Sex and Kids: The Battle for Purity

Imagine a world where adults rarely ever talk about abstinence with kids. But more than that, the parents actually encourage them to experiment with sex. Parents should know that's actually happening these days. And there's also a move to kill much of the funding that makes abstinence education possible. Boulder High School, in the hip, left-leaning town of Boulder, Colorado, recently hosted a panel addressing the question of Sex, Teens, and Drugs. What a couple of the panelists said to their teen audience set off a storm of criticism. One panelist said, "I am going to encourage you to have sex and encourage you to use drugs appropriately. Why I am going to take that position is because you are going to do it anyway." "This really goes to the end of something we're seeing more and more," said Jim Pfaff of the Colorado Family Institute, "not only in this state but across the country, where kids are being encouraged to experiment with sex." "Now what is healthy sexual behavior?" asked another panelist. "Well, I don't care if it's with men and men, women and women, men and women, however, whatever combination you would like to put together." But there apparently was some wrong reporting, like charges that one of the panelists encouraged 12 year olds to try homosexuality. Whether the panelists have been misrepresented in the press, the general thrust of their comments seems like a good example of how many educators and adults look at kids these days -- as creatures of lust, driven by their very nature to fulfill those lustful desires, and the best we can do is give them safeguards against pregnancy or diseases. Pfaff said, "This is the logical conclusion of comprehensive sex education. It's a scheme of study that is designed to tell kids 'Listen, we can't stop your urges, so go ahead and do them. Just make sure you use a condom.'" But some teens we met on a Boulder street defended the panel. One girl in a bandana said, "Gay, straight, bisexual.whatever...it's good to encourage safe sex, and I think that's exactly what they were doing." Still, the group of Boulder-area Christian youth wonder if public schools end up encouraging this sexual activity. Ariel Fletcher from the University of Colorado at Boulder said, "In school they're teaching you all about evolution and Darwinism, and it's 'natural' for 'animals' to have sex -- it's not unnatural -- and you shouldn't have to keep yourself from having sex until you're married." Paige Cantliffe couldn't believe her public high school. "I was a freshman, and it was weird that I was a virgin," she said. "I mean, I was in the minority." "Like, even in middle school," said Mike Woessner. "Also, a lot of kids started having sex in seventh and eighth grade." It does seem indeed that many kids are experimenting sexually these days. "Yeah, we have sex already," said one girl. Andy Vaaler of Grand Forks, North Dakota said, "You're by yourselves and you're with a girl you like, then, of course." Clay Jones of Second Glance Ministries says that even 10 to 14 year olds are becoming sexually active -- so many, the CDC for the first time ever is studying sexual disease rates among girls that age. "Those young women between the ages of 10 and 14 contracted more cases of chlamydia," said Jones, "than all the women between the ages of 40 and 50 put together." He said, "We're seeing young people seven, eight and nine years old beginning to act out sexually in ways we've never seen before." And many Christian young people are succumbing, or at least playing up to the edge. "Some kids definitely push the boundaries," Lydia Woessner of Lafayette said. Fletcher said, "I think it's all just about going as far as you can without 'actually having sex.'" Clay Jones studies the sexual stats. And he talks a lot to youth pastors. "Their kids are having sex," he said. "If they're not, they're participating in oral sex. And if they have young people in their groups who aren't sexually active, they're the rarity." Cantliffe said, "So many parents have no idea what their kids are doing." But one thing parents do know: surveys show that 90 percent of them know they want their kids to remain abstinent. Ayinde Russell teaches abstinence to children in the Denver area and says they're thankful for the lesson. Russell, the abstinence director for Alternative Pregnancies Center said that kids tell her, "We appreciate you coming and talking about this because we didn't know. Nobody's talking about it." Some teens balk at abstinence education. "I don't think those classes really help that much," Vaaler said, "because kids are going to do what they're going to do anyway." But studies show that many young people wish they hadn't lost their virginity. Ayinde said, "Two in three teenagers say that they actually regret their first sexual experience." "I've had a lot of friends who wanted to be popular and cool, and so they do it, and they end up regretting it," Cantliffe explained. Dr. Gary Rose of The Medical Institute says that if parents can't trust the schools to teach abstinence, at least they can do it themselves. Many resources are available for believers, like The Medical Institute's "Questions Kids Ask about Sex" or Second Glance Ministries' soon-to-be-released "Raising Kids in a Sexually Saturated Society." Rose said, "More than 90 percent of young adolescents and adolescents, in general, want a very strong abstinence message from their parents. They want parents to talk about abstinence. And the problem is, so many of us as parents are uncomfortable talking about it." When parents don't talk to their children about refraining from sex, many never even hear the idea. Cantliffe said, "There's nothing that they've been told except for 'don't get STDs, be safe, wear a condom.' I mean, abstinence -- I don't even know if everybody even knows the word." For kids who want to stay chaste in this sex-saturated society, it's pretty tough out there. But maybe what we're choosing to teach our kids about sex isn't making it any easier.