High-risk sexual behaviors threaten out society
By Val Farmer
Date Modified: 10/08/2009 10:22 AM
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Many educated and well meaning people look at the numbers of teenagers and young adults engaging in high risk sexual behavior and throw up their hands in resignation. The best we can do, they say, is to encourage protected or safe sex in view of such powerful social forces and trends.
I disagree. I don't think the case for sexual abstinence has been made compelling enough. Check out these reasons for abstinence vs. the "everybody is doing it" argument.
1. It can cost you your life. HIV and AIDS have life-threatening consequences. Heterosexual transmission of AIDS is a reality. It's not just about needles and homosexuality.
2. You can acquire a sexually transmitted disease. Many of these are asymptomatic in females and can cause cancer and sterility.
3. You face the devastating social, emotional and economic consequences of teen pregnancy such as: The emotional and moral impact of abortion. The emotional impact of giving up a child for adoption. The far-reaching social and economic consequences of raising an out-of wedlock child, especially on the negative educational and life opportunities of the mother. This also has tremendous costs to society in terms of mental health and social/criminal problems of children raised in single parent, out-of wedlock homes. The emotional impact of mothering at an early age. The high risk birth and development complications for low birth weight infants born to teen mothers. The impetus for a teen marriage that has a high probability of divorce. Teens are not yet at a developmental point where they can put another person's interests and needs ahead of their own.
4. Premarital intercourse predicts higher rates of divorce. The myth of living to insure sexual compatibility is wrong. Forty percent of "living together" couples breakup and the remaining 60 percent who marry have a higher divorce rate than couples who never live together.
5. Premarital intercourse predicts higher rates of marital infidelity. Abstinence enhances the quality of sex life after marriage.
6. Lowered feelings of self-worth. Premarital intercourse lowers feelings of self-worth when it violates deeply held personal, family and religious values. Feelings of guilt, depression and anxiety are common. Rejection is much more difficult after sexual intimacies have been shared.
When sex between dating partners is seen as a part of the process of building a long-term relationship, people have to make sexual decisions without a firm standard. A significant number of females engage in intercourse when they do not want to in order to be found appealing or in an effort to maintain a relationship.
7. Sexual relations without a marriage commitment complicates a couple's ability to address and resolve meaningful relationship problems. Some problems can't be addressed because of insecurity and lack of trust. Sexual relations may precipitate a crisis in the relationship around commitment issues and leads to relationship breakups. The less committed lover becomes frightened and backs off.
8. Sexual relations with various partners destroys the connection between commitment and sexual relations and clouds judgment in courtship. Males are less likely to commit to marriage and engage in meaningful psychological intimacy if sex is a part of the relationship. Males can and do engage in non-relational sex while applying a double standard to the women they date.
Many men engage in sexual relations without requirements for emotional intimacy. They treat women as objects of sexual desire. Engaging in casual sex or sex without care and commitment is conditioning to divorce sex from feeling. This detachment limits their capacity to fully participate in and enjoy intimate sexual relationships. In an extreme form, this attitude lies at the basis of sexual addiction and sexual aggression.
Females engaging in casual sex give less of themselves in relationships, have more concurrent affairs, and receive less love and emotional intimacy from partners. They prefer partners based on physical attractiveness and disregard important factors in courtship such as agreeableness, emotional stability, kindness and consideration, willingness to give as well as receive.
9. For believers, add the violation of God's law to the list. Abstinence is a great message, not one to be sneered at.
For more information on dating and courtship, visit Val Farmer's web site at www.valfarmer.com.