From the Mailbag: Teen Sex, Media Hype, and the Christian Response
Dean
Quoted:
Scott references this article by Glenn Reynolds, which I highly recommend reading thoroughly.Dean,
I have a 15 yr. old son, a 13 yr. old daughter, and an 11 yr. old daughter. As you know, I am an Evangelical christian. I married at age 23, and became a father at age 24. My wife has been my only sexual partner of my life. I thought you might find the attached email interesting. I sent it to the Pastor of my church, and a friend whose is the parent of young adults in their late teens and early 20's.
Unfortunately, I have encountered some resistance within the church (mainly among older women) to facing the realities of modern day life vis-a-vis moral requirements of Christianity. But you might find it interesting that these issues are being discussed within the church.
Regards,
Scott Harris
----- Original Message -----
From: Scott Harris
To: [fellow Christians]
Sent: Thursday, July 28, 2005 11:11 AM
Subject: Teenage SexI have long argued that expecting even Christian young people to wait ever longer periods of time before engaging in sexual activity goes against the very physical design of God. Abstinence until marriage is good and moral. But are there limits beyond which that expectation is unreasonable?
The expectation that we now place on our young people is that they wait through high school, through college, possibly through graduate school, and then establish themselves in a career before getting married. That expectation is cultural, not necessarily Christian. But the culture does not expect that young people will wait until marriage to engage in sexual activity while the Christian community does levy just such a requirement on its young.
But are the Christian requirements of chastity until marriage and the cultural requirements of waiting ever longer to marry compatible? I think not. Attached is an article by a non-Christian law professor from the University of Tennessee law school about the phenomenon of teenage sex. I suggest you read it and consider the implications of the unnatural extension of adolescence in our culture when viewed in the light of Christian morality.
To wit:
1) Have we created requirements that are at odds with the very design of God?
2) Are we setting up our children for moral failure by discounting the legitimate power of sex?
3) Should we adjust our expectations and entertain the possibility of supporting our MARRIED children while they complete college, graduate school and start their careers?
And,
4) If we are willing to support our single children while they pursue education and career goals, why are we not willing to also support our married children while they pursue those same goals - goals that we as parents have set upon them?
Regards,
Scott Harris
There's a basic truth very few modern people seem aware of: if you go back more than a hundred years, the average age of marriage was somewhere around age 15 or 16, the average age of parenthood below 20. Yet astoundingly, today we routinely expect people to not only wait until marriage, but to delay marrage until their late 20s or early 30s.
This raises all sorts of questions about what the proper attitude toward sex really is in modern society. Nor can we pretend there are easy or quick answers to this--in all of human history, we have never expected so much self-restraint from our young people.
I'll have a teenaged son soon. I don't expect to hand him a box of condoms and say, "hey, have fun but be careful." But I don't know what I should say.
I have often though that a smart strategy socially would be to go ahead and encourage people to get married and have kids in their teens and early 20s, building a support system around them where their grandparents and extended family support them, so that they can do things like go to college and develop careers in their 30s and 40s. Yet almost no one seems to want to do that....
Related Posts (on one page):
- From the Mailbag: Dialogue About Morality
- Retraction
- From the Mailbag: Teen Sex, Media Hype, and the Christian Response
- Rusty Makes My Point For Me
- Clearing the Record
- Why I'm Not A Conservative: The "America Sucks" Right
Plus, the financial benefits of sharing expenses during college, if you should choose that route, can be enormous. I racked up quite a bit of debt in the form of student loans while in graduate school. Most of the women in my program (unlike most of the men), however, lived with significant others who were working, and did not need student loans. There might be significant benefit to "taking turns" with your partner when going to college or obtaining other technical training.
At any rate, I think rather than teaching young adults not to have children, we should be teaching them to take responsiblity for what children they have, teach them to raise them responsibly, and provide support systems for them to do so, as you said. Besides, like it or not, biologically women are better off having children when they are 20 rather than 40.
I think the problem is not that we expect kids to wait until they've established themselves in a career and can support a family to get married, it's that education TAKES SO DARNED LONG. Seriously, why in the world do you need to spend 12+ years in school to get a high-paying job?
I think the solution to the problem would be to improve our education system. Make the whole thing more efficient. See if we can't get kids in and out in 8 years, maybe. When I look back at my education and see how much of it was wasted on pointless things like gym, I see many ways it could have been compressed. (After all, by the time you get into your gym clothes, then the teacher takes attendance, then you get back into your gym clothes, you only get about 10 minutes of exercise. Why don't we spend that time on an extra math review or something?)
The reason kids could get married at 15 or 16 in previous centuries was that by that point they could have a good job and could afford to feed and clothe their kids. The same can't be said of today's 15- or 16-year-olds. Maybe it should be.
So many people think that--that because teens are going to have sex no matter what we say, we shouldn't bother expecting them to be abstinent. The problem is, you can't give up and allow people to do something that's morally wrong just because, well, they're going to do it whether you're going to allow it or not. That's like saying, "Well, people are going to commit murder whether it's legal or not, so we might as well not have laws against it. Instead, we'll teach them how to hide the weapon and avoid leaving evidence behind at the scene so they don't get in trouble for it." That is, it's completely ridiculous.
I actually do think that it is not that difficult to abstain from sex, and that it is reasonably to expect teenagers to do so. I managed to refrain from having sex while in high school. I've never been part of the "hook-up" culture that many of my friends have taken part in. To me, when they make the argument that "teenagers are going ot have sex anyway" they are just trying to excuse their own lack of willpower. "Since, I can't keep my pants on, no one else can either." It's BS.
But I do definitely agree with you about abstinence being easy. I never had a problem with it myself in high school. I mean, I'd been through the sex ed. classes and knew the facts, but it never bothered me and I never thought about sex. Seriously. I thought about sex about as often as I thought about penguins--the idea would pop into my head every once in a while, and it had as much emotional impact as a wet noodle. I always knew I wanted to get married and have sex and have children eventually, but those things seemed almost as far away to me as my retirement.
When I went to college, though, things changed. I became friends with a lot of college guys. And college guys, as we all know, have the filthiest minds in the entire universe. So 24 hours a day I was surrounded by sex: talk about sex, music about sex, movies about sex, books about sex. All of a sudden, sex became something I really wanted, something that really bothered me.
There's a reason King Solomon warned us in Song of Songs, "Do not awaken love until it so desires." Really, it's just like your mother always said: "Garbage in, garbage out." If you watch R-rated movies and listen to rap, it's no wonder you're struggling to stay abstinent! If however you're a geek like me and you expose yourself to Star Trek and Beethoven instead, abstinence will be easy.
So, I change my mind. We need to do TWO things to prevent pregnancy out of wedlock: One, we need to compress education so people don't need to wait until they're 30 to have kids. Two, parents need to get serious about protecting their children from sexual material in movies, music and TV shows.
Dr. Marcia Herman-Giddens (UNC Chapel Hill) studies puberty. One of the things she's found is that there is a relationship between how much sexually suggestive material a girl is exposed to and how early she reaches puberty. (How many times does Cosmo have a cover story about sex?)
The reports I read in the media noted that she wasn't talking about sexually EXPLICIT material. She was talking about the sexual messages that are in mass advertising and on TV. That is, thinking about sex releases hormones which promote puberty and physical sexual development. It makes sense that with greater sexual development there's a greater insterest in sexual activity.
And I'll admit right now that I've never bothered to read one of Dr. Herman-Giddens' articles. This is all off the top of my head, so I don't have a reference. But, cognitively, it makes some unfortunate sense.
Yours,
Wince
I work on a college campus where the two most popular majors are psychology and education. Is there really a shortage of psychology majors in this country? And despite what the NEA might say, there really isn't a shortage of people with education degrees either. Many of them choose not to work after they realize all the hoops they have to jump through to get certified.
I've often heard it said that businesses want potential employees to have college degrees, not so much because they know the content, but because they've "learned how to learn." If "learning how to learn" is that important, then why not teach it in high school or earlier?
Why can't students graduate from high school when they're 12 or 14 years old? Why can't we make that a goal?
Why does a teach need a masters degree to teach high school math?
If a textbook is well written, what function does the teacher serve?
What would education look like, if we wipe the slate clean and redesigned it from the ground up?
Don't get me started.
Why can't students graduate from high school when they're 12 or 14 years old? Why can't we make that a goal?
Are children even mentally capable of doing this?
Before I got to senior year physics and calculus, I'd had 4 years of math - algebra 1&2, Geometry and trig. Are 10 year olds, in general, mentally capable of doing Algebra? Is the answer to this question an artifact of education or mental development?
Why does a teach need a masters degree to teach high school math?
Why can't someone with a teaching degree effectively teach math anyway?
I've long felt that teachers should be required to get a major in their area of study and then their masters in education before they could teach. But maybe that's just because of the teachers I had.
If a textbook is well written, what function does the teacher serve?
I have repeatedly been told by teachers that textbooks are not well written. They are written to the lowest common denominator and with an effort to offend as few people as possible.
If the teachers know that the textbooks are inferior, why do they keep buying them?
What would education look like, if we wipe the slate clean and redesigned it from the ground up?
I'm not even going to try and answer that one. I've got too many ideas, and I'm already not getting my work done today. Heh.
Ross, by the way, is author of the novel Unintended Consequences. You may have heard of it. Ross goes his own way.
Young people are physiologically better suited to childbirth, while people in middle age have the patience and financial means to take care of children.
Oh, and sometimes as a joke I like to get my girlfriend very aroused and then tell her we should "wait for marriage." (I'm a bad person, I know.)
Yours,
Wince
I heard a well known Christian speak, encouraging singles to not delay in marriage - to marry around 18-20. Most people shrug it off, others (no one I knew) have rebuked this guy. Its all very interesting.
Also, many Christians are taught that the men are to lead, and women are to wait until the men lead. Now, that may be all well and good (or not - lets not argue the mertis of that position in this thread), but what are we doing to the poor ladies if we are brought up this way, and don't start relationships with them? How uncaring is that?
I also note again: we are the *only* society in history that routinely *expects* our young people to stay abstinent for 10-20 *years* after puberty. No society ever did that to its young people.
As for poverty and having kids young: yes, one of the virtual guarantees of our current society is that if you have kids before 20 you're likely to live in poverty for a long, long time. That would be one of the first things that would have to change: there would need to be a return to the idea of the extended family or clan.
OTOH, if getting married at twenty would have meant I would have married one of the people I was *dating* when I was twenty or younger, then I'm feverishly glad that our society mandates people wait until they are older to choose. If our long lifespans mean that we're going to be married to that person until we die - potentially seventy years or more! - marriage at twenty has its scary side too.
I think this would only work if the other recommendations of Glenn Reynold's article were also followed, so that twenty-year-olds were more adult than they are now.
The thing is, I wasn't in an "abstinence program" in school. These were the values that my parents taught me since they broached the subject of sex when I was in grade school. They begain instilling this value in me as soon as I started showing interest in girls. And by the time I got to sex ed in 9th grade, it was all old news to me.
The point being that instilling abstinence as a value is a long-term, parentally involved project. And if people think abstinence only programs are going to stop teenage sex, they're deluding themselves - and I personally know some people who are.
----
Robert - you caught me being inaccurate. I know that teachers don't buy text books directly. But your critique doesn't negate my point.
School systems often buy books based on which one is cheapest rather than which one is best. It happened in my district as a kid. It happened in the district in which a friend of mine teaches.
So, in answer to Ted's question, you can't let kids teach themselves from textbooks because the textbooks are often horrible. My high school algebra book was completely incomprehensible and the instructor rarely referred to it except to assign homework problems.
Like I said, abstinence is the easiest thing in the world if you aren't living in an environment that's constantly saturated in sex. If parents sit their kids down and let them know that sex outside of marriage will not be tolerated, carefully monitor their exposure to sexual media, and live a good example of purity for their children, I think the odds are good their kids won't struggle to remain abstinent.
I know there are plenty of studies comparing abstinence programs to safe-sex programs, but are there studies comparing safe-sex programs to abstinence instruction from parents?
On the other hand, the Pastor of my church, a father to a 20 year old young man, immediately understood what I meant - that while teaching abstinence, the church ought to give some consideration to basic biology.
After all, God created us, and God created sexual desire. If we construct a required scenario of behaviour that is at odds with the very physical design of God, should we be surprised when our youth fail to fulfill our artificial requirements?
******Prelude to a Rant*********
What follows below is a critique of women in the church. It is an expression of frustration against the close-mindedness of a lot of women I know.
******Start Rant**********
I think a lot of women, especially women in the church, fail to respect the power that sexual desire has in men. So older women discount the importance of sex, kind of like Kacie Landrum does above. In a way, it is kind of unfair the physical affect women have on men. In many ways, I don't believe women can really comprehend the affect they have on men.
Some women accept it, and flaunt it, and use it to separate men from their money - e.g. prostitutes, strippers, and trophy wives. But most women simply write off men as filthy minded lechers and, in the church, expect men to "get control" of their impulses.
Well, self control is all well and good, but have women really stopped to think about WHY God gave them so much power over men? Have they considered that the weakness of men vis-a-vis sex is a design feature, not a design flaw.
What if God created men to be more physically dominating so that they could use their physical strength for the benefit of both themselves and weaker women? What if God correspondingly gave women an area where they hold the reigns of power, and men are weaker? What if God did so in order to make men and women mutually dependent upon one another?
Do men look down their nose at women because they are physically weaker? Not any men I know. And men who abuse their strength to mistreat women are universally condemned by both men and women. Why then should women look down their nose at men because we are weaker when it comes to sex?
I have heard many women complain that women who play around are called whores, while men who do so are not. Could it be that the reason for this is that we once understood, as a society, that since women held sexual power, they also held a greater level of responsibility?
You often see a woman hit a man - especially when flirting. Why isn't this condemned? Well, because men are so disproportionately stronger, that the blows of women are not usually strong enough to cause damage. When I was courting my wife, she hit me, punched me, and slapped me in response to my teasing. I laughed it off. After all, I am twice her size, was a boxer in college, and her blows were mere love taps.
Can you imagine how it would have been if I had hit her, punched her, or slapped her with the proportional effort with which she so struck me? She would have ended up in the hospital. My two daughters sometimes try to gang up on my son. It is laughable. He is so much stronger (a high school wrestler) than them, it is comical. And believe me, he knows better than to strike back.
How is the power of sex any different for women? Shouldn't women be willing to have some consideration for the weakness of men and be willing to use their power in a responsible and appropriate way to benefit both themselves and their men? And if they do not, is it really surprising that society has a derogatory view of women who behave so irresponsibly.
I believe this is something that was once known and understood. Somewhere along the line, the Victorian model of viewing sex as a necessary evil was adopted by the women in the Church, and in our society 100 years ago. Women who wanted to exercise their God-given sexual power chafed under such restrictions, and many of them left the church. Others retreated into a life where they refused to take responsibility for satisfying the God-given desires of their husbands.
The result for men in the church has been a horrible choice: Choose a mate that will satisfy their sexual desires (the devil in the bedroom), but have no use for the moral restrictions of the church. Or choose a mate that recognizes and respect the moral requirements (the angel in the morning), but uses them to unceasingly condemn a man for his natural desires.
What is a sexually adventurous young Christian woman to do? She is condemned by other women in the church, and a young Christian man who dates her is also ostracized. Is it any wonder that the church is lacking in men? If you want to live a holy life pleasing to God, you get to spend your life with a shrew. Young women who do want to be responsive to men are quickly told - "Good girls don't do that." They aren't told "Good girls do that, but only in marriage." They are simply told that some things are not acceptable. Says who? The shrew in the pew?
It has been my observation that women can be divided into three categories: 1) Women who acknowledge their power and use it to defraud men of their money, affections, etc., i.e. sluts 2) Women who deny they have any power and refuse to respect the weaknesses of men - condemning them for being filthy minded perverts, i.e. prudes, and 3) Women who both accept that they have this power, and accept the responsibility to use it wisely, resulting in a fun and meaningful relationship with their mate that includes sex, but extends to other areas as well.
Unfortunately, what I see is our society refusing to hold women accountable for using their power wisely and encouraging women to "be liberated" from responsibility. These women can be "devils in the bedroom" but leave a trail of destroyed men in their wake.
Then I see in the church a group of selfish women demanding that men deny their basic desires and live up to some artificial standard of sexual behavior that only women are truly equipped to handle. These "angels in the morning" are the equivalent of a lazy man who callously sits on the couch while his wife needs him to move something heavy.
Well, I don't want a "devil in the bedroom" or "an angel in the morning." I would like to simply enjoy a relationship with a fully aware and responsible woman who understands me and has my best intentions in mind. The whole "battle of the sexes" has become exceedingly tiresome. Can we not engage in true mutually beneficial partnerships where each mate uses their strengths to the other's benefit?
And as a Church, I think women need to consider that being a prude is not the same as being holy and pure. A little recognition of how God designed men and women is appropriate. It is possible to be sexually adventurous with your husband, and also live a pure life. Sex is not dirty. And we shouldn't teach our daughters that it is.
I believe the Church should be trying to produce Type 3 women - women who understand and enjoy the sexual power they possess, but use it in a responsible and appropriate way to create and sustain fulfilling lives with their husbands.
In saying all this, I am not absolving men of their responsibility to act appropriately around women. Self-control is still required. But I would personally be much happier if the Church, and society as a whole would concentrate on producing more awareness of the sexual responsibility of women in marriage and in society. It is possible to be sexual and pure. Really, it is. I've seen it - just not enough.
I also believe that sex education rightfully belongs in the home and the church, not the school. It is the prerogative and responsibility of the parents. The schools should get back to teaching the basics. And I strongly support vouchers.
Say you're sitting at a bar, nursing a beer. In walks the most beautiful woman you've ever seen in your life. Seriously, a STUNNING woman. She makes Pamela Anderson look like one of those ugly bald Chinese dogs. She drapes herself all over you and invites you up to her apartment for... coffee.
You decide to take her up on it. So, you get up to her room and get down to business. However, right as she's fumbling in the drawer for a condom, she says, "Oh, by the way, I should probably tell you. I'm HIV positive."
Do you go ahead and sleep with her? Or do you have the ability to restrain your raging hormones? Obviously, any man with any self-preservation instinct at all will get dressed and walk out, no matter how frustrated that will make him feel. Men DO have control over their sexual impulses and they DO have the ability to remain abstinent if they so desire. I'm not saying it will be easy, or fun, but it is possible.
Not to mention, it will probably be a lot easier than you think if you limit the amount of sexual content in your environment. I can't speak from personal experience here, but I have a few male friends that did an experiment at their church. For one month, they didn't watch any movies or TV shows with sexual content, they only listened to Christian or classical music, and they didn't talk about sex with their friends. After a month, they were AMAZED at how less often they thought about sex or were bothered by an unfulfillable sexual desire. Perhaps the reason sexual impulse rages out of control in men so often these days is that they're taught by the media, by the public school system, by people like Mr. Harris, that those desires are too strong to be controlled.
But they also taught us that sex was for marriage only. My mother, having married at age 19, was also one of those dreaded pregnant teenagers. But like so many women of past times, she was a MARRIED preganant teenager - with marriage coming first.
We teach our young men to treat women deferentially with regard to physical strength. No one suggests that women are immune from using their strength properly. But since men enjoy such a disproportionate advantage in physical strength, they have a greater responsibility. For example, when the levee breaks, men need to get off the lazy butts, and fill sand bags. It would be unthinkable to leave such tasks to women. Men are better equipped to handle the burden.
Forgive me, Kacie. But you remind me of so many women who simply do not want to acknowledge that with regard to sex, they have men at a disadvantage.
You are correct in condemning a media culture that glorifies sex. Using sexual images in advertising and entertainment is an example of using sex irresponsibly - in order to separate people from their money.
But there is another side to that coin. To respond by going to the other extremem is also not appropriate.
And I should say that neither extreme is particularly beneficial to society. Abstinence until marriage is the proper path. But expecting ALL youth to deny their God-given natural sexual impulses for an unnatural extended period is a recipe for moral failure.
Also, I should say that you cannot really apply my complaint on a case by case basis. It is perfectly acceptable for a woman to hold herself chaste before marriage, however long that takes.
But it is not only men who have sexual impulses. Women also have them. The point that I am making is that GOD DESIGNED US FOR SEX AT A PARTICULAR TIME IN LIFE. To artificially extend the period of abstinence is to be at odds with God's design.
The very first command of God was to have sex - "be fruitful and multiply."
Finally, you should understand my perspective. I am the father of two teenagers and one preteen. My viewpoint is to determine how to train them properly, as I was taught. My mother, my grandmother, my great-grandmother, and on back were ALL pregnant as teenagers. ALL were married first. ALL recognized their responsibility to their husbands. NONE of them considered it an odious responsibility. It is why I come from a background of successful marriages, an ZERO illegitimate children.
What I want for my children is to set reasonable goals. Yes, they should abstain from sex until marriage. On the other hand, I have a responsibility to bring them to maturity sooner than the surrounding culture suggests, AND an obligation to consider their natural AND HEALTHY desires when placing goals upon them - goals such as graduate school and successful careers.
My purpose in pursuing this issue is to highlight the responsibility OF PARENTS raising young adults. I have already passed the test. But I want the older women in the church to teach my two daughters correctly, to assist them in understanding the power they have and using it appropriately. That is, do not inflame the passions of young men for sport, but also do not think you must wait forever to marry in order to fulfill the artificially imposed expectations of education and career.
As to my question: "What is a sexually adventurous young Christian woman to do?"
The answer is "Marry, and enjoy yourself with your husband."
The answer is NOT "Just wait a few years until you've completed years and years of education, and then established yourself in a career."
The second answer might work for some. But for the most, the power of God's design in causing sexual desire to occur will overcome their best intentions to be pure - the result being a frustrated person who sees the requirements of God to be unreasonable, and therefore leaving the church.
Your response is to snottilly look down your nose in contempt at those who "can't control themselves." Well, maybe your dam is stronger. Maybe you can hold back the waters of desire longer. However, my concern is for those whose dam is not quite so strong. I want to create a scenario under which they have a better chance of being successful at living a life of purity.
And personally, I don't think your attitude will be particularly conducive to a fulfilling marital relationship once and if you do finally decide to marry. If you are successful in finding a man who has successfully held back his desires, those waters will burst forth with that much more force once the dam is opened. You better be prepared for that. Else you will not understand why your husband is so unhappy, and you will be totally unprepared to handle his demands upon you.
Great, you managed to be one of the minority who succeeded. I know people who can walk on their hands, too. So what?
I didn't read Kacie's response as to snottilly look down your nose in contempt at those who "can't control themselves." I read it as saying she wants Christians and the media to teach men that their sexual impulses can be controlled.
No snot involved, except maybe this persistent stuffed up nose I have due to these life long allergies.
Yours,
Wince
Just as an analogy, if you would say that people younger than say, 15 years of age, are sexually speaking, "green." And people from, say, age 16 - 25 are "ripe." What would those older than 25 be?
I know, I know. Bad joke.
I think more than anything kids just need to be educated about those dangers. The real dangers, like that getting pregnent when you're a teen means being poor the rest of your life, not "Reefer Madness"-type propagandizing. Kids aren't idiots, they just lack experience and knowledge.
Geez, I am NOT looking forward to trying to help my kids navigate the sexual scene of the 21st century. It's so totally schizophrenic.
I guess I qualify as a #3. Having been brought up to believe that sex is a wonderful thing that comes with a great deal of responsibility. So many of today's messages minimize the responsibility part.
And I think you missed my point. It's not about the fact that I succeeded. It's about the fact that it took more than a 1-shot intervention when I was 15 in a high school health class. It was a long term investment on the part of my parents - because it was a part of values education, not sex ed.
Abstinence-only education programs, as you noted, delay nonmarital sexual behavior. You and I apparently disgree on whether or not they delay the inevitable.
"Now for the matters you wrote about: It is good for a man not to marry. But since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband....Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. I say this as a concession, not as a command. I wish that all men were as I am. But each man has his own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that."
"Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I am. But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion."
So apparently the apostle Paul noted that not everyone has the willpower to abstain forever. If Paul felt it an unreasonable burden on Christians, I don't see why modern Christians would argue with him.
From my own perspective it is not reasonable to ask most people to go decades in celibacy. Some will manage it. Most never will. It is one thing to set an ideal, and it is quite another to set expectations higher than most people can ever meet. If your expectations are rarely met, you ought to be asking what's wrong with those expectations rather than the people.
The principle teaching has to come from parents. I know that my mother was pretty frank about the "time and place" aspect of sex, with the end result that I stayed a virgin until marriage— though I lived with my hubby before we married. And he accepted that, so my promise to myself was to never pull out the "I have a headache" argument (or any variant thereof) unless it was literally, painfully, true... and I have to say, that's a good policy to follow for all concerned. No unnecessary rationing, please.
Good for you!
Timothy Snyder (the Soldier):
There is no such thing as "only" sex.
"The degree and kind of one's sexuality reaches up into very pinnacle of one's spirit."
-Friedrich Nietzsche
Kacie Landrum wrote:
"For one month, they didn't watch any movies or TV shows with sexual content, they only listened to Christian or classical music, and they didn't talk about sex with their friends."
That would make me think about sex even more. Especially the classical music. Classical music is very sexy.
Your solution is to remove yourself from society. That is not a reasonable solution. The bottom line is that we live in this society and must find ways to deal with it effectively. Cocooning yourself is not an option for most people.
That's pretty good theology coming from an atheist.
I've read that in Britain students can leave high school at 16. The ones who plan to go to college stay in school and prepare for special exams called A-Levels. I think extending the school year, letting people leave at 16, or putting them into apprentice programs where they go to work full-time would be a good idea. Having the kids work for two years before they go off to college would probably be a good idea because they would be more responsible about college once they get there. They could take classes at local community colleges as a sort of pre-college. In addition, we should think about making the summer semester in college another school semester so people can graduate faster. This would also make it easier to work and go to school because they would be able to take a lower course load each semester. At some schools you can get a Master's by taking a fifth year of school. Why couldn't a pre-law student take a Fifth year of school to get a law degree?
That's hard. It expects a lot of our middle aged population. Most people don't seem to want to do that.
So apparently the apostle Paul noted that not everyone has the willpower to abstain forever. If Paul felt it an unreasonable burden on Christians, I don't see why modern Christians would argue with him.
Paul didn't just want people to abstain from sex. He wanted them not to get married, because he thought it would interfere with spreading the Gospel and preparing for Christ's return.
Modern Christian's don't argue with him. We agree it's "better to marry than to burn." We know that people aren't going to live their whole life in celibacy.
But this is not the same issue as abstinence until marriage.
From my own perspective it is not reasonable to ask most people to go decades in celibacy.
I agree, because they're not going to do so if they don't have the social support to pull it off - parents, family, friends, society. We're sending a double message if we're telling teens not to have nonmarital sex and then showing them the joys of it in Prime Time programming.
If your expectations are rarely met, you ought to be asking what's wrong with those expectations rather than the people.
I disagree. Expectations can be unmet even if there's nothing wrong with them. The real question is why they are rarely met. Sometimes the answer to this is because the expectations are flawed. Sometimes it's because of individuals. Sometimes it's because of factors outside of anyone's control.
Just because the "world" fails, in general, to meet my expectations doesn't mean that I should think that my beliefs are wrong.
After all, I expect elections in the United States to be clean, organized, and uncontroversial. (heh)
More important than changing the educational system, however, would be encouraging a general social change, toward greater reliance on extended family to support young parents
Oh, how I agree with this on so many levels.
However, I don't think that changing support for young parents will counteract decades of individualistic social "theory." I think that a major reason that many people delay marriage and childbearing is not because their parents and extended family tell them to do so, but because getting married and having kids is an imposition on their personal freedoms.
Or, maybe, I'm just cynical this morning.
Clear as a bell the man thought some people can't control themselves and will be giving in to temptation if you ask me. Yet you figure asking such people to wait 10, 20 years is reasonable?
Admitting that not everyone will be able to meet an expectation does not make the expectation invalid.
If you put the verse in the context of Paul's writings, he expected Christ to return within a matter of years, not decades. So he was saying that some people can't even hold off for a few years.
Does that make it unreasonable to expect people to wait at all?
Dale
If you want to create a society condusive to people marrying young and starting familites early you must 1) discard the notion that parents are only responsible for children until 18 and then they are free to pursue other things, and 2) value children more highly than they are being valued today which means sacrificing some selfish pursuits for them.
It also means that the notion of teenage rebellion being natural must be quelched. As children grow into adulthood, they will naturally ask for more freedom. But that doesn't mean that a generational war is inevitable. Parents and teenagers can be partners in that process. The problem is parents who are unwilling to give up control - ranging from dominating Dads who demand respect, but never give respect to Mothers (Cindy Sheehan comes to mind) that seek to infantilize their adolescent and adult children to Parents who are simply not interested because they have "better" things to do than worry about the development of their children into adults.
As Parents, we must stop seeing ourselves as Caretakers and start seeing ourselves as trainers. Just like there is no good excuse for the "War of the Sexes," there is no good excuse for the "Generational War."
Some of us are having a very rough time understanding what you are saying. Is God’s MOS (a military term) precluded from happening if sexual abstinence has occurred in the teenage years or in those seeking a university education ?
And, such interruptions of activities specifically birth contravene God’s design ? Then, in the event of pregnancy, the grandparents ought to foot the bill for how many years to ensure that God’s MOS is realized while the kid gets into law school ?
I am definitely confused. I cannot figure out the specific requirements of the sexually active married students or activists teenagers when the proposal relieves them most of the responsibility.
Next, we are told that professor of law Glenn Reynolds has found a societal change that
in his words further relieves the sexually active from further responsibility one reason of which is:
“We have infantilized teen-agers, and then we act surprised that they behave immaturely.”
This stuff is
right off the wallinteresting.McKiernan: At times I suspect you of being willfully obtuse. There is nothing in the least bit difficult to understand in this conversation. But I will try to break it down to baby-simple terms for you:
1) Humans have never been expected, by Christian tradition or any other tradition, to routinely go 10-20 years in celibacy as a general guideline for life.
2) Yet that is what society expects of our young people today.
3) This causes problems.
4) We might want to think about solutions rather than just fulminating about how decadent our young people are.
Is that clear enough for you?
Oh, by the way:
5) Expecting young people to be more responsible, AND having their parents more involved in their lives and supportive of them, are not mutually exclusive.
I find myself wondering if 5 isn't too complicated for you though. I struggle to find a simpler way of putting it.
When will all you folks stop fighting the biochemistry and physiology of your own bodies, for the sake of abstract principles preached to you by pervert priests who teach people to live by rules that few of them can practice, and who persistently misrepresent the lives of the early founders of their churches, temples, faiths and cults?
Having raised four of them with my wife, I observe that kids are smart enough to take care of themselves. Like it or not, they begin fucking at an early age. Consider it a by-product of both sexes being in the same classrooms and lunchrooms together all day long, which quickly leads to coupling in motels when they can afford them, temporarily empty homes of parents when available, or the back seats of SUVs when all else fails. (Surely you can remove them from the temptations of co-educational togetherness. But then, be prepared for them to practice intimacies with one another in any case, regardless of sex. As in so many of the famed english public schools.
And most kids are smart enough to know that fucking -- vaginal sex -- leads to serious emotional bonding and all too often, unwanted pregnancies. So about half the teen population now practice oral sex, most of these on a routine basis. That way, they both get it off, but without pregnancies, unwanted or otherwise, and less intimacy and emotional bonding than penile/vaginal copulation seem to entail.
It is beyond me why any of this should be surprising to anyone, more than 50 years after professor Alfred Kinsey published his two-part study of the sexuality of american males and females. Followed up as they were by the Masters and Johnson studies of the 1960s, and now routine and careful statistical analyses of who's doing what with or to whom, how frequently, and how many partners are involved.
I suppose reading these opinions offends most of you. And you certainly wouldn't invite me to your church, synagog, mosque, temple, or even your local coven, for purposes of lecturing the faithful. But I think I'm telling it like it is.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb
Excellent.
In other words, the Bible says: "Get married and then make love to your spouse and nobody else."
But there's nothing in the Bible, either Old or New Testament, that says: "Get your Ph.D. in physics (or post-modern de-constructionism) and/or make mucho bucks before you even think about getting married and making love to your spouse or anybody else."
I think it's fairly clear from contemporary study and simple scientific evidence that there are benefits to discouraging casual sexual dalliances. Christians would prefer sex be purely in marriage, and I don't see that as necessarily a bad ideal. In any case, conservatives are right that we're better off without rampant sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies, and they're also right that stable families are a better background for children to be born in.
Simply put: sexual mores survived for thousands of years because they were functional. They still are mostly functional, although a bit less so now that we have reliable birth control and treatment for most STDs. But the risks are still there both to individuals and society as a whole, and that's worth discussing.
As it stands now, I will be 25 next week (9/22 - woo hoo!). I've been married since August 2003, and my son passed the 17-month-old mark this afternoon. I'm at my last semester for a BS in Mathematics (minor in Physics), and hope to start grad school right off in January.
The above is background, mainly to establish where it is I'm coming from (because I think that's important).
I was taught to abstain. But it wasn't part of a school program, and Home/Church never referred to it like that. It was just a time&place reasoning: marriage is the time and place for many reasons, not the least of which are emotional attachment and a stable family-rearing environment.
My mother was part of the "Get an education, establish your career" camp. My father was not. Granted, I don't know that Mom knew how much time it takes to get a PhD (even if you fast-track it: no small feat). Dad, however, being the son of a PhD holder, understood what I would need in life. What he told me amounted to: College is not life. Many things happen at once, and you need to prepare for all of them. Make sure your priorities are in line, and make adjustments as you need. And when you get married (whenever that is), make sure your family comes first.
And so it has. Getting married meant changes to my current lifestyle. There were options. I could go to school half-time (or less) and work the rest, or I could grab all the scholarship/loan money possible and go to school full-time (work the rest) and finish that way. I opted for the latter only because I know that I get frustrated when things are drawn out for a long time. I've pretty much had to cut out martial arts from my life (no time to actually practice), and content myself with re-reading the books occasionally to remember what I practiced. If we're lucky we can buy a video game or two per year (video games being one of those things the wife and I like to do together).
My family (on both sides) has really been there for us. It's been tight on everybody, because both sets of parents are attempting to start their own businesses (my dad as a corporate recruiter and her parents do ceramics and such). They support us when they can, but the brunt of it falls on us.
It is not easy, and there are times when I wonder what it would have been like had I done it differently (not married, or whatever). I spend half a second with my family and realize that I don't really care. Life isn't supposed to be easy.
I think that's the first thing that kids (kids! Listen to me and I'm not even 25 yet!)need to learn. Not that life isn't easy, but that it is not even supposed to be easy. On top of that, they need to be taught to prioritize and they need to learn self-reliance.
Our educational structure does need to change (K-College, in my opinion), but that's only secondary. Sure, I could have passed the GED test at age 13 were I allowed to, but that's a non-issue. Nobody hires or apprentices a 13 year old. You shouldn't need to have a master's to teach high-school math. But schools will start requiring it because so many people want to teach high-school math (a majority of the math-majors on my campus are minoring in education for specifically this purpose). It's merely a way to cut down on the number of applicants (surely somebody with a master's degree would be a better teacher..right? suuuuure they will).
Our attitudes about sex need to change. It's more than a biological process or hormonal urge. There is emotional exchange just as much as biological exchange (isn't THAT as sterile way of referring to it).
Dean's right: nobody should have to go that long. But self-control isn't as tough an issue (relatively speaking) if you have your priorities in line. At least, that holds in my case.
You hit the nail on the head. I, too, got married while in school. We scrimped and saved to get by. I would go to the grocery store in the late evening and negotiate the price of meat if I would agree to by 30 pounds of ground meat instead of 2 pounds. I would buy chicken on sale, cut it up myself, and freeze portions for enough to feed two people.
Our budget was such that we each had $15.00 per week for gasoline and incidentals. My wife spent $10.00/week on gas, and had $5.00 to buy Diet Coke with. One month into the marriage, the engine blew on my car. The cost of carpooling was the entire $15.00. People I worked with were shocked that I did not have enough money to buy even a 35 cent bag of chips from the vending machine. But, to me, it was worth it.
Then, my wife got pregnant six months into the marriage. I was an engineering intern at a Defense Contractor. I went to the head of my program at the school, and also to the Dean of the Engineering College and explained my situation. They let me intern two consequetive semesters. The second semester, the one in which my son was born, I worked 60 hours per week, and took 9 hours of classes. My wife graduated just prior to his birth. And I was a very happy man, regardless of the sacrifices.
Now, 16 years later, it has been years since my wife and I made less than a 6 figure income. So it can be done. But you must be willing to tough it out, and struggle. In many ways, the times we struggled were happier than the times of ease. Who knows why? Maybe it was just that we were young and full of optimism.
But the back story is that we initially intended to wait a whole extra year to get married. The reason we didn't is that we both came to realize that we were not going to be able to hold back that long. And since we both wanted to live up to our standards, the options were 1) break off the relationship, or 2) get married earlier. We got married earlier.
I am not suggesting that sexual abstinence until marriage is a bad ideal. Nor am I suggesting that people are not responsible to control themselves.
What I am stating is that the cultural expectation to wait ever longer to marry does not jive with the biological design of God.
The Christian parent of teenagers and/or young adults needs to recognize that our culture is OUR design. The biology is GOD's design.
My question is which design do you think will ultimately prevail, man's design or God's design? My proposal is to redesign our culture (or at least the culture within the church) to better fit with the design of God, and also to adjust our parental expectations to fit God's design instead of our own selfish parental aspirations.
John wakes up on a Monday morning and decides to drop by MacDonald's and buy a breakfast sandwich before class. While he's there, he notices that the girl behind the counter is totally hot. Does he:
A) Tear off his clothes and have his way with her on the counter.
B) Take his sandwich and leave.
As I haven't recently heard a story on the news about two teenagers getting arrested for having sex on the floor of a MacDonald's, I presume he chooses option B.
Then he goes to math, where the lovely Mary Beth sits next to him and chews her pencil in a way he finds irresistable. Does he:
A) Tear off his clothes and have his way with her on the desk.
B) Try as hard as he can to focus on the lesson.
When was the last time you heard about a math class being interrupted because all the students started an impromptu orgy during the review over integrals?
After that is football practice, where he somehow manages NOT to have sex with a cheerleader. Then he runs an errand for his mother and somehow manages NOT to have sex with the cute girl he meets in the produce aisle at Tom Thumb.
It's possible that John is sexually active and is sleeping with his girlfriend. Maybe after he manages to resist having sex all day he finally gives in to the urge that evening when he's on a date with his girl. But even so, even if he is sexually active, he still somehow manages to resist acting on 80% of the sexual urges that strike him throughout the day. And if he can resist 80%, why can't he resist the 20%? If he somehow finds the self-control not to sleep with the MacDonald's girl, or Mary Beth, or the cheerleader, or the cute girl with the lettuce, why can't he resist sleeping with his girlfriend? He's already demonstrated that he is perfectly capable of resisting those urges, should he choose to do so.
The problem is, John compromises himself in a lot of small ways before he finally gives in and has sex with his girlfriend. He allows himself to 1) go over to his girlfriend's house 2) while her parents are gone and 3) make out with her for a while 4) on her bed. Then he's somehow surprised to find that he can't stop himself from having sex with her!
When I say it's EASY to be abstinent, I mean it's easy to be abstinent when you never let yourself be alone with someone you're attracted to. John easily resists the first four girls because NO ONE wants to have sex while their math teacher or football coach or parents are watching. But if you wait until you've reached step #4 to suddenly try and stop yourself from having sex, of course it's going to be impossible to be abstinent!
Resisting the second temptation is easy. Resisting the first temptation is nigh-on impossible. But, luckily, a man will not struggle with the first temptation unless he first makes a poor decision and compromises himself. Any man that lets himself be alone with a woman, lays down on her bed, starts making out with her, turns himself on, and THEN tries to fight his sex drive, is a FOOL. If he's struggling with abstinence, it's relatively easy for him to ask a friend to chaperone him and his girlfriend, or set specific (and realistic) rules for himself concerning what kind of physical contact he can trust himself with.
Note the many different meanings of the phrase "resist sexual temptation". These rules I'm giving won't lessen a man's sex drive or help him stop thinking sexual thoughts or feeling sexual urges. I know that. I'm not talking about those kinds of sexual temptations. I'm talking specifically about abstinence and how to accomplish it. Don't muddy the two, and put words into my mouth that I didn't at all say. I'm NOT saying that men have sex drives as weak as women's.
(By the way, how do you know my feelings about sex? Not that it's any of your business, but I do have an accurate understanding of the power of the male sex drive. Trust me, my honeymoon, I fully expect not to be let out of bed for at least three days. If my husband's feeling generous, on the fourth day he may let me up to get food. By the fifth, he may allow me a full hour's sleep. That whole plan has my whole-hearted approval: I intend to buy a couple of teddies, a few sex guides, and whipped cream and cherries and dive on in! Trust me, if you'd ever listened to me and my girlfriends talk about sex, the last thing you'd be saying is that I'm sexually frigid!)
You are presenting a strawman argument. Of course teenagers, and everyone else, can control themselves. The question is "do they want to do so?"
And the answer for 99% of the population is eventually, "No." We want to enjoy the intimacy that sex provides. It is not just a biological urge, it is a biological compulsion. So we, as people, will inevitably arrange the circumstances where intimacy becomes possible, and even probable. If we do not make a CONSCIOUS effort to avoid those situations, then at some point in any relationship, the time will occur when "opportunity knocks."
And since we are hard-wired to to seek out those opportunities, the effort to avoid them, or more often to restrain ourselves when the opportunities arise is difficult. For some, it is more difficult than others. But, the odds of successfully avoiding those tricky situations, or successfully restraining ourselves increase if we decrease the amount of time that sexual activity is forbidden, i.e. if we marry younger.
I remember distinctly what my wife said to me after we made love the first time. She said, "I feel like there is no one else in the world but me and you." The intensity of the moment was amazing. Maybe you've never experienced that, but sex is a powerful, powerful thing.
The point I, and Dean, and Glenn Reynolds are making is that the phenomenon of teenage sex is not new. What is new is the phenomenon of teenagers not getting married.
Tick, tock, tick, tock. The sexual clock ticks. For most of human history, the sexual alarm has gone off during the late teenage years. This new idea of waiting to marry seeks to set back the clock. But that is simply just not possible for most people.
So, instead of training young people to become responsible functioning adults at earlier ages, and so be ready to handle adulthood, marriage, and sexual relations as has occurred for the past several millinia, we CHOOSE to set our children up for moral failure by telling them that the alarm ringing in their head is not really true. They should hit the sexual snooze button. Again. And Again. And Again. And Again.
Sorry, but for me, that just doesn't make sense. I hit that snooze button many times as a teenager (and the girl down the street who got pregnant by some other guy sure made me glad I did), but there came a point in time when I simply did not want to hit the Snooze button again. So I got married earlier than planned.
What does someone whose parents value his projected educational and career more highly than his moral standing do? He succumbs to the temptation to engage in sex without marriage. THEN, he finds out that this sex stuff is really, really good stuff, and loads of fun. So then he has a choice. 1) Feel guilty for succumbing to the biological compulsion to have sex, or 2) Cast aside that old stale morality stuff and the church that preaches it.
We are not only setting up young people for failure. We are undermining the viability of the church, as well - all because we want to fulfill the non-Biblical and culturally imposed imperative of being a good capitalist. Capitalism is not evil in and of itself. But when we set it up higher than the designs and purposes of God, then it becomes a tool for evil.
Choices: fine, encourage away for people to make the choices you want them to make. When most of them fail--and most of them do, just as most of them always have--you may want to ask yourself if there was some better plan you might have thought about.
I do exactly what you suggest when it comes to other women in my life. I never allow myself to be alone with a woman other than my wife, my mother, my sister, and my daughters. I just don't do it.
So it is certainly possible to avoid those situations. But the dynamic when you are courting a woman you are interested in marrying is much different. You NEED some time alone so you can establish a certain level of psychological intimacy in order to determine whether or not this is truly the woman for you. And during those times, the effort needed to restrain yourself becomes greater and greater.
I had a strong moral upbringing and background. I believe I was able to resist the urge more than others chose to. But I just cannot imagine myself waiting until my late 20's or early 30's. Could I have done it? Sure. But why would I want to? Why SHOULD I want to? Just so I can make mucho bucks and satisfy my mother's psychotic career apirations for me?
Yes, if Paul felt that all people couldn't be expected to control themselves, it's rather arrogant for modern Christians to condemn those who can't. You obviously aren't taking your own scriptures seriously if you can't see that.
I take them seriously. I take seriously what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 7. I also take seriously his condemnation of works of the flesh in Galations 5 - including adultery, fornication and orgies.
Modern Christians - and to be clear, we're talking about consevative or evangelican groups - don't condemn people for having strong sex drives or for getting married. They condemn seeking sexual release outside the bonds of marriage, just as Paul did.
If we didn't, we wouldn't be taking our scriptures very seriously, would we?
That's embarassing. No more punditry from me before breakfast - not that my typing gets any better after breakfast.
Until that point, I spoke solely on our disagreement about whether or not it was a reasonable expectation.
From you repeated use of the loaded expression "has his way with her", it means you imagine that men do all the pursuing of women for purposes either of vaginal or oral sex. My experiences over many years, especially before I got happily and monogamously married 33 years ago, has been that the female of our species takes the lead in everything sexual except outright rape. If I had to "have my way" with any female, I wouldn't want to fuck her at all.
But good luck with churchly celibacy, if that's what turns you on. Or off.
Kacie and SH,
I wasn't aware Jesus wanted any of you who celebrate his name and memory to all but shudder when you find yourselves alone in the presence of a member of the opposite sex. Sort of like a Jew confronted by a Sturmabteiling truppe in the streets of Berlin in 1938, and looking for somewhere to hide. Maybe Paul wanted that. But I don't think he bothered asking Jesus why anyone would live the life of a freak in order to be godly.
Dean,
The only things wrong with the research of professor Alfred Kinsey that led up to the publications of his reports of the sexual practices of american men in 1948 and american women in 19543, were twofold. First, Kinsey was a entologist and zoologist, not a specialist in sexual practices nor in survey research of human populations. Second, Kinsey unethically involved members of his own staff in the same sexual activities he was researching.
But Kinsey's findings, even with known inexactitudes in regard to his population sampling, were borne out by follow-up research by Dr Paul H Gebhard, a Harvard-trained anthropologist and long-time director of the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University after Alfred Kinsey's deatth in 1956.
Noticeably, Kinsey's survey findings regarding the sexual practices of american men raised curiosity and public interest, whereas his all but identical findings regarding the sexual practices of american women created instant public fury and cutoffs of much of Kinsey's project funding. Americans could accept that dear old granddad fucked outside of marriage, beat his meat, and occasionally had homosexual notions. But to find out that dear old grandma had been doing much the same thing in her ripe years? The horror of it all.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Excellent style. Man and a half. Your wife is a most fortunate woman.
Scott, my questions however edgy were intended to seek out clarity. Thank you for your response. After the last few comments I think I understand infantilized teenagerism. Alienation and the data information on the mechanics of sex seem to have ignored your quest for finding a approach to a ‘right’ balance between Christian married life, graduate school and seeking financial resources to support everyone while they are sharing in ‘basic biology’. Actually your questions are most are appropriate and worthy of examination. Yet I do not think you’ll find the plausible answers in this forum. And your proposal places a price tag on others besides the couple under consideration. I do not think God would tolerate that kind of deal making. But lest I be accused of misrepresenting the facts, I’ll end the editorializing.
Just let me say, I am one of ten children. Eight of them attended university and two went to graduate school. I had eight years of university. Fortunately my father saw fit to leave some monies available for the unmarried kids still living at home for their education following his death four years prior to my graduation and six years prior to my younger brothers graduation.
Rarely, did I see a $20 dollar bill during those years. Getting married was not an option. I did, however, marry seven years after graduation. Did I fail God’s plan ? I think not. And I further think a suggestion that I may have a bit ludicrous. Your proposal in my view has no merit save perhaps having generous parents or grandparents in one’s family fold.
One marches to the tune of his own drummer and has to work with the cards dealt to you. That seems to be God's plan. But its only my view.
I don't mean to suggest that it is impossible to wait until after college to get married, and also abstain from sex until marriage. My purpose in asking the questions is to get parents to adjust our thinking to take into account the fact that cultural expectations, to which all of us fall prey, do not necessarily align themselves with reasonable Christian expectations. When they do not, we need to take that into account.