Hormones Working, No Viagra Needed

Sex. It’s a subject I’m just having to start thinking about: how to ensure my 9-year old son knows enough about sex to know what is and is not appropriate for kids his age.

Truth is, he has absolutely no interest in girls (or boys) from a crush perspective. Yet.

But there’s one girl who has been pursuing him, writing love notes, giving him photos of herself (and one with the two of them). He considers her a friend. She has told him that one day he’ll smarten up and have a crush on her too.

I have to admit, I really like this girl, her confidence and her spunk. (She has bright red streaks in her hair. She’s cooler than I ever was and she’s only eight!). She comes over to play and I leave the two of them in Adisen’s room, unmonitored.

So news today that the Heritage Foundation is challenging study results by a Columbia-Yale research team around the value of virginity pledges sparked my interest.

The Columbia-Yale guys found that virginity pledges contributed to kids being exposed to more STDs (because virgins can't have intercourse, but virgins can engage in oral sex).

The Heritage Foundation evaluated the same study and drew different conclusions. Here are a few:

1. Eighty-one percent of virginity pledgers had engaged in any sexually activity compared with 92% of non-pledgers.
2. Only 75% of virginity pledgers reported ever having engaged in vaginal intercourse compared with 90% of non-pledgers.
3. Sixty-two percent of pledgers reported ever having engaged in oral sex compared with 73% of non-pledgers.
4. Pledgers are one-third less likely to engage in anal sex. Fifteen percent of pledgers compared with 22% of non-pledgers had engaged in anal sex.
5. Five percent of non-pledgers engaged in sex with prostitutes compared with 2.9% of pledgers.

So, parents, educators, religious leaders, all you people who are trying to look out for the health and well-being of kids, what does this say?

It says, kids need more information about sex.

They don’t need to be strong-armed into making empty, ill-defined virginity promises. Fer gawd’s sake, if you have a pre-teen, talk to them about sex in a respectful and complete way. Buy a book to help if you have to. Kids will experiment. Get over it and deal in the best way for the kids!

(And if you know of a really good book, can you let me know?!)

And another thing! If your son or daughter decides that a same sex experiment is what is right for him or her – accept it. Don’t make me come over and beat you senseless with your own intolerance.