For many years, most Americans seemed perfectly willing to ignore the problem of increased sexual activity among the nation’s young people. But thankfully, this trend appears to be turning around — how else to explain the fact that many of the most popular Google searches involve some combination of the keywords “teen” and “sex?”
The president has attacked the problem by promoting so-called “abstinence only” education. Regardless of what you may think about such efforts, we can all probably agree that this term is, at best, inaccurate. After all, a true “abstinence only” education would be pretty limited:
Teacher: “OK, kids, for English class we’ll be starting with today’s spelling quiz. The word you need to spell is, as always, ‘abstinence.’ For history class we’ll be going over the sex lives of monks, or the lack thereof. Then in science, we’ll take a look at asexual reproduction in liverworts. We’ll finish the day by reviewing how to say, “Sorry, but I’m saving myself for marriage in French, Spanish and Latin.”
Religious groups have also encouraged millions of teenagers to sign pledges that they will refrain from sex until marriage. Call me old fashioned, but back in high school I didn’t need some promissory note to keep me from having sex. Utter disdain from my female classmates took care of that job perfectly well, thank you. I might as well have signed a pledge not to ride a unicorn to the moon.
The only benefit an abstinence pledge would have offered me is what government types refer to as “plausible deniability.”
Me: “Guys, I’d love to go up to the lake with all of you this weekend for a wild, no-holds-barred orgy reminiscent of the days of Caligula, but I signed a pledge, and I’m sticking to it.”
My classmates: “That’s good, because nobody invited you.”
Recent studies indicate that these pledges are ineffective, anyway. Harvard researchers report that a majority of teenagers who take abstinence pledges wind up having sex within a year, many before they even finish signing their names to the pledge form.
Clearly, we need a more effective tool for curbing teenage sex. What crummy luck that the nation’s prisons are already so dangerously overcrowded!
My proposed solution is simple. Think: Why do teenagers feel compelled to have sex? Sure, it’s partly because they’ve got the hormonal equivalent of the running of the bulls at Pamplona coursing through their veins. But even more powerful is the adolescent urge to be cool, and today’s teenager thinks having sex is about the coolest thing to do, as long as the price of a pimped-out Hummer stretch limo remains out of reach.
To convince teenagers that sex is not the hip thing, we must turn to the most uncool people on the planet. No, not those dweebs who dress like Darth Vader to wait in line for weeks before Star Wars movie openings — I’m talking about parents. While parents have always been encouraged to talk to their kids about sex, the problem is the content of these conversations. Instead of the old “birds and the bees” speech, which can contain precious little new information for teens raised on Howard Stern and “Girls Gone Wild,” today’s teens need to hear that their parents are having lots of wild sex.
The mere thought of one’s parents having sex is enough to keep anyone — teenage or otherwise — abstinent for at least a good month. That, combined with the horrific notion that they might share an interest with their parents, should be sufficient to send teenagers everywhere racing out to sign abstinence pledges that they’ll actually stick to.
Failing that, we can always build more prisons.
Examiner columnist Malcolm Fleschner credits the girls in his high school Model UN program with teaching him the word for “no” in dozens of languages.
