Even grandma had premarital sex, survey finds

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Nohome said:
I taught science to 11, 12 and 13 year olds in a Catholic school. They were having sex. I was forbidden to teach contraception, it didn’t matter. They knew all about their options.

My coworkers, many of them single, were having sex too. In one case with each other! Being married, I was the only person in the building having legitimate sex!

I have no answers, but I would say the statistic from this study are consistent with my experience. I would also say the abstinence I taught was a complete failure.

Nohome
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I don’t know what the abstinence curriculum was that you followed, but there are some more successful than others… but in a sex-satuarated culture, it will always be difficult.
 
WenckebachCath said:
I wonder how many people wailing about premarital sex were virgins when they married? Probably not many. :rolleyes: Yes, it’s easy once the fires have cooled to blithly condemn young people for many things, including their sexual escapades.
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I can say that I was a virgin when I married, and so was my husband. But I hardly think that those who wait for marriage are the only people who understand why that is important. Those who did not wait, for whatever reason, may understand the issue better than I.
 
Originally Posted by WenckebachCath
I wonder how many people wailing about premarital sex were virgins when they married? Probably not many. Yes, it’s easy once the fires have cooled to blithly condemn young people for many things, including their sexual escapades.

I wonder how many of those here who were not virgins when they married “wail about it”, because after suffering hurt and pain, now regret their actions, and realise that the “silly old catholic church” was right all along.
 
apricot_yogurt said:
I wonder how many of those here who were not virgins when they married “wail about it”, because after suffering hurt and pain, now regret their actions, and realise that the “silly old catholic church” was right all along.
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True, but I would say they lost their authenticity to preach when they committed the very same sin.
 
a_cermak said:
True, but I would say they lost their authenticity to preach when they committed the very same sin.
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If that is the case, then “most of us” might as well not have children, since we obviously have no right to have a say in how they are raised. If we were to have children, then we might as well let them know we had pre-marital sex and should assume they would do the same, and also, just to be on the safe side, let’s throw in condoms and the Pill for their “safety.” :mad:

St. Augustine was quite the sinner before his conversion, and he wrote some really great things on sexuality and marriage (although a bit off at times). He’s an amazing saint, but if we cast him off because he had sinned, we’d be without a wonderful example of Christ’s mercy.
 
Benedictus said:
The fact of the matter is that no matter how many times you tell teenagers about abstinence a certain percentage (and not a small percentage) will have sex. Thus, I think they need some basic information about condoms and other contraceptives.
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The fire is going to burn anyway, so let’s pour some gasoline on it, and see if that helps …

Is there anyone who really thinks that contraceptives and condoms help to encourage healthy attitudes toward sex?

Telling kids the whole truth about sex will go a lot further towards teen sexual health than any amount of pills or prophylactics.

A lot of kids do it the first time out of curiousity, and the second time because they did it the first time. Next thing you know, “Mommy, I’m scared - I think I’m pregnant!” :eek:

The scene is the same, with or without contraceptives and condoms, since these things don’t actually prevent pregnancy or STDs; they just reduce the likelihood - and there is always going to be the person who is immune to the pill, or who doesn’t fit properly into the condom.
 
mikew262 said:
AIDS, STDS, unwanted pregnancies, abortions are all up.
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Strangely (or perhaps not so strange, after all) these problems only started going up at about the same time that condoms and artificial birth control became legalized and popularized.
 
jmcrae said:
Strangely (or perhaps not so strange, after all) these problems only started going up at about the same time that condoms and artificial birth control became legalized and popularized.
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Really? Name your statistical source. You will be suprised to learn that with the exception of AIDS, all of these have been a consistant element of the human experience since the dawn of time.

Nohome
 
T1Catholic said:
Let me just start by saying I do not agree with pre-marital sex. However, I wonder if from a biological standpoint we come into our sexuality during our teens because that is when we were meant to enter into marriages and then produce children. With today’s society putting a priority on education and careers before marriage, are we going counter to what is biologically natural. Many people do not get married now until their late 20s and I can’t imagine what their sexual urges must be like if they are being chaste. Of course it’s commendable if they can remain chaste. As people get older and older before marriage are they faced with a burden of abstinence that no other generation has ever faced? I have no knowledge in this area so I may be completely out to lunch.
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Sr_Sally said:
Interesting thought. Of course there have always been people who never married (and not just concecrated religious) and presumably in previous generations many of them never had sex and still managed to live normal lives. But, the vast majority who did get married often did so much younger than the late 20s-early 30s (and older) that is common now. Another reason not to hold to those artifical timelines of when is the '“right” time to get married.
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Not only that, but today we have resistance to marriage itself with the whole “you don’t need a spouse to be happy” mentality, even being preached at many church functions, even to the point that we are hearing that marriage is something you have to be “called to”. Sorry, but the Bible and catechism attest to the fact that the vocation to marriage is instilled in our very nature and that not everyone can handle celibacy. Any male who has ever spent time discerning a vocation to the priesthood can attest to this fact, a fact often lost on those pushing the “single vocation”. And has anyone ever noticed that the explosion in the “single lifestyle” roughly coincided with the sexual revolution and the rise in artificial birth control?
 
mikew262 said:
preaching chasity certainly isn’t cutting it either.
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HUH? As a parent with kids in public school, and a product of 12 years of public education, I can assure you that “preaching chastity” is not what is going on. Perhaps we could actually try “preaching chastity” and see what happens…
 
I read this and have two major objections.
  1. One of the things I’ve noticed is that they did not go back very far.
For example, they’ll quote people born in the 1940’s. Well, they became 20 somethings in the 1960’s and we know what went on there in the 1960’s. They would have been the first generation of this “sexual revolution” and been making the bed squeak outside of marriage during this time.

I’d like to see statistics for those born in the 1930’s. 1920’s. 1910’s. I bet the numbers were significantly lower.
  1. They compared apples and oranges.
Among women born between 1950 and 1978, at least 91 percent had had premarital sex by age 30, he said, while among those born in the 1940s, 88 percent had done so by age 44.

Comparing the rate “by age 30” and “by age 44” are apples and oranges.
 
The survey doesn’t distinguish between premarital sex that leads to marriage and “serial monogamy” of the kind so common today.

I’d be interested in hearing the figures of how many people had sex with someone other than the person they eventually married–and beyond that a comparison of how many sexual partners someone of my parents’ or grandparents’ generation had in an average lifetime compared to someone of my generation.

The real story, it seems to me, is the rise of serial monogamy. I don’t think the news is all bad–it seems to me that extramarital affairs (for men at least) are more frowned on now than they were 50 years ago, but I could be wrong on that.

Edwin
 
Contarini said:
The survey doesn’t distinguish between premarital sex that leads to marriage and “serial monogamy” of the kind so common today.

I’d be interested in hearing the figures of how many people had sex with someone other than the person they eventually married–and beyond that a comparison of how many sexual partners someone of my parents’ or grandparents’ generation had in an average lifetime compared to someone of my generation.
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That was my thought as well. The onset of puberty was later in previous generations so the opportunity for “sowing wild oats” was relatively short since most peopled married by their late teens or early twenties. Also, chastity was the accepted ideal, however often it was violated. Out-of-wedlock pregnancies were still considered shameful, often leading to shotgun weddings.

Nowadays, kids develop early in a highly sexualised society and are often unsupervised after school. The only accepted ideal is “you have no right to impose your morals on me.”
The real story, it seems to me, is the rise of serial monogamy. I don’t think the news is all bad–it seems to me that extramarital affairs (for men at least) are more frowned on now than they were 50 years ago, but I could be wrong on that.
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Edwin
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Hmmm . . . I hadn’t thought of that. It seems to me that people’s attitude adultery is “it’s between them” maybe they have an arrangement, maybe she stays cuz he’s rich. If anything I’ve noticed less sympathy for wives because they could easily get a divorce.
 
heck… I’m still trying to figure out the statistics of
**More than nine out of 10 **Americans, men and women alike, have had premarital sex, according to a new study.
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:confused: :confused:

Nothing new to premarital sex, yup… totally agree to that one. My Grandmother didn’t do it, but my mother did (got pregnant from it), I believe all my dad’s brothers did as well, and of my mothers’ sisters, only one didn’t have premarital sex. All were in the free-love-kumbiyah period. (mom born in 53, dad in 50)

We’re trying to stop a freight train, but teaching our children the beauty and faith in chastity should be at the core of teaching them to respect themselves. You can’t just expect to teach them about abstinance and say “oh, since I can’t trust you to obey what I’ve taught you nor have enough self respect, here’s a condom.” :rolleyes: :confused:
 
Remember that the grandparents of today (2006) are the children of the 1960’s. Many of us remember the Kippy, free love generation. I am not proud that it is my generation. I am proud that I did not get involved with the drugs, sex and me first way of life.

While many were doing their own thing there were many of us in the armed services, working and trying to remain moral as best we could.

So no these stats don’t surprise me. Just sadden me.
 
As my dd approaches her teens, I am honestly thinking of making sure she has a chaperone.
 
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