A Time magazine article, “Where’d You Learn That?”, (June 15) quoted a teacher who was asked by an 8- and a 10-year-old to define certain perverted sex acts. Two older kids, still only 14, went to a teen-center nurse for advice on heightening their arousal during sex. The nurse gave the nearly pubescent couple several books (not to educate, but to bring them “closer in bed”) and “a billion condoms.” Middle schools in Denver have had to institute sexual-harassment policies because of increasing incidents of “lewd language, groping, pinching and bra-snapping.”
The facts show that kids are desensitized to and nonchalant about sex. One Denver middle school student pinned the blame on role models. Time stated, as another cause, the blatant sexual content in popular music. Another cause is the absence of parents from the home. One girl said, “Parents haven’t set boundaries, but they are expecting them.”
Fear to educate, fear that “they’re going to do it anyway,” along with all the media’s enticing promotions, are all symptoms of the greater cause: our failure to respect real, absolute law.
God gave human beings a perfect law consisting of ten basic commands. These are not old-fashioned, harsh codes of conduct, but moral standards based on love and give, existing to give us joy. When these laws are broken, the result is unhappiness. The two commandments that ensure happiness in the realm of family and sex are the seventh and tenth. “Thou shalt not commit adultery” and “Thou shalt not covet.” These are absolute laws. So why the confusion?
Parents have lost sight of these laws and formulas for happiness. Now, according to Time, “They aren’t quite sure how they feel about teenage sex.”
Neither Time nor most parents realize this basic cause and solution, because they are even leery to call it a problem. In fact, Time has actually found a silver lining in this ominous, foreboding cloud: An increased use among teens of birth control has yielded a decrease in teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.
Children, although they may circumvent the physical penalties of a law, have not found a way around the emotional, mental and psychological consequences.
This young generation of sex experts is a tragic reflection on our lack of moral standards. Unless we return to true absolutes, we will truly and absolutely fall.