Let’s Talk About Sex
Let’s talk about sex – specifically, sex among teens. The CDC regularly puts out National Health Statistics Reports, and the one published in December focuses on teen sexuality. The survey included 3,812 teenagers, ages 15-19, and measured sexual experience, contraceptive use, attitudes toward sex, the likelihood of having a child during teen years, and more. So, what did it say?
The first top-level finding was that 40.5% of female and 38.7% of male teenagers reported having sexual intercourse. Those are pretty discouraging statistics for many parents, but thankfully other findings from the study are more positive. Another result was that “In 2015–2019, the main reason most commonly chosen by female teenagers for not having had sex, among the options provided, was ‘against religion or morals’ (32.5%)”. It was also the second most chosen reason for male teenagers. Interestingly, the report also notes, “Lower percentages of both female (32.3%) and male (33.1%) teenagers were sexually experienced if they lived with both parents at age 14, compared with those who lived with a biological mother and stepfather (60.0% for females and 52.4% for males) or in any other type of parental living arrangement at that age (52.3% for females and 48.9% for males).” In other words, young teens who lived with both biological parents were less sexually active than those in other family structures. Not surprisingly, the study also confirmed that the younger unwanted first sex occurred, the more likely it was to produce unintended pregnancy, a higher incidence of STIs, and intimate partner violence.
What’s the takeaway from all this? Not surprising to those of us with pro-life and pro-family values, the CDC study confirms what we’ve known all along: faith values and a stable “traditional” mother-father parental home environment result in lower teen pregnancy. However, I don’t see our society and government promoting programs focused on stable families and encouraging foundational religious beliefs. Instead, our educational institutions, governmental programs, and the Biden Administration in particular, say that the answers are contraceptives and abortion. Shutting the barn door after the horse has bolted would seem to be a tailor-made idiom. Despite what our society is pushing, many parents realize that there is no substitute for faith and family in our children’s lives.
However, before those of us on the right think we have all the answers, we need to go back to the roughly 40% of teenagers who ARE having sex. Trust me, it includes kids from nice nuclear Christian families too. From a pro-family perspective, that means dealing with the issue in a loving and understanding way. Kids need to understand that, believe it or not, we were all once teenagers with the same crazy hormones they have. That said, they also need to know that we don’t condone sexual intercourse outside the bounds of marriage. What they absolutely need to hear from us is that if their poor judgement results in a pregnancy, then we will be there for them, when they need us most.