Mike at Night
© 2002 Mike Hendricks

Sexual Behavior in the New Millenium

Sexuality is always a controversial topic, even in the new millennium. As recently as a generation ago, sexual behavior was not a subject to be discussed openly and it was not a subject to be discussed by "nice" people.

As recently as the 1950's, if a man and woman were shown in the bedroom on television or even in the movies, they had to be married, they slept in separate beds, and if they happened to be on the same bed, one foot had to be on the floor.

Things have changed drastically since those days of Ozzie and Harriet, Andy and Barney, and Father Knows Best. Sexuality is everywhere we look today. A significant number of products are sold with a sexual "hook." Sex is discussed openly in all kinds of publications, is exposed openly in movies and television shows and is, in fact, an academic class in most colleges and universities across the country. Sex is no longer in the closet and will never be in the closet again. We learn about sexuality at a younger age than ever before and it's this particular aspect of sexual behavior that I want to address this week.

Among unmarried females, ages 15-19, the birth rate has risen from 15 per 1000 in 1960 to 45 per 1000 in 1993. That's a 300% increase. The United States has the highest unmarried birth rate of any country in the Western World and while the rates in other countries are on the decrease, the rate in the United States continues to increase and increase dramatically. In fact a recent survey looked at five culturally similar countries and compared their teenage pregnancy rates with those of the United States in two different categories; girls 15 through 17, and girls 18 through 19.

The obvious question here is why? Is the United States the most promiscuous of these countries, measured in terms of public nudity, availability of pornography, explicit sexuality depicted in movies, television, books and magazines, lack of parental control and influence and so on? In every single one of these issues, the answer is a resounding no. In fact, that's why it is important to compare our rates with "culturally similar" countries. That means they are like us. Obviously there are minor differences from country to country but, overall, the above-mentioned countries are mirror images of each other.

So, why are the rates in the United States so much higher? The answer is painfully obvious, and at the same time, just as painfully troublesome for many adults and, in particular, parents in our society. Other cultures teach their young people not to get pregnant, we teach ours not to have sex.

That's why abstinence-based sex-education programs far outnumber sexual information education courses in the United States. Abstinence, of course, is not a new concept. That's what was taught when I was a child, as were my parents and their parents. Of course, whatever teaching went on in regards to sex was reserved for the home because it was a forbidden topic at home.

My dad didn't get around to talking to me about sex until I was fifteen and it was the most embarrassing five minutes of my life, if you get my drift. In fact, I was in the ninth grade before I found out you couldn't get a girl pregnant by French kissing her because that's what one of my knowledgeable buddies told me in the sixth grade. Maybe ignorance WAS bliss but I suspect I missed out on some good times during my junior high career.

By the 1970's, sex education programs were popping up in schools nationwide and the great debate then, as now, was "what do we teach and how do we teach it?" As already mentioned, abstinence won out over information in most school districts and that continues to be the rule. Regardless of its moral authority, it simply does not work and its failure is obvious when we look at the above illegitimacy rates. So we don't teach children how to prevent pregnancy or venereal disease because we're too busy telling them how nasty sex is and how they shouldn't do it until they're married. But they DO do it. And they do it in increasingly alarming numbers and the consequence we pay in this society is more unwed mothers on the welfare roles every year than the year before. We have more children attempting to raise children than ever before. And the social problems that emerge from this staggering illegitimacy rate are both significant and profound; the most significant being the great moral issue of the new millennium and that is the continuing battle over abortion. Abortion is directly related to the illegitimacy rate. When birth control methods are more highly developed than ever before, our teenage pregnancy rate continues to increase. In the 1960's, the effectiveness of a condom used alone was about 70%. Now it's over 90%. And if a condom is used in conjunction with any other type of birth control method, the prevention rate increases to almost 98%.

The cold hard facts here are that the abortion debate should be a moot debate for the most part because hardly anyone in the year 2002 should become pregnant if they choose not to be. The occasional mistake will continue to happen, but with foresight, intellect, and pragmatic judgment, the United States should have the LOWEST illegitimacy rate among Western nations, not the highest. We can either continue to stick our heads in the sand and pretend that young people won't have sex just because we tell them not to, or we can become enlightened.

As always, it's up to us.

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Mike can be e-mailed at mikeatnight@hotmail.com

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