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Sunday, March 16, 2008
Doug Giles :: Townhall.com Columnist
STDs-R-Us: The Remuneration for the Slutification of Our Nation
by Doug Giles
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I was attempting to talk to one of my teenage daughters about sex the other day (God, I hate this part of parenting because no matter how cool you are as a dad, once you start talking about the ABCs of bumping uglies you immediately morph from being Steve McQueen to mirroring Steve Urkel). Anyway . . . as a good dad, I ponied up and I did—the very awkward—dew.

Why did I recover an already tackled gauche issue with my little lady? Well, one reason was because “one of the most salient features of our current culture is that there is so much bull****,” as Princeton philosophy prof Harry Frankfurt would say. And the BS is particularly ripe and piled high and deep in regard to the 411 the “progressives” are selling our teens on the tube and the net concerning what to do with their naughty bits.

My family and I can’t turn on the TV without being slapped upside the head with gay, lesbian, hetero or autoerotic sex slop. And that’s on the cooking channels. Don’t get me started on the rest of the networks. Yep, Hollywood, public schools and universities, and fashion magazines have succeeded in making your female feel weird in our mud flap girl milieu if:

1. She doesn’t sleep with a few chicks.

2. She doesn’t make out with everything that moves.

3. She doesn’t embrace being bad (as good is so, so passé—and being a slut, well, that’s totally awesome). It’s empowerment!

4. She doesn’t attend and participate in a “rainbow party” (these parties are too vile for me to describe; however, if you’re curious you can always brace yourself and go online and Google it).

5. She doesn’t sleep with her zit-faced boyfriend, or at least dole out some fellatio, lest he become irate for being left high and dry. Yes, if she doesn’t service the young squire, he might get angry and shoot up the school or church or something.

6. She has problems with having a kid when she’s a kid (e.g. Jamie Lynn Spears, 16, unwed and knocked up).

7. She doesn’t take nude photos and videos of herself and send them around the planet via MySpace or Facebook.

8. She doesn’t flash her breasts, make out with another girl and/or masturbate on camera, all for the prized Girls Gone Wild T-Shirt.

9. She doesn’t turn into a horny Desperate Housewife who’ll cheat on her husband with Julio the teenage pool boy.

10. She doesn’t inflate her chest to basketball proportions.

11. She has thin lips and doesn’t inject fat from her derrière.

12. She won’t date a moron like Flava Flav in order to get on TV, or easy street, or at least capture the keys to a Kia Sportage.

13. She has a problem with being a stripper.

14. She has issues with being like one of Hef’s splooged-brain girlfriends who’ll have sex with a well-to-do octogenarian simply for his drachmas.

15. She has a problem with wearing a thong when she’s ten years old or donning a Halloween porn costume for her middle school party.

Y’know, if I were a woman I’d be pretty PO’ed that “secular progressives” within America have succeeded in making young women known and appreciated only if they’re a catch rag for our orgasm-obsessed, Onanistic way of life. Yes, the empowered woman of today, according to the media, is the girl who wears a Hustler T-shirt, will strip on command and has no problemo whatsoever in turning her vagina into a sexual turnstile. Good job, you secular “progressive” weeds.

As you can imagine, buying into this sexed-up culture of raunch has caused an insane increase in STDs amongst our nation’s teens. Yep, the reality is that every twenty-four hours 21,000 teens are slapped, saddled, infused and infected with some creepy, nasty and potentially deadly bug brought about by following the advice of the producers of the Rock of Love II.

According to the Center for Disease Control this week, it seems as if our societal schlep to the drum of the sexual revolutionaries of the ‘60s, American Pie, Superbad, Paris and Pam has brought about a veritable venereal tsunami of which one out of four of our teenage girls are now drowning in a sexually disease-laden wake. (Boy, this has gotta hurt all the “SP” horndogs because this info didn’t come from Focus on The Family).

Yes, mom, dad, and young familial squabs, the chances are historically sky high that if you screw around nowadays, you could very well be . . . well . . . screwed.

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About The Author
Doug Giles’ new book “If You're Going Through Hell, Keep Going!" is now available. Ann Coulter says "Doug Giles is a substantive and funny tour de force for traditional values.” Doug’s talk show and video blog can be seen and heard at www.ClashRadio.com.
 
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You don't have to be a conservative...
You don't have to be a conservative like Doug to give your kids the message about not doing the things he lists. In fact, as a liberal and a parent, I'm annoyed at Doug's association of these issues with liberals or liberalism. I've raised two daughters (aged 22 and 20), and they think the kinds of things Doug itemizes are both tacky and bad for girls. And yes, my kids had sex ed courses in high school and support from my wife and me on not doing what 'every' other kid was doing. What sex ed courses showed my kids were the consequences of loose sex; contrary to what most conservatives believe, many sex ed curricula are not amoral 'how-to-do-it' courses. In fact I don't know of a public school system in my part of blue Massachusetts that offers such courses. But hey, I say never confuse conservatives with facts--they already know what they know.

Let me add my voice to Jack's. If there wasn't a demand for all of this, there wouldn't be a supply, and conservatives should look no further than to capitalism to understand what's going on--although looking in the mirror is always good advice.

aDNA
Libertarians oppose taxing anything.

So you're not a libertarian?
I mean, we could clean it up and tax it.

Of course, then we would have to tell our little 6-year-old girls about their professional choices,

which would take time away from the 3 Rs, the Sciences, and the 5 arts, but hey.

--Libertariansforeverything:
"look'em straigt in the eye and lie like hell."

tadpole
here is the link i got the information on welfare from.
the guy is a conservative blogger but went to afdc statistics and compiled a pretty good synopsis.

i know this part of the discussion was not totally on topic but it shows a general understanding among even liberal politicians that things had to improve and the willingness to make things right.


http://blog.cleveland.com/wideopen/2007/10/welfare_rolls_st ill_plunging_a.html

tadpole
i was responding to other posts with my rhetoric not yours.

you have been civil and reasonable, in fact, your last post was really well thought out.

i just want to touch on one aspect.

i will concede that it was well intentioned (sometimes a liberal failing no doubt, but not always)legislation that originally allowed single mothers to gain financially from not having a spouse in the house.

that has changed though tadpole, maybe from conservative prodding or more likely, IMHO, from lessons learned over the past 30 years.

single mothers no longer get more money for more children and only can stay on welfare for a total of 5 years over their lifetime.

also the total number of people on welfare has fallen from 15 million in 1995 to about 3 million today. i think the percentage i saw was 1.3% are on welfare.

a fairly impressive improvement.

i want to reiterate what a pleasure it is to discuss issues with you.
you are one of the few conservatives i have run across to acknowledge that many liberals, like most americans, are simply doing their best to make a better life for themselves and their family rather than tearing down all that we value in america.

i commend your objective and clear headed thinking and look foward to discussing other issues with you in the future.

it is important that americans of all stripes recognize we need to move away from polarization towards some sort of middle ground.

thanks





religiouslib
I absolutely understand that most Americans are decent hard working folks trying their best to be good citizens - both conservative and liberal.

Let's cool down the rhetoric - I certainly have not called anyone evil incarnate. Besides you're moving away from the point.

The point is that it is liberal positions on sexuality that has contributed to the decline of the family and the increase of teen sex consequences. It was liberal legislation that made it more financially attractive to run the father out of the house for those on welfare. Note the word 'contributed' above - humans are a complex bunch and it is a rare occassion when there is a 1 to 1 cause and effect ratio.

My personal position is that liberals are not a homogenous group in terms of their politics, religion, or favorite dessert any more than blacks, hispanics, left handed people, red-heads, or evangelicals. There is no value in trying to paint with an overly broad brush.

There are people of high morals both conservative and liberal no doubt as there are people of questionable ethics and reasoning of every stripe - no group has cornered the market in any of these areas.

This does not equate to all positions are right or moral, just that you can find a variety of positions in every group regardless of how you decide to classify them.

doug
what proof have you got that liberals "exclusively"
tell their daughters pre-marital sex is ok.

no parent i know wants their daughter to have sex before marriage.

do you know any?

more importantly can you produce any statistics that back that up.

teenage pregnancy rates are at their lowest they have been in 20 years.
if you look closely at the stats i will provide with the link, states in the south, louisiana, texas, missippi and arizona have the highest in the country.

here is the link to guttmacher


http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/2006/09/12/USTPstats.pdf

religiouslib
I absolutely understand that most Americans are decent hard working folks trying their best to be good citizens - both conservative and liberal.

Let's cool down the rhetoric - I certainly have not called anyone evil incarnate. Besides you're moving away from the point.

The point is that it is liberal positions on sexuality that has contributed to the decline of the family and the increase of teen sex consequences. It was liberal legislation that made it more financially attractive to run the father out of the house for those on welfare. Note the word 'contributed' above - humans are a complex bunch and it is a rare occassion when there is a 1 to 1 cause and effect ratio.

My personal position is that liberals are not a homogenous group in terms of their politics, religion, or favorite dessert any more than blacks, hispanics, left handed people, red-heads, or evangelicals. There is no value in trying to paint with an overly broad brush.

There are people of high morals both conservative and liberal no doubt as there are people of questionable ethics and reasoning of every stripe - no group has cornered the market in any of these areas.

This does not equate to all positions are right or moral, just that you can find a variety of positions in every group regardless of how you decide to classify them.

Me first
Notice a common theme running through all the examples Mr. Giles gave us. No, it is not selfishness. It is the lack of it.

In these examples, others are encouraging the girl to put herself aside and think only of others and what they think of her. If others tell her that exposing herself or allowing her body to be used by others is a value, then the girl is supposed to do that. "You don't want to be unpopular with other people, do you?" is the message. "Put your qualms aside and put others first, or we won't have any use for you."

The reality is that self-respecting people put themselves first and have contempt for the insignificant little nymphs that sell themselves out for attention. We should be encouraging egoism in our culture (as against narcissism, which is admiration of one's image in others' eyes, as described above). People should be taught to say, "Wait a minute, why exactly am I supposed to be less important than YOU?"

religiouslib
I know most liberals do not believe in extramarital sex, but it seems to be exclusively liberals who tell kids that premarital sex is
ok.

tadpole
and therein lies my point.

do you understand that most liberals are just like most conservatives.

they go to work, go to church, raise families and do the best they can to live a moral life.

they do not believe in open marriage or free sex.

that was a fad of the 60's that was gone in a couple years.

how many liberals do you know?
do they believe in open marriage and free sex?

my parents were liberal and were married for 52 years and attended church every sunday of their lives.

i am much the product of my parents.

both my parents and myself and my ordained minister brother are liberals because of our religious beliefs.

i know the biased conservative media has done an excellent job convincing some conservatives that liberals are evil incarnate

in your personal experience tadpole, how many of these evil open marriage, free sex liberals have you run across.

AlphaOmega
To tell you the truth, I really don't know what I'd do. I do not have gay children, and none of my friends or acquaintances do either (that I know of). But as I said before, I belive in telling kids the truth, and the truth about anal sex is that it damages the body. We SDA's believe that God does not want people to do things which damage the body. The SDA Church came out against smoking approximately 100 years before the medical community did. The SDA Church advocated natural foods and physical exercise, also about a century before they became fashionable. Early SDA's were also proponents of chastity back then, and we have held onto this belief even after it has fallen out of fashion.

Doug
I believe that you are truthful about what you say (more or less) about your community. At the same time, unless you severely intermarry, you must bring people into your community from the outside, who introduce different ideas and variations. One type of difference, however, is not introduced from the outside, but blossoms right in the middle of your almost perfect families, and that is, homosexual children. So, why don't you answer me the question I asked in the first place: how do you deal with the gay children? What do you tell them about themselves?

AlphaOmega
Are you claiming that I described the SDA community as "perfect"? What I said is that we have longer, healthier lifespans than the general population. I also said that we have substantially lower rates of STD's, teen pregnancy, cancer, heart disease, and emphysema. These are facts, not opinions. I invite you to check on them. I did not say they do not happen; I said they happen far less among SDA's than others. I attribute this to our lifestyle, which goes contrary to the "anything that feels good" ethos that permeates todays popular culture. We tell our kids the truth about smoking, drinking, high-fat diets, sedentary lifestyles, premarital and extramarital sex, and, since you asked, homosexuality. While it's not politically correct to say, it is the truth that anal sex tears open veins in the rectum and E. coli enter the bloodstream, condom or no condom. E. coli are normal in the large bowel, but no amount of politically correct BS will make it normal or healthy to have E. coli in the blood. This is also true of hetero anal sex. It is abnormal, disease-producing behavior. Period.

Doug
In your perfect community of Seventh Day Adventists, how do you deal with your gay children?

I just blame you
" religiouslib writes: Monday, March, 17, 2008 3:50 PM
martini-henry
there are millions of liberals who are Christians.

to stereotype millions upon millions of americans and then blame them for state of our culture is illogical.

do you think only liberals go to the movies.
do you think only liberals buy the clothes for their daughters.
do you think only liberals watch tv programs and news you so revile.

well think again.

to self-righteously claim all would be well if it weren't for those evil liberals is a simplistic and unrealistic line of logic."
-----
Actually, I blame villains, like you, that steal the public's taxes and misuse them. Your need to break the law at any cost is picked up by the various industries and cultures as false righteousness. You're not logical, you're criminal.

Charles
The parents at the church I attend (Seventh-day Adventist) teach their children, both male and female, to wait until marriage. They give them all of the good reasons why they should do so. They tell their kids that the only 100% effective way to prevent STD's and unwanted pregnancy is to wait until marriage. If you think there's another way, you're delusional. They also tell them not to drink or smoke, and they set good examples by abstaining themselves from alcohol, tobacco, and extramarital sex. STD's, teen pregnancy, teen suicide, cancer of all kinds, and emphysema are far less prevalent among SDA's than among the general population. Go ahead and call us a sexually repressed cult, but our faith also teaches that married couples should have intense, passionate sexual relationships free of guilt, jealousy of previous sex partners, and, of course, germs from previous sex partners. We also live an average of 10 years longer make more money than the general population. Another benefit of waiting until marriage, rarely discussed in these forums, is that those who wait for that one special someone get to have the kind of exciting, heart-racing wedding night that so few ever experience any more.

Jack
Thanks for the link to some interesting, if not troubling, facts. However the conclusions are dubious at best and certainly unsubtantiated.

Advocates for Youth suggest research is the answer - what does Advocates for Youth do? Research!

I would be interested in a more complete analysis of causation - to suggest that because we don't provide 'free' sexual health care and more sex education hardly explains it all.

The focus on 18 & 19 year olds was curious - aren't these people adults?

Data

Data regarding the gap between American and European teens in terms of pregnancy, abortion, and STD's: http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/PUBLICATIONS/factsheet/fs est.htm

Touj.
I am speaking about heterosexual marriage, but that still has nothing to do with the government.

religiuoslib
The most destructive aspect of divorce with children is that children are asked to make decisions they are not prepared to make. Who do they want to live with? What do they want to do/ eat/ wear? Your point is well taken.

Parents abdicate decision-making to the kids and wonder why they don't get respect from the child.

While it may not be fair to say one segment of the population is responsible for all the ills of society - it is fair to say that the positions with respect to sex that have degraded society are clearly liberal in nature - open marriages, free sex, it's okay to be pregnant before graduation...

As posted previously - we know right and wrong, our decisons determine our future. People have acheived success from all stations in life. It is on you to make good and right decisions - for yourself and your children.

Doug
Ditto. Freud was right--development is just a wee-bit influential. "Deprived" is hardly the word, blessed is closer. My background includes married parents that spent 52 years together; sacrifice/hard-work/integrity/love. We now have two generations of "if it feels good do it" and forgive anything without concern about conversion that now make up a sizable portion of American culture. Keep your fingers crossed.

Touj
I grew up in a safe, clean, loving home with parents who were married to each other and did not stray and did not drink. I didn't have cellphones, iPods, video games, fancy cars,or any of the other things so many of today's kids have and still they feel deprived because they don't have more. I didn't feel deprived, but I know I would have if I didn't have a both a mother and a father living in the same home, both of whom had my last name.

tadpole
oh i agree wholeheartedly

i am just pointing out that it is not one segment of americans that are causing this problem.

what do many divorced parents (whether conservative or liberal) do to ensure their child's love?

they relax all rules during their custody time and buy the child whatever they want.

this is just as destructive as the movies and such.

my point is that this is very complex and multi-layered problem.

to say that one segment of americans are responsible is a gross over-simplication.


Tadpole
I mentioned "government approval" because I assumed you were only talking about heterosexual marriages - was I wrong? If so, I apologize.

I've written before about my earlier volunteer work on a domestic violence hotline, I've also lived long enough to hear about alot of very private experiences from friends.

Marriage in itself doesn't guarantee anything. What usually makes for the kind of sex you describe is love, commitment, and mutuality. That can happen among all kinds of couples.

"religious lib" an oxymoron in itself
Religious Lib writes: there are millions of liberals who are Christians.

It is not a stereotype to speak the truth..read any demoninations scriptual advice about sex, fornication, adultery...etc. Any denomination exept the various "church of what's happening now" congregations (with are liberal)will decry the behaviors that this author is examining. The state of our culture is THEIR fault and and Libs may watch what they wish..my contention is that that THEY produce the filth...truth is a painful thing. Maybe you need to send a donation to Larry Flint's website, you have a lot in common..oops there I go, judging again.

Have a Happy Easter...if you know that it upon us in days.

religiouslib said
divorce rates according to evangelical pollster barna are the same for non-church goers as among church goers.

why is that?
what is that teaching our kids?

Tadpole;
Divorce rates among church goers is the same as non-church goers because far too many people that attend church have bought into the notion that marriages are disposable.

This is another clear attempt to justify a position based not on its merits, but on whether somebody else is doing it (or not doing it).

Just because so many can't make an omelette does that mean that making omelettes is bad, it means that the person trying to make it is not doing it right.

I would suggest that the number of divorces is not an indictment of marriage, rather an indication that people aren't doing it right.

The value of the institution of marriage is not measured by the number of those that don't do it right, but rather by those that do. Children in non-divorced households do better than children of divorced families in many areas. (http://www.divorcereform.org/edu.html)

martini-henry
there are millions of liberals who are Christians.

to stereotype millions upon millions of americans and then blame them for state of our culture is illogical.

do you think only liberals go to the movies.
do you think only liberals buy the clothes for their daughters.
do you think only liberals watch tv programs and news you so revile.

well think again.

to self-righteously claim all would be well if it weren't for those evil liberals is a simplistic and unrealistic line of logic.


Touj.
You demonstrate one of the problems with many people today - whether truth is true or it depends.

Touj;
'That's true, in the perfect, ideal, hallmark-card world. Frequently, it's not true, to assume that people who's relationship is suddenly made supernatural because the government gives them special rights is silly.'

Tadpole;
I did not mention anything about the government so I don't know what you are talking about.

Either it is best for people to enjoy sex in the context of marriage or it isn't. In my opinion it is.

Lilly, your wrong...as usual
Lilly wrote: "You cannot logically blame TV's trash-obsession on liberals."
Absolutely, positively wrong. Liberals control Hollywood and the entertainment industry in general (including what we laughingly call news, in most cases). Their own lack of values and their distain for everything traditional and patriotic is greatly out of sync with millions of Americans. Americans in the middle 66% of the great bell shaped "moral curve" are as influenced by a Godless media just as the average Roman was desensitized by the ever increasing brutality of the arena. With little to balance the dirt, larger numbers can rationalize their behavior and society starts to circle the drain (this probably started with Woodstock and reached a crescendo with Roe v Wade).
We can thank liberals for it all. Liberal, legislating justices, liberal(libertine)college professors, "progressive" producers and the media which is simply their town crier.
When you push away the pond slime off the "progressive/liberal" agenda, it is always about sex...their need to rationalize their own putrid behavioral past on the screen, in a magazine or in the classroom. This allows them to develop a false consensus about the world and to recruit enough victims so they can "feel good" about themselves. Nothing eases a guilty conscience more than corrupting another human, or an entire generation.

P.S. Lilly, how many children have you successfully raised? Just 3 for me (no criminals, drug users, or sluts)that have managed through my (an my spouse's) vigilance to be shielded from most of this societies slime.

first
i have yet to meet even on of the mysterious secular progressives.

more importantly, so every commerical, every song, and every vile act is being done by these mysterious SP's.

so none of the commericals and songs and videos are written by conservative minded folk trying to make a buck.

don't you believe it.

divorce rates according to evangelical pollster barna are the same for non-church goers as among church goers.

why is that?
what is that teaching our kids?

to place blame rather than accept responsiblity is not the solution.

AlphaOmega & Tadpole
Alpha: right on.

Tadpole: You said, "Sex is a beautiful and wonderful thing in the context of marriage"

That's true, in the perfect, ideal, hallmark-card world. Frequently, it's not true, to assume that people who's relationship is suddenly made supernatural because the government gives them special rights is silly.

AlphaOmega
You might also get a Bible and read the Song of Solomon. It's a rather graphic poem about a man's physical love for his wife. That's WIFE, not "shack-up" or "hook-up".


And Jack
You're free to move to any of these other "more accepting" countries.

I never saw JJ's breast but given the context in which this happened I really don't think that the spectacle of a man roughing up a woman, even in a "dance" situation, is appropriate for an admittedly family venue, do you?

AlphaOmega
If that is what you are hearing then your ears work differently than mine.

Perhaps I can clarify;

Sex is a beautiful and wonderful thing in the context of marriage. It is not only an expression of love, but of commitment. The Bible instructs husbands and wives to give their bodies to their mates (no mention of a condition of procreation or sacks) - 1 Corinthians 7:4.

What is not often shared with children about sex is that it is much more than the physical act - the emotional and psychological impact of sex on all people, but especially children, is significant.

It's sad that you would advocate parents giving up their role simply because you don't agree with their position.

Despite the opinion of many that 'It takes a village' to raise a child, I am convinced that it takes a parent.

Dbz77
Clearly you don't "get" sarcasm. This is one guy who loves his daughter-and if her suitors are smart they will be serious enough about their intentions to learn to get along with future FIL.


dbz77
dbz77;
Why is teen pregnancy and childbirth much less of a problem in other places where frontal nudity is accepted?

Tadpole;
Is it?

Still waiting for sources....

Quote From Earlier Article
Here is a quote from Giles's earlier article

"7. Thou shall know that I like cool and expensive gifts and you shall provide unto me this bounty, if you’re smart. One great way to earn my favor is to buy it. Yes, you’d be shrewd to approach me like the three wise men did baby Jesus, namely with gold, frankincense and myrrh.

For example; I like high quality cigars (nothing below a 90), Johnnie Walker Blue Label, Chimay Grand Reserve, books on hunting Africa and old British double rifles. I also like original art work, R&B and classic rock compilations, collecting skulls, hunting and big game fishing trips, antique Christian and Classic books, custom choppers and early twentieth century African safari memorabilia. "
Anyone who would allow his teenage daughter to date a man old enough to buy liquor has no credibility on the issue of teen dating.

Prehaps a little balance...
While I do agree that our society is a little touchy about nudity, and think that some mellowing would be good. I also think that informing VISUALLY and GRAPHICLY what the consequences are of the choices they will have.

Tadpole
Why is teen pregnancy and childbirth much less of a problem in other places where frontal nudity is accepted?

Jack
Advising children of the consequences of bad choices is called 'parenting'. This activity seems to be more rare as each year passes. I am personally in favor of it.

Are you suggesting that baring JJ's breast should have been received as 'art'? or 'Gee, I wish my daughter could get on TV and bare her private parts?'

'...frontal nudity is commonplace throughout most of the developed world.' The point is not whether it is commonplace, the point is whether it is a preferred behavior. Would you support your Mom walking down the street exposing herself from the waste up? Would it enhance our society to have all women and men walk around topless?

I am interested to know your source for stating;
'Countries which have a more consistent, accepting view of adolescent sexuality actually have significantly lower rates of illegitimacy, abortion and STD's.'

We are reaping the whirlwind on our decision to marginalize modesty and glamorize free sex in all the ways Doug indicates in the article and more.

Your juvenile response of 'Hey, everybody else is doing it' speaks to the depths to which our society has fallen.

Tadpole
I am skeptical of the value of scaring teenagers witless with sexual scare stories. In fact, I am quite sure it won't work very well.

The US is schizophrenic about sex. We had a major national meltdown because Janet Jackson's nearly naked breast showed on TV for 1.3 seconds. "OH MY GOD THE WORLD I COMING TO AN END!" type meltdown. Yet frontal nudity is commonplace throughout most of the developed world. Which nation has the highest rate of negative consequences attached to sex? The paranoid, puritan one or the ones that don't get so breathless about it?

Countries which have a more consistent, accepting view of adolescent sexuality actually have significantly lower rates of illegitimacy, abortion and STD's.




Re: n+838
Lilly,
Besides being so woefully ignorant on so many other subjects, you are apparently unaware of the science of statistical sampling.
To get a representative statistical figure, one need not canvas the entire population, but only a reresentative sampling of significant size from which to extrapolate.

Doug - The other thing to show
teens is the lifestyles that people live that decided to have children (yes, the decision to have sex is a decision to have chldren).

In addition to the ravages of STDs, you can increase the chances of your child behaving more responsibly with this information.

Most businesses are successful that
appeal to the base nature of humanity.

It is quite unfortunate that at the same time it is cool for middle school children to have children, the value of the older members of the family have been so severely devalued.

It's one thing to hear 'keep you knees together' from your Mom, yet the very same words from Grandma tend to get placed further towards the front of the brain when a loving respectful relationship exists with the granddaughter.

The 'children having children' phenomena is now multi-generational (my sister was a Grandmother at age 35) - with no model for what real parenting is or how a household really works only continues the downward spiral of family values.

However, in the end people know right and wrong - it is decisions one makes in life that determines their success... regardless from whence they came.

Do the right thing.

doug
Great minds think alike, I have been planning on doing that to my kids when they are in pre-teens.

garageman
No, censorship is no answer to anything. If you read my first post, I favor showing teens graphic photos of male and female genetalia infected with STD's. I also favor showing women (and girls) who are pregnant and do not want to be graphic photos of aborted fetuses and 3-D images of what is growing inside them. Of course, the "pro-choice" crowd wants to censor these images. They don't want anybody to fully understand just exactly what an abortion is. Fortunately, more and more people are becoming aware of just how disgusting a procedure it is.

Where did I hear This?
Something about the root of all evil being the love of money? Where was that?

An eternal problem
Every parent feels a certain nervousness as their teenagers make the inevitable transition from child to adult. But Doug Giles seems to obsess over "trash TV" as the prime source of awkwardness of transition. Even in a television-less world, you'd have the same eternal problems -- guaranteed. If parents were more on the job, they wouldn't have to worry about the supposedly corrosive effects of "Deal or No Deal" or whatever else is "polluting" our culture.

Censorship, Doug? No deal.

I figured
SO? What about it? Free market or not?

Two Things
First, the culprit is none of the things mentioned by the columnist. Sex is ubiquitous in the culture for ONE reason.

Sex Sells.

Why are conservatives all upset about the operation of the free market?

Second, uh.... boys?

Liberal Views
Liberals are trapped in limbo, neither children nor adults.

Liberals use adolescent tactics "everyone else is doing it".

Liberals view morality as acceptance of deviant behaviour.

Liberal values are based on hedonistic ideals and relegate women to gather their self esteem from free sex, legalized prostitution, pornography and 'Gansta Rap'.

Simply taking the opposite side of any Liberal thought will make ones life more productive.

"Rainbow parties"
(oral sex parties in which girls put on different colors of lipstick) are mostly the stuff of Penthouse magazine fantasy.

Sex is currency. Ask David Vitter and Eliot Spitzer. It's more valuable than the dollar these days.


I think this is a good column
But I sure wish the good Reverend came with a translation guide, or English subtitles.

Why should America...
have any traditional values concerning sex and at the same time offer abortion on demand?

America is sinking rapidly into a pit that nations fall into when they die.

I hate it but America, the hope of the world, is going through it's final death throes. And we all contributed by our lack of attention to business.

Funny Crap
Doug writes: Monday, March, 17, 2008 5:35 AM
"And the culprit? Abandonment of traditional morals. And what group has done the most to encourage this abandonment? Liberals."

I really think uptight, hypocritical hyper-religious Conservatives are just as much to blame. Statistical ties for unwed mothers, STDs, abortions, etc.

And all along I thought it was holier-than-thou Catholic school students in drunken orgies. At least that is the result if you polled my hometown.

lilly
You really don't get it, do you? Were there any programs addressing the consequences of sexual liaisons outside of wedlock, or the issue of life? Probably not, because sexual issues are a "private matter" as is the decision to terminate a pregnancy through abortion.

It's nice to know that the government "cares" the way it does, but cut the crapola WRT "business" and "profit." Like the businesses/private interests that might produce something like this, the government has to take money from people to pay for their production. Money exchanges hands either way.

Who's to say that the government wouldn't then turn around and do a show on the evils of capitalistic ventures and the wickedness involved with running a business and making a profit?

Market is Never Wrong
US television is market-driven. What is programmed is what sells to the viewing public. Half of this country, and so probably half of television viewers, are conservative. You cannot logically blame TV's trash-obsession on liberals.

In Canada I saw what I thought was an excellent series intended for adolescent viewers. Each episode was a half-hour story in which a kidfoundhimself or herself in a moral dilemma then weighed consequences and, with guidance, made a wise decision. The stories were obviously didactic and obviously moralistic. They taught lessons like "don't cover for a cheater" and "don't spread malicious gossip". I thought they were wonderful. And, folks, they were a government presentation. Got that, conservatives? The government was programming to teach social values, what you-all call Socialistic indocrination of children. And nobody was making a profit out of the program ---no commercial sponsor was involved. Did that give you all a fit? Thought so.

Here in the States we are stuck with "Brittany Gets the Clap: The Musical" because people are titillated by such stuff, watch it, and buy its sponsor's products.

Lilly
Even if 25% is twice the true percentage, it's pretty appalling. And the culprit? Abandonment of traditional morals. And what group has done the most to encourage this abandonment? Liberals.

n= 838
Last week's news that 25% of American girls ages 14-19 have an STD was based on a study using a sample of 838, pretty small to be generalized to the entire female adolescent population of the United States. Just thought I'd mention that.

If you want your kids
to be chaste, show them the consequences of promiscuity. Google chlamydia, herpes, syphillis, and venerial warts. Then show them the photos. Ask them how they'd like seeing that in the mirror. Ask if anybody would want to marry that.

Didn't have any trouble...
--
...with *my* daughter. Or with my older granddaughters more recently.

But I'm a GP and a former U.S. Public Health Service officer, so they knew I was going to hit them with the whole megillah before they turned nine or ten, so wotthehell....

Truth to tell, even before the onset of an industrialized and largely metropolitan demography, children and adolescents (I distinguish one category from the other on the basis of whether or not there are gametes involved) were getting sexually active sometime in advance of puberty. It was simply that the populations were neither as dense in those days nor as mobile, both being significant in terms of epidemiology.

Nobody much talked about it because the actual material consequences were shruggable, and people weren't as totally bugnuts about all this "For the Children!" crap as they are today.

Given the cited changes in epidemiogy, however, things have gotten nastier, and so I strongly recommend parental recourse to the resources made available by outfits like the CDC (see http://www.cdc.gov/nchstp/dstd/aboutdiv.htm ) together with help from your family primary care providers.

I have learned to love Nurse Practitioners in this job. They're mostly female, and even for boys they're a helluva lot less intimidating than I am.

--

Another Column
Giles once wrote in another column that a boy dating his teenage daughter should buy him alcohol.

Anyone old enough to buy alcohol should not be dating minors.
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