Wednesday, June 2, 2004

Moffat sex advice example of culture’s confusion

Dr. Moffat’s column offering advice to parents on their children’s sexuality was emblematic of our culture’s confused, misguided notions of sex in general.

While Dr. Moffat was necessarily neutral in his stance on the morality of sexuality due to his professional obligations, I was nevertheless saddened to hear the old refrain that various sexual drives are “natural” and “normal” and should be accepted as such.

If the standard for accepting certain teenage behaviors is whether or not they are natural, then we are in big trouble.

For a teenager, all kinds of behaviors come naturally: Drinking too much, driving too fast, slacking on homework, experimenting with drugs, disobeying parents, etc. Is a parent supposed to turn to a teen who has just gotten caught driving 100 mph on I-285 with a beer in his hand and say, “Honey, that’s okay. That’s just normal and natural for you to do that. I am not judging you. But please, do not do that again, if you don’t mind.”

The whole point of parenting is to teach children to curb certain “natural” desires and to do what is good, not just natural.

Not everything someone “naturally” wants to do is good, after all. That is one of the essential struggles of life. One must learn to control certain natural desires and make sure they are either conquered or channeled into actions and thoughts which are positive and produce good results.

As an example, the desire to have sex is very strong amongst teens, as we all know. But rather than just capitulating to that urge and saying to Johnny, “Hey, sow them wild oats either by yourself [or] with whomever comes along, be it male or female,” we ought to use the opportunity to explain what sexuality is really about.

Of course, this requires having a certain moral view about sex, something which has become quite out of fashion.

Now, many people would say sex is something you do with someone you love, or at least like a lot. For teenagers, this is basically an invitation to have sex with whomever they want because feelings of “love” are quite rampant at that age.

Instead, if one holds that sex is a beautiful, God-given gift meant to physically manifest the love of husband and wife and to create new life, you may have a chance of actually convincing a teen that waiting until marriage to have sex is a good idea.

Dr. Moffat even admitted as much in his article when he said the main reason girls abstain is because they know their mothers expect them to.

I know this sounds pie-in-the-sky nowadays, but you gotta start somewhere. Plus, one can always make the more practical argument about the dangers of pre-marital sex: Disease, pregnancy, emotional trauma, etc.

Back to this “natural” issue. Another thing which comes naturally to many teens is the desire to smoke. Yet, we have determined as a society that smoking is so bad that it is to be absolutely discouraged amongst teens with no exceptions. How can we have this attitude about smoking, whose really bad effects aren’t manifested for a good 10 to 30 years, and take such a complacent attitude about sex, which can result in immediate harm and trauma for a teen? This hypocrisy undermines our society’s so-called acceptance of all that is natural.

Finally, this whole notion that certain behaviors are natural is flawed from the beginning. Why? Because culture has a huge influence on determining what someone wants to do.

While I do not doubt that teens have wanted to have sex since the dawn of man, our culture has aggravated the situation by hyper-stimulating their sex drives through the rampant availability of pornography and by removing societal restraints on pre-marital sex. So what is “natural” now was not so 50 years ago. The same can be said about drugs, drinking, and school.

In short, we have to be careful about simply accepting sexual behavior in teens as “natural.” I agree wholeheartedly with Dr. Moffat that our reactions need to be calm and respectful so as not to alienate the teen. But our calm reactions need to be backed up by firm assertions of what is right and what is wrong, by what is good for the current and future development of the teen.

To fail to provide such guidance is to doom the teen to a life of frustration, suffering, and unhappiness.

Trey Hoffman
Peachtree City, Ga.

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