The sad reality for many sexually active young women is how unstable and unreliable young men are. Few male teens accept their responsibility as fathers; some choose not to, others are unable to for a variety of reasons. Census data show nearly 85% of all single-parent households are headed by a female. Now, all these households are not the result of teen pregnancies, but many are. The data also show approximately one-third of female single parents have never been married. Among teens, eight of ten fathers do not marry the mothers of their first children. These absent fathers pay less than $800 annually in child support, often because they are poor themselves (The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy). Obviously, teen pregnancy is a disaster (see the report of the NCPTUP, “Why it Matters: Teen Pregnancy and Responsible Fatherhood,” at www.thenationalcampaign.org/resources/fact-sheets, Males and Fatherhood).

Men are promiscuous by nature. Some have argued marriage domesticates men and, thus, by restraining their sexual appetites makes them useful to society. While that theory, albeit attractive, may have no substantive foundation, what is beyond debate is the stabilizing influence marriage has in a society. With the erosion of stable, heterosexual, monogamous marriage comes the erosion of society in general. As long as men remain faithful to their marriage vows, act responsibly as a parent, and function as a productive member of his community, his marriage will remain healthy and secure. Sexual infidelity by men disrupts his own family, affects his children, can disrupt another family, and creates a sense of uncertainty is his larger community. Sexual fidelity is fundamental to a marriage.

Such is not the case among male homosexuals. For them, looking outside their relationship for sexual encounters is more the rule than the exception. In the book The Male Couple, authors David McWhirter and Andrew Mattison present the findings of a study they did among 156 homosexual couples. Of these, 95% had been in a relationship for 5 years or longer. In this group, all had an agreement allowing one or both partners to be involved sexually outside their relationship. Among the remaining 5% of the study group, all reported on or both partners had been sexually active outside their primary relationship.

In a post on Townhall.com, Michael Medved observed the following.  “In their push for government endorsement of same-sex unions, gay advocates insist they only want to extend the institution of marriage, not to change it in any meaningful way. At the same time, some of the leading married activists on this issue (like author and columnist Dan Savage) admit to participating in group sex with their spouses and rejecting heterosexual standards of monogamy. A New York Times Magazine profile of gay “married couples” revealed that nearly all of them practiced “open,” non-exclusive relationships. While man-woman couples often fall short of perfect fidelity, they rarely hold up sexual adventurism as a new ideal. Overwhelming majorities of Americans say cheating is wrong in all cases, so when prominent gay activists openly, proudly stray, they signal their unmistakable intention to redefine marital norms in a radical way.”

That homosexual relationships do not serve the same purpose as heterosexual ones is clear from the above stated observations. For heterosexuals, sex serves to bind husband and wife. The highest ideal for heterosexuals is sexual fidelity. Not so among homosexuals. If heterosexuals were as sexually promiscuous as male homosexuals, the divorce rate would be 100%. Obviously, homosexuals do not seek intimacy in the way heterosexuals do. For them, sex is a recreational activity.

For homosexuals, sex cannot be defined as a normal, natural thing. The human body and the human psyche is not designed for homosexual behavior. The vast majority of human beings do not now, nor have they ever seen sex between two men or two women as a natural, acceptable thing. In fact, for most men and women, the idea of being involved sexually with someone of their own gender is repulsive. Sex between two persons of the same gender requires a humiliating submissiveness on the part of one member at least. Who would want to debase themselves in the way homosexual sex requires?

When a man and a woman enter into a marriage, and honor and abide by the principles defining marriage, especially the biblical ones, the marriage will be healthy, fulfilling, and ennobling to both partners. Marriages fail because individuals break the rules or misuse or abuse their partner by perverting sex. When a husband his sexuality as meant primarily for his wife and not his pleasure, and shows concern and respect for her, then both partners will be ennobled. When both partners are wholly loyal to one another and to the vows upon which their marriage is based, the marriage will work. When one partner, though, indulges his/her desires in a selfish way, either within or outside the marriage, then the other partner is diminished and devalued. Neither is affirmed or ennobled under such conditions.

Sex between a husband and wife is the only normal context for human sexuality. In any other context, sex is selfish, sex destroys, sex degrades.

*Janice Shaw Crouse, Ph.D., is Senior Fellow at the Beverly LaHaye Institute, the think tank for Concerned Women for America. The study she cited was presented in an article published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Five authors from different departments (Psychology, Pediatrics, Maternal and Child Health, Research and Evaluation, and Internal Medicine) at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) explored whether "gender-specific patterns of substance use and sexual behavior precede and predict depression or vice versa."

Unfortunately, “safe-sex” advice of the sort Dr. Elders gave does not lead to responsible action among teens. Instead of lowering the bar of teens behavior, by the way, the bar should be raised. When challenged to excel, most people try harder. When a challenge is absent, behavior tends to drop to the lowest level. If we do not challenge young people to commit themselves to higher standards of conduct, why should we be surprised when they act on momentary feelings? Teens should not be expected to act as adults do, or as adults should be acting. Most teens do not understand the concept of long-term consequences. If they did, risky behavior among teens would be much lower. Yet, binge drinking and sexual excess on Spring Break remain a problem.

Sex is normal. We have been designed as sexual beings. Why, then, does a normal thing produce such bad consequences? When a good thing, sex, is abused and misused, only bad consequences result. Abusive sex degrades; healthy sex ennobles. For sex to be healthy, it must be experienced in its proper context. That context is heterosexual marriage. In any other circumstance, sex loses its overriding and most important purpose: procreation. Outside marriage, sex is fundamentally a selfish activity. The negative emotional consequences, as reported in the UNC-CH study, shows clearly sex has a proper context.

For a woman, sexual intercourse is one of the most intimate experiences of her life. Yet, when a woman becomes a sexual object for a man, the sexual experiences becomes dehumanizing and degrading. To be an object of another’s pursuit of pleasure means one has lost their fundamental identity and personhood. Adultery, teen sex, homosexuality, and abusive sex in marriage all are acts of selfishness, self-absorption, and self-centeredness. In all contexts other than marriage, sex is primarily recreational, in that the experience serves as a means of sensual satisfaction. How can a person profess to love and care for another yet use that person as a tool for gratification of one’s desire for pleasure? Such sexual activity is destructive, humiliating, and degrading.

In marriage (only heterosexuals truly can be married), sex is a healthy activity (abusive sex in marriage does not negate the ideal). Heterosexual intercourse elevates because of the purpose for which it exists. For married couples, even when pregnancy is not intended, sexual intercourse is defined above all other issues by its procreative purpose. A husband and wife instinctively know what they are doing is more than recreational. The act serves to bind the couple by a deeply intimate act in their relationship as husband and wife.

Ideally, sex in marriage is a time of self-giving. For a married couple, irresponsible and selfish sex hurts the relationship. For that reason, sexual infidelity most times destroys a marriage. Selfishness in sex, even within the marriage context, erodes intimacy and hinders the growth of the relationship between a husband and wife. Adultery leads to a loss of trust because adultery is a betrayal of intimacy and love. Once lost, the trust and intimacy may never be recovered, and if it is, the level of trust enjoyed before betrayal will never be known again.

Among teens, sexual faithfulness is not even an issue. Sex for teens is all about pleasure, especially for males. As a means of binding a couple in a long-term relationship, sex among teens fails miserably. Teen girls may hope for deeper intimacy with their partners, and they might dream of staying with their boyfriends for life, but the facts betray this hope as a fantasy. The reference above to the UNC-CH study illustrates the terrible toll for teens, especially girls, when they are sexually active. Further, other studies have shown the more one is sexually active, the harder for that person to sustain a long-term relationship. Casual sex leads to a series of short-term relationships.

A troubling practice among teen has recently hit the news. Girls and boys are using their cell phone cameras to take pictures of parts of their bodies which they send to their significant others. Seems they are running afoul of child pornography laws. Given the prevailing attitudes about sex in our society, should we be surprised by what these young people are doing? Indeed, those pictures are only the tip of the iceberg.

Information sent electronically, in this case pictures, is like a word spoken: once the word is spoke, ownership and control are lost. One wonders if the young women understand the proclivity of young males to brag about their sexual exploits? Do they think their boyfriend is the only person who will see the picture they sent? What might have been intended as an adolescent expression of intimacy quickly becomes an act of public indecency and humiliation. How many of those pictures, made with innocent intent, are forwarded on to others?

Our society has lied to teens. The dream of sexual freedom has become for many a nightmare of unintended consequences. A CDC study released on March 11, 2008 estimates that one in four (26 percent) young women between the ages of 14 and 19 in the United States – or 3.2 million teenage girls – is infected with at least one of the most common sexually transmitted diseases (human papillomavirus (HPV), chlamydia, herpes simplex virus, and trichomoniasis). The study, presented at the 2008 National STD Prevention Conference, is the first to examine the combined national prevalence of common STDs among adolescent women in the United States, and the study provides the clearest picture to date of the overall STD burden in adolescent women.

The CDC’s Sara Forhan, M.D., M.P.H., said the study also finds that African-American teenage girls were most severely affected. Nearly half of the young African-American women (48 percent) were infected with an STD, compared to 20 percent of young white women. The two most common STDs overall were human papillomavirus, or HPV (18 percent), and chlamydia (4 percent).

Kevin Fenton, M.D., director of CDC’s National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention was reported to have said, “Today’s data demonstrate the significant health risk STDs pose to millions of young women in this country every year. Given that the health effects of STDs for women – from infertility to cervical cancer – are particularly severe, STD screening, vaccination and other prevention strategies for sexually active women are among our highest public health priorities.” The data were presented by CDC researchers as part of the agency’s National STD Prevention Conference in Chicago. “What’s surprising about this is just how quickly young adolescent women acquire sexually transmitted diseases once they become sexually active,” Fenton said. “Nearly one in five women will acquire one of these infections within the first year after being sexually active.

In the article "Teen sex Leads to Depression and Drug Use," Janice Shaw Crouse highlighted the results of a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill study* on teen patterns of drug use and sexual activity. The findings, Crouse pointed out, go against the grain of the position held by social liberals of our day. The UNC-CH study showed that especially among teen girls, extremely negative effects are experienced as a result of sexual activity. Depression was shown clearly to result from either drug use or sexual activity. In fact, the study showed that depression does not lead to sex. In fact, "Depressed girls who are abstinent, however, have decreased odds of engaging in any high-risk behavior," Crouse stated.*

This study should be viewed in light of the advice given by many so-called experts (including individuals and institutions such as Planned Parenthood). Jocelyn Elders, for instance, in her tenure as Surgeon General in the Clinton Administration, advocated for sexual exploration among teens. In 1994, she was invited to speak at a United Nations conference on AIDS. Dr. Elders was asked if promoting masturbation as a means of preventing young people from engaging in riskier forms of sexual activity was appropriate. Her answer: "I think that it is part of human sexuality, and perhaps it should be taught." The problem with such advice is the effect such a pronouncement has on a young person. If solo masturbation is okay, why not mutual masturbation for a teen couple? If masturbation is okay, why not oral sex? Why not sexual intercourse?