‘Sex’ means intercourse, but other sexual acts require the same precautionary measures
Joann Groff
Editor In Chief
S-E-X. Salt-N-Pepa sang about it, Freud wrote about it and everyone from Howard Stern to President Bush talks about it. Sex has been the hottest topic in the United States for quite some time, and most of the serious discussions have been how to make kids stop having it. But the truth may be that the teens who pledge to remain virgins, may end up with STDs quicker than those who don’t.
A study by Yale and Columbia universities suggests 7th through 12th graders who pledge abstinence until marriage are just as likely to have STDs as their peers. Some of you who are a little less with it than the rest of us are scratching your heads, stumped to as how these virgins are contracting a cold, much less gonorrhea.
Well, I hope its not news to you that you can get all the same diseases from partaking in other X-rated activities. (Sadly, beads of sweat are forming on the foreheads of some students suddenly wondering if their parents would believe they got chlamydia from sharing a shower with seven suitemates.)
The study shows that kids who have made a promise to themselves that sex is for those bound in holy union are a lot more likely to — get ready — to have oral sex, and the kicker, anal sex, than those who haven’t had sex simply because they haven’t found the right person.
The president of the National Abstinence Clearinghouse, Leslee Unruh, called the study “bogus” saying “kids who pledge abstinence are taught that any word that has sex in it is considered a sexual activity” so they are “staying away” from things like oral and anal sex.
Ah, ignorance must be bliss. Or perhaps it’s just denial.
The truth is, a lot of kids who tell their priest, their parents, or even themselves, that they are going to wait, realize how long of a time that may be and create a bizarre, nonsensical reality in their hormone-packed brains. Coming from a Catholic high school, a mini abstinence mill where girls making out in the hot tub, ecstasy orgies and “we’ve done everything but” comments were not uncommon. Because in the twisted minds we weren’t having sex. And sex (by that I mean vaginal penetration and only vaginal penetration), was in a league of its own. It involved things like condoms, and that responsibility surely didn’t rest on anyone not having real sex (enter high-STD stat).
Some thought they were avoiding sin by using a different orifice. Others just didn’t want to lie to their parents.
This leads me to the next important revelation of the study: once these pledged virgins actually did have sex, they were less likely to use a condom or get tested for STDs. Apparently, our purity morals have swallowed our basic common senses. Perhaps instilling fear in teens about sex, or pressuring them to pledge abstinence, is not the best idea. In 10 years, would you rather have a 17-year-old who contracted herpes (both genital and oral), doesn’t know what the Pill is, marries young to have “real sex” and dies early because she never got tested for syphilis after experiencing side effects like dementia, paralysis and blindness? Only to leave you with not only grief and guilt, but eight kids? I’d go for the teen who talks openly with about sex, plans to wait until she’s emotionally ready, and then goes to the gyno for a pill prescription and waits until her and her husband are prepared not for sex, but for parenthood.
Engaging in sexual activities in the grey area doesn’t mean you can still call yourself a virgin
Audrey Reed
Assistant News Editor
Virgin. Not exactly an everyday term, nor one that’s meaning is thought of often, and maybe that’s the problem.
In the Yale-Columbia University study that revealed that virgins waiting to engage in sex until marriage are more likely to contract a sexually transmitted disease, maybe important, but is indeed misleading.
The term “virgin” in the study means vaginal sex. Anal and oral sex are not considered actions that lead to the loss of virginity.
However these terms become confounded when one speaks of them.
The problem here is that as a society we have taken medical terminology and applied it to morality. There used to be two definitions for virginity: one medical and one moral. Virginity from a medical perspective is much different from the Judeo-Christian concept that at one time was widely accepted. Perhaps the most famous virgin of all time, Mary, Mother of Jesus, could serve as an example. In Luke, Mary was specifically called a virgin, which is, of course, crucial to understand the miraculous birth of Jesus.
In this instance virgin must mean sexually pure, because the earthly mother of Jesus wouldn’t have rounded third base and still been fit to conceive the Savior.
Later in the New Testament, the term “sexual immorality” pops up. While this term is much more vague, it is at the same time much more encompassing than the obsolete “virgin.” Avoiding sexual immorality in the Bible is mentioned several times, and additional context clues can help provide meaning to this term. For example, along with sexual immorality, impurity and lust are included.
Also, in I Corinthians sexual immorality is described as something that occurs inside the body, as opposed to other sins that occur outside the body. Using this definition, anal and oral sex would be included.
But back to the study. Why would teens not want to have vaginal intercourse if they were doing other sex acts that could lead to the transmission of an STD?
I think for many it’s this transfer of terminology. With every sex act short of vaginal intercourse, one can still retain, medically at least, their virginity. Everything like anal and oral sex, well that’s just taking advantage of a gray area.
But what one must realize is that this area is not gray. Yes, “sexual immorality” is a broad term, which could be defined as anything from anal sex to prolonged kissing. But one can be certain that sexual immorality refers to more vaginal intercourse.
If we are going to adopt medical terms such as virgin into our moral conceptions, they must be properly defined. This is not a subject many want to think about (which is probably the reason for the euphemistic, yet crude base system was derived).
However, as the results from the study show, adolescents and young adults do not, or do not want to, recognize the differences between medical and moral language. We, as a society, must differentiate the medical and moral terms surrounding sexual activity in order to fully educate adolescents and young adults.
03-24-2005