. If you believe it is immoral, then stand for your convictions.

But don't muck of the works, life is hard enough.

[Under the Radar]

So, every elementray school should have a sex bar? I mean why not? It'd halp pay the slaries, right?

I am not even sure what you are trying to say here. You might work on developing your argument.

I sense from some of your other posts that you don't agree that the ultimate responsibility lies with parents rather than MTV. I would counter that argument. You can turn off MTV and the rest of the cesspool that is television. You can (and should) take your children out school and remove them from the destructive reliance on peer groups rather than parents as role models. You should be teaching your children to dress modestly and that sex is enjoyed best in a committed marriage between one man and one woman. You can avoid the filth that is popular culture, if you work at it. It is the hardest of jobs, and requires that you set up your lifestyle not based upon consumer acquistion, but on parenting.

May I recommend a website that I frequent? It is comprised of mothers who have withdrawn their children completely from popular culture. They don't debate MTV because MTV isn't even on their radar. http://forums.titus2.com/

Ultimately, it is up to parents. You may not like it, but that is the fundamental truth. Either you remove your children from the foul influences of our current culture, or you live with the results. Don't complain about wolves acting like wolves.

[bvw]

Some will still have sex. It depends on the mix of parents, familiy, neighborhhod, schooling, and common culture. It helps to be open, I mean open in discussion of sex and sexuality. It doesn't help to market, the promote, to celebrate, the sexuality of rats in heat, when we are humans and capable of enjoying sex far more than rats in heat, if we fully respect our humanity -- and in sex that means modesty, discretion -- these are attributes that rats don't have but humans do, We have all the sexual machinery of the rats -- that's minimal. But we have far, far more. We have a mind, refined emotions, intellect, caring, modesty, shame -- these can and do provide far greater levels of enjoyment and deeper stimulation when carefully applied in sexuality.

Sex, sexuality, when elevated when respected, when modest -- are wonderful, delicious, live-awakening, inspiring.

[KantianBurke]

"It depends on the mix of parents, familiy, neighborhhod, schooling, and common culture"

You lift that from Hilterly's "It Takes A Village?"