Instapundit on teens and sex...
May 25, 2002
Geez...InstaPundit. has finally weighed in on the whole teens and sex debate. For once, I was ahead of the curve! Yes! Glenn's comments are actually pretty good and on the money. Check out his comments and add your own enlightened ones. He's getting way too much shit from people on the right -- people who really don't know anything (Yes, Jonah Goldberg, this means you.)
Well, that's a little harsh.
No, no, not the Jonah crack. Rather, it's not so much that the reactionary mass doesn't understand as it is that they don't want to understand. Life is a lot less complicated if you believe that the expanse of young people from age 18 on down are intellectually and hormonally challenged when it comes to sex. Being kept ignorant is "for their own good." The world becomes much more complicated when the truth comes out -- that young people do just as well, or just as poorly, as adults do in regards to the subject matter.
I've pointed out many times that it's our culture of not talking about sex --really talking about it, not packaging it for consumption -- with young people that puts us on par with former East Block countries for rates of STD transmission, teen pregnancies and abortions. "Abstinence only" education is the ultimate boondoggle, a case of myth over fact. "Teens" were never teens. Sex was never a "bad thing" and ignorance is never better to information, explanation and understanding. The mess that we have today is a direct result of believing the contrary.
Our European cousins don't have the same problems that we do with their "teens" around sex. While they have a lot to learn from us about diversity, we've got a lot to learn from them about seeing "teens" as the young adults they really are.
Posted by Jody at May 25, 2002 08:43 PM