Byzantine Catholic Family Matters

The Church and Our Sexuality V

What's a Teen to do?

If you're a teen you've no doubt heard, said or thought: "I've got to have it now; everybody else is doing it." Sex, that is. And why wouldn't you have heard, said or thought it? You live in a time when the most explicit pornography can be brought into your house with the click of a mouse. You live in a time when casual sex - of both the hetero- and homo- varieties - is depicted by the mass media as normal and expected. You live in a time when the overriding theme of health/sex education in school is you're going to do it anyway so you may as well learn how to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases; preventive education is what it's called. If you're a gal and get pregnant, you're told you can "terminate your pregnancy," and depending upon the state in which you live, you might not even have to tell your parents. If you're the guy who got the gal pregnant, if the gal doesn't have an abortion, you can always walk away from the situation.

These messages on the TV, the computer screen, the silver screen, the printed word, among your friends, and in school do have an impact. If you doubt the impact of these messages, why would Coca Cola or GM pay hundreds of thousands of dollars - if we haven't yet broken the million dollar mark - for a thirty second spot on the Super Bowl?

Perhaps the biggest myth, or rather the biggest lie, is that everyone else is doing it. Studies indicate that half of all high school students have never had sex and that about thirty-five percent will graduate as virgins, sixty-five percent will not. Now if you can't conclude that a sixty-five on a test means you have learned the material, you certainly can't say that if sixty-five percent of high school seniors have had sex that everybody's doing it. The fact is that a significant proportion of graduating high school seniors have not had sex.

Another myth is that I've got to have it now. If anything this speaks to an overriding message in American society that you are entitled to get what you want, when you want it. Not surprisingly, sexually active high school students in the United States are significantly more promiscuous - have more sex partners - than sexually active teens in other countries. (As a consequence American teens who are sexually active have a significantly higher rate of sexually transmitted diseases.) Furthermore, recent studies of women who became pregnant and had abortions indicate a significantly higher risk of psychological problems, some severe enough to warrant hospitalization.

So if you're a teen: What are you going to do? Go with the flow? Or, as John Paul II exhorts be not afraid and do what is right.

I'll leave you with the words of rapper/singer/songwriter Father Stan Fortuna, a Franciscan Friar of the Renewal in the South Bronx which say it all so well:

Chorus: The body is the Lord's. Ya body is not your own. The media has a bad plan, to drag you down to the zipper zone.

Third verse: They make ya burn with lust create an evil intention. They say don't wait don't hesitate pursue ya sex direction. Take the pill, wear a condom "play it safe just use protection." It's all a big lie, you can still get AIDS infection. What do you do play it safe HIV wait and see? Life is precious life is short abstain and be free. Save sex for marriage you can beat the disease. Don't wait to fall on ya back to get down on ya knees. Thank God for your body, pray for self-control.. Live according to God's will, achieve a higher goal. Listen up to what I'm saying on the microphone. No more draggin' down to the zipper zone. (For all the words see www.francescoproductions.com.)

How's that for something to think and pray about?