Sex too
young: Janie's story
2004 Creators Syndicate,
Inc.
Complete sexual freedom. That was the
dream promoted by feminists. The dream has cost America dearly. Several
reports released last week by Advocates for Youth and the Alan Guttmacher
Institute conclude that half of all young Americans will get a sexually
transmitted disease by age 25.
Sexual liberation was achieved. According
to the Sexual Information and Education Council of the United States, 49
percent of women aged 18 to 19 had sex with at least two partners in the
year 2002. Eighty-one percent of women aged 20 to 24 in 2002 had become
sexually active before the age of 20.
Meanwhile, thousands of unwed mothers
aged 15 to 19 give birth each year. Millions of young men and women and
kids, at 15 years old receive genital wart virus, trichomoniasis and
chlamydia each year.
But perhaps not every young person having
sex is damaged. My friend Janie (name changed to protect her privacy) could
be considered a poster child for the sexual dream. Janie, a self-described
"typical college student," attends UCLA. She's intelligent, creative and
pretty. She's a political and social left-leaning moderate. Janie became
sexually active at age 15 (she's now 21) and has slept with five men. She
has never become pregnant and has never contracted an STD.
Janie decides to have sex "if I've been
dating a guy for a while and we say we love each other." When asked if she
would sleep with someone she didn't love, Janie replies "Never, ever ... I
was dating a guy for a while, and I really liked him, I even thought I loved
him. We dated each other exclusively, but because he wouldn't say he loved
me, I wouldn't have sex, and I broke up with him," she explains. What is it
about those magic words "I love you"? What if the guy is lying? "I can tell
if he means it," Janie says. "I've had guys say they loved me before, but I
know they don't mean it. It's intuition."
Her intuition has led her to bed with
five different men, but Janie is quick to explain that she doesn't get
around: "You have to understand that just because I was having sex when I
was 15 doesn't mean I was promiscuous. I've been having sex since I was 15,
right? And I'm 21 now, so that's six years, and yet I've only had five
partners. You know, that's pretty good compared to other people who started
having sex when they were 15."
Janie doesn't regret doing what she's
done. She doesn't feel guilty "at all," she states with emphasis. "I do
whatever I want, and I've never thought twice about it."
Would Janie's parents be happy with her
behavior? Probably not, Janie admits: "My mom always said, 'Don't have sex
until you're married.'" Janie calls her parents "conservative in terms of
values" but religiously "liberal." Janie's own relationship with God is
strained. "I absolutely don't think my behavior is sinful ... I guess I
believe more in the laws of human nature I'm not a hedonist but I believe
in the laws of human nature more than I believe in divine law."
The results of Janie's upbringing bring
into sharp relief the difference between secular and religious conservatism.
Secular conservatism only frowns upon sexual promiscuity for social and
health reasons; teaching a child that sex is forbidden because of some
amorphous social good certainly carries less weight than a religious
explanation.
While Janie is outgoing and friendly, she
wonders whether life is meaningless. We've had long discussions about
religion and God. While she believes in God, she doesn't believe in
God-given rules for living. Her agnosticism often borders on depression.
Janie isn't unusual. A 2003 study by the
Heritage Foundation linked early sexual activity with a higher suicide rate.
The study reported that about 14 percent of girls aged 14 to 17 who have had
intercourse have attempted suicide; 5 percent of sexually inactive girls
have.
Janie believes she's taken the right
path. "I believe that no matter what religious ideologies you plant into the
mind of teenager, they're going to have sex. ... What you can do is tell
them that getting pregnant or getting an STD is going to ruin their lives."
This contraceptive-based sex education is
the solution proposed by the secular left, which created the problem of
sexual libertinism in the first place. James Wagoner, president of Advocates
for Youth, feels that "the stakes are simply too high to talk only about
abstinence." But the question remains: Even if venereal disease and teen
pregnancy are eradicated, will America's young people be able to recover
from the loss of their innocence?
Benjamin
Shapiro, 20, is currently a senior at UCLA and the author of the upcoming
book, "Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America's Youth" (May
2004). To find out more about Ben Shapiro, visit the
Creators Syndicate website.
