What Our Daughters Must Know

If we are serious about protecting our daughters, we must spell out a clear, no-nonsense message: the ideal is to delay sexual activity, and eventually commit to someone who also waited. The closer she can get to that, the better. Then provide her with some critical facts she’s unlikely to hear elsewhere:

  • A young woman has unique biological sensitivities that increase her vulnerability to the consequences of sexual activity. For example, intimacy releases oxytocin, a primarily female hormone that fuels feelings of attachment and trust. This chemical turns red lights green. It alters brain chemistry, so she’s more likely to overlook a guy’s faults, and to take risks she otherwise wouldn’t. A girl surely doesn’t want her brain drenched with oxytocin when making critical decisions like: What do I think of him? How far do I want this to go? This might explain the recent unpublished data from Princeton University indicating that for 80 percent of female students on that campus, hook-ups were followed by regret.
  • A young cervix has a delicate area only one cell thick, placing teens at risk for HPV. This is the case even if she’s been vaccinated. With time, the cervix grows a thicker, tougher surface, making infection less likely. A guy’s genital system doesn’t have a vulnerable area like that.
  • Most guys who have an STI don’t know it, even after they’ve been tested. While it’s easiest to share viruses when warts or sores are present, transmission can also occur at other times, when everything looks OK. So a woman could get an incurable genital infection from someone who doesn’t know he has it. Condoms reduce the risk by only 60 to 70 percent.
  • Other activities, such as oral or anal sex, can also be hazardous. Having more than five oral sex “partners” has been associated with throat cancer. As for anal penetration, the Food and Drug Administration—the agency responsible for promoting and protecting the public health—puts it well: “Condoms provide some protection, but anal intercourse is simply too dangerous to practice.”

As millions of American parents send their daughters off to college this week, many have a silent prayer on their lips. For good reason: sexual behavior is a serious matter, and a single encounter can have life-long consequences, especially for a woman.

Listen up, Planned Parenthood, SIECUS, and Columbia University: That’s not sexist—it’s biology. And ignorance or denial of this fact only increases a girl’s vulnerability.

We need to remind girls that the characters on Grey’s Anatomy are not real. In real life, Meredith would have herpes or warts. In real life, she’d be paying a price for her choices. Young women must know that now more than ever, it’s wise to follow the lesson of hard science: be very, very careful about who you allow close to you.