WebMD Community Talk Show

I'm 52 and totally agree with what you stated! No matter what is on tv or magazines, teenagers will be curious about sex. With birth control being more popular these days, I believe (I may be wrong) the pregnancy rate has dropped.

You MUST talk to your kids and teach morals and values. I had a teenage daughter that I opened up about sex and she had some information WRONG. I taught her the do's and don'ts about sex. I still worried about the teen pregnancy with her though. In my opinion, I got lucky because her doctor put her on birth control pills to regulate her period at the age of 13. Honestly, I was a bit relieved. Now she is 29 and she told me that my teachings about sex and morals and self-respect kept her a virgin until 19!!! That's unheard of in this day and age. So her being on birth control didn't get her to have sex. She wanted to save her virginity for the man she truly loved and her loved her back. The scare of STDs kept her from having sex also. But, her and I TALKED all the time. I was very open with her, which made a HUGE difference in her morals.

And don't get the idea that she is some ugly girl. She's beautiful and does modeling. She always had a line of boys waiting to date her! NO kidding! So don't ever think they won't stay virgins if you TALK to your kids. It's the best education that they just might listen to. I didn't sensor anything she watched on TV either. It did NOT influence her morals whatsoever. I didn't keep her from going to parties or teen clubs either. I wanted her to have a fun and enjoyable teen life. If they want to do something wrong, they'll always find a way, even if you keep them locked up in their room all the time. So parents, start TALKING with your children when they reach the age of 10 or you notice puberty is starting. As long as they can UNDERSTAND what you're talking about. When my daughter started asking sexual questions, I was always honest with her unless she was way to young to understand the answer. Use your judgement and good luck if you're a parent.

I think it is absolutely ridiculous how people are so ok with sex these days. I may be young, but I am truly appalled at some of the people I work with and go to school with. I'm a senior in High School and I have had a boyfriend for two years and people expect us to have sex - which we won't. And it makes me really mad that people are expected to have sex. I don't even have TV or cable. My mom hates it and says we don't need it and I think I am a lot better off without having sexual TV shows playing in my house.

Part One - Too much sex on TV and in Movies? Yes, definitely. As human beings we tend to seek after pleasures more than things that bring lasting happiness. It is hardly plausible that audultery brings lasting happiness. But, why do we show it so much? Perhaps because we are promoting and succumbing to pleasure more than self control.

I am a GenXer who believes that conservative values will be the saving grace of our country and that immorality will be the root cause of any fall or failure in our society and country. Parents who loosen up their values will set the example for children to loosen their values and so forth until there are no longer values and thresholds to govern life changing decisions.

An article, "If It Feels Right..." was published in the NY Times by David Brooks on Sept. 12, 2011 that describes a study that is related to this topic. I quote from him, "The interviewers asked open-ended questions about right and wrong, moral dilemmas and the meaning of life. In the rambling answers, "026 you see the young people groping to say anything sensible on these matters. But they just don't have the categories or vocabulary to do so.
"When asked to describe a moral dilemma they had faced, two-thirds of the young people either couldn't answer the question or described problems that are not moral at all, like whether they could afford to rent a certain apartment or whether they had enough quarters to feed the meter at a parking spot.
"The default position, which most of them came back to again and again, is that moral choices are just a matter of individual taste. 'It's personal,' the respondents typically said. 'It's up to the individual. Who am I to say?'
"Rejecting blind deference to authority, many of the young people have gone off to the other extreme [saying>: 'I would do what I thought made me happy or how I felt. I have no other way of knowing what to do but how I internally feel.'"
Those who conducted the interviews emphasized that the majority of the young people with whom they spoke had "not been given the resources—by schools, institutions [or> families—to cultivate their moral intuitions."

I believe this is the answer to why there is too much sex on TV and in movies. Our national moral compass is degrading with each new generation of children and parents who do not take up the responsibility to raise them properly.

Part Two - Does all the sex that is portrayed lead to more tenages engaging in sexual behavior? Yes and No. Peer pressure is a very powerful component of every teenager's life. Peers come from vastly different backgrounds that we never know what they may have been exposed to in the home. My son, as a kindergartener sat next to a kid who was in first grade. Spontaneoulsy the kid grabbed my son's head and shoved it into his crotch and said, "Give me a blow job." As a kindergartener 30 years ago I could never fathom such a thing happening.

Therefore, as teenagers succumb to the wide range of peer influences they find that those with moral values that support thiers are fewer and farther between. With so many broken homes and both parents working these teenagers have their own moral compass to wrestle with. So, they succumb to their peers.

However, their imagination is stoked and molded and influenced significantly by what they see on TV and in movies. Media can be the agent by which teenagers get ideas of what to do and how to do it when they decide it is okay. BUT, we are missing a major component - internet. So much more is available on the internet and the vulgarity of it is so brazen, yet it isn't regulated as television is.

30 years ago pornographic material was available in print and easier to part from when our moral compass told us to flee. Now, it is everywhere, at our fingertips. Our moral compass is strengthened by family, friends and society who share common values. Right now, we are all headed on the wrong road. We have an epidemic on our hands.

With all due respect, it is this type of response that makes me cringe. We are not monkeys or flies who mate all the time for the sole purpose of reproducing. That is what sex is... a reproductive act. Where we are different from animals and insects is that their liveborn are nurtured for a very short time while ours are nurtured for a very long time.

It is this kind of response that I see breeding the grounds for unstable relationships. Take for example, the couple who married without having had premarital sex or indulging in pornographic movies/material. What will the level of trust be between them? They know nothing about the sexual experience to the point that they can measure their spouse's performance against their premarital partners.

That is a blessing of which I am very grateful for and I know that is the blessing my parents and grandparents have enjoyed for the years they have been married. None of my or my wife's parents and grandparents have divorced or had premarital relations.

I am heading full speed to my 15th anniversary of monogamy with greater confidence and greater love to my wife because of that one gift we gave each other when we were married. We have not belittled or degraded that awesome power of procreation to an act that all living things participate in.

Yes and Yes i'm 66 yrs old and back when i was 14 yrs old my generation was very active sexualy. Thats when there weren't any explicet shows like today. Even the rap videos are very suggestive nowadays. The parents from my observation now don't seem very attentive as to what their children are watching or what they do away from home. Unless the radio and TV cencers buckle down and get back to proper editing the situation will just keep getting worse and Mom and Dad Wake up bite down more on that kid!!

The question is a distraction. How many murders has an eighteen year old person witnessed in movies, on CNN, in cartoons, in video games?
And these young people join the armed forces, are killed or maimed. Those who return from combat are discriminated against, yet are called "heroes" by the very politicians who sent them to kill people in countries they have barely heard of.
WebMD would do better to support the hippocratic oath by opposing violence and war.

Yes I believe they show too much sex on television. We need more shows which prize virginity. I don't like watching shows with girls losing their virginity, and I am almost 30. Girls look at virginity as something they need to immediately lose, and begin to have sex to be accepted. I just don't like how television portrays young girls. I think television does not care or realize how much they impact are youth and the problems people face today with their children.

undestand all of this. it has a huge effect. im only twenty and i have a one yea old. the stu on tv not only shows us teen sex is ?ok? but also how the wold should see a women.

I don't think it does.

Frankly I don't see the big fuss everyone has over hymens.

I fully appreciate your comments. I as a young person in this degrading society stayed a virgin until marriage as I was raised to know and believe was morally correct. It was tough, being morally correct is seemingly unacceptable in todays society. I was 21 when married and the trust I have for my husband is unmatched to any who had premarital sex. Plus we had no idea what sex was like so there was no comparing to any other partners which can cause some serious hurt! I am just glad to no be alone in this world of immorality! Thanks for your comments

Oh lord have mercy these Evangelicals and their self-righteous saving the world saga...Good luck on that one genxer. I think this topic is mute as it is already out their and there is no turning back. It is interesting how many are insinuating that we are biologically predispositioned to "wait" when historically homo-sapiens have wed and bred at much younger ages when mortality rates were younger and higher. And Diesel, out of all the organic species known to have lived on this planet have any done so much harm in such a short period of time? We're special? Really?

" I was 21 when married and the trust I have for my husband is unmatched to any who had premarital sex. "

That is an assumption. You don't know people otherwise, you're assuming because this is all you know

Just as you cant' compare to someone else and neither can he which means neither of you will ever know if you're lousy in the sack or not.

So if you are someone who has had premarital sex then how are you going to know what the trust that my husband and I have? That is a moot point if I do say so myself one beyond being disputed, because unless you were a married virgin then you have no idea where I am coming from, just as I have no idea where you are coming from. Thanks for twisting my words. Oh and btw.. he is GREAT in bed....

"he is GREAT in bed...."

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