Good news re: young people and sex

Though more college students are sexually active than not -- apparently in the last few years there is a trend on that's becoming more popular for students NOT to have recreational sex, and wait for "THE one." Evidently, many youths are seeing the devasting effects of casual sex - and don't like what they see. This column is well worth a read - it starts:

"There’s a quiet revolution happening on the nation’s school and college campuses. While the students still live in a sex-saturated culture, and while researchers claim that at least 75 percent of college students are part of the “hook-up” generation, more and more students are opting out of the sex scene. It is far too early to declare a new trend, but there are encouraging signs of a new respect for abstinence and dating, instead of recreational sex.

Part of the change of attitude and behavior comes from college students seeing the consequences and repercussions of recreational sex. "

The article notes statistical details of all the fallout students are seeing from their friends who ARE sexually active and are paying for it with incressed depression, low self-esteem from giving it all away to someone who doesn't care, to the STDs students are now frightened of getting --- and the article notes many new books which preach abstinence and waiting for marriage -- with a nod to more healthy dating patterns where one doesn't feel compelled to hop in the sack with every "relationship." The article further notes new "Love and Fidelity Network" outreach programs which espouse waiting until marriage and notes chapters on many US college campuses, including some 2 dozen or so on high profile Universities such as Harvard, Princeton, Notre Dame.

Even younger teens are also starting to get the message, from some in the popular culture - American Idol Star Kelly Clarkson recent had release a song called "I don't hook up." And there are others promoting the same -- there's even a facebook page: Bring Back Dating.

Well worth a read.

Interesting Observations on Humanae Vitae

I ran across an article called The Vindication of Humanae Vitae by Mary Eberstadt published in "First Things." It's well worth a read, and cites many non-Catholic studies which seem to bear out Pope Paul VI's predictions re: what would happen the more widespread a contraceptive mentality were it to become widely accepted (as it certainly has throughout society at large and among Catholics. )

To quote just a bit:

"That there is no auxiliary literature of grievance for men—who, for the most part, just don’t seem to feel they have as much to grieve about in this new world order—is something else that Humanae Vitae and a few other retrograde types saw coming in the wake of the revolution. As the saying goes, and as many people did not stop to ask at the time, cui bono? Forty years later, the evidence is in. As Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Denver observed on Humanae Vitae’s thirtieth anniversary in 1998, “Contraception has released males—to a historically unprecedented degree—from responsibility for their sexual aggression.” Will any feminist who by 2008 disagrees with that statement please stand up?"

While I do not necessarily agree with all the observations in full, for instance, although Muslims don't believe in contraception, I don't think they respect women more because of that - I find most of these observations to ring true and they seem to be backed up by empirical data.