Minnesota's soaring rate of sexually transmitted disease [STD] is in the news again. At the national level, a recent study found that 25 percent of 14- to 19-year-old girls have at least one of four common STDs.
The solution? Enlightened folks tell us it's more sex education, counseling and treatment. They call for more tax-funded initiatives such as a $1.3 million bill for screening and public education recently considered by the Minnesota Legislature.
But few are talking about the real reason for the epidemic: too many kids are having sex at too young an age.
Try mentioning this at your next dinner party or parents meeting at school, and watch the eyes roll. What 1950s TV rerun are you living in? Sure, a little abstinence education never hurt anyone, the common wisdom goes, but we all know -- wink, wink -- that kids are going to "do it."
This idea is one of the biggest cons of our generation. At least one group understands this -- the 53 percent of high school students who reported that they had never had sexual intercourse in a 2005 survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Empowering? Give me a break
The con about youth sex is rooted in the myth behind the sexual revolution: that sex without restraints -- doing what you feel -- is both liberating and fundamental to human happiness. But in our sex-saturated culture, the opposite is true for many young people. It's far from liberating to be at the mercy of frenzied adolescent impulses.
Here's another myth: that young women are as eager to hop in the sack as young men. Surely, lots of women remember fighting off groping guys in high school and mashers at college frat parties. Sex with the average hormone-driven guy -- who sometimes can't wait to brag about "scoring" -- is supposed to be enticing or empowering to women? Give me a break.