Let's talk about sex, baby.

So one of the big news stories in Arizona this week was that our teen pregnancy rate showed the largest drop in the nation, according to the latest available statistics.  Of course that is good news.  As the mother of a teenage girl myself, I celebrate the fact that fewer children are having babies they are not prepared to raise.

However, the treatment of the story by commentators had me absolutely livid.  I am a talk radio listener.  I usually leave it on all day as background noise, tuning in when I hear something that catches my interest.  I hear, and at times call in and participate in, more in-depth discussion of many news stories than the soundbites on the TV news.  So when I heard the local fill-in guy going on and on and on about how this did NOT reflect more abstinence, but only increased contraceptive use, and the percentage of sexually active teenagers had NOT changed, and it was ALL about more contraceptive use.... as if it were his mission to make absolutely certain that there was no way that any of this good news could be tied to....GASP .... traditional values, I got so sputtering angry that my kids watched me struggle to form a sentence about it.  Of course, they are used to this.  They just laughed and said, "Mom's yelling at the radio again," to each other with giggles and knowing little nods.

As I drove them to school, I thought about why it made me so angry.  I mean, it's nothing more than we hear every day.  "Kids will do it anyway."  "Abstinence education doesn't work."  Anyone who disagrees with these pronouncemets is branded naive, stupid, or a religious radical.  I am neither naive nor stupid, but I am willing to wear the third badge.  As a serious, practicing Catholic, who strives to accept and live all the teachings of my Church, that's how I am regarded by society at large, and frankly, by most of my own family.  (By the way, I am a failure at one of the biggies... see here for discussion of that.)

What I realized is that our public discussion of sexuality, for both teens and adults, is purely about the physical.  We regard ourselves as successes if people avoid disease or unintended pregnancy.  What we never talk about is whether they should be having sex at all.  We don't talk about the impact of sexuality on hearts, minds, and souls.

This society regards itself as a success when more teenagers reach adulthood without having had a baby or contracted a disease.  Why is it that we don't regard ourselves as failures when the only things we teach them about sex are how to have it in a defensive posture?  When all we teach them is to protect themselves against the people they decide to share their bodies with?  When we neglect to warn them about and ignore the evidence of broken hearts, degraded spirits, and jaded attitudes?  When we teach our children that engaging in the most intimate thing two people can do, while only considering how to keep their innermost selves safe from the person they are sharing it with, what kind of accomplishment is that?  When we tell them it's fine to do things that say forever, while knowing the relationship they do them in has almost no chance of being anything but temporary, how do we consider ourselves decent parents?

When are American parents going to step up and do better for their kids?  When are we, as a society, going to stop living this fiction that sex can be a recreational activity with no consequences?  When are we going to start telling our kids the truth about just how much one person gives of themselves to another when they share a sexual embrace, and how dangerous it is, not physically, but spiritually and emotionally, to share that with the wrong person?

In short, when are we going to admit the truth that the sexual revolution has largely destroyed the fabric of this country's social structure, and start rebuilding it by acknowledging that maybe those repressive grandparents who thought you should save it for marriage might just have known what the hell they were talking about?

I don't know about anyone reading this, but my children are too precious to be launched into the world believing such dangerous tripe.  They won't hear from me that the gift from God to married couples, in which they are privileged to help Him create new human beings in His image and likeness, is acceptably dumbed down into a team sport, with as many players on the field as you choose.

When high standards are promoted, some people fail to live up to them.  That has always been true.  But when societies decide that because some fail, none should try, that is when they collapse.  The acceptance of only the lowest standards ensures that everyone can meet them and almost no one will exceed them.

I have a much different vision for how sexuality will become part of my children's lives.  I want them to know that it is a beautiful and powerful gift from God, that has unbelievable responsibility attached to it, and that when used correctly, its rewards are more than anyone can describe.  In short, I will teach them the Catholic vision of sexuality, in all its life and soul-affirming truth and joy.

Call me crazy, call me stupid.  But you'll never be able to say that I didn't TRY.