Sex In School
Across America educators and parents are asking why youth have suddenly become openly promiscuous. As reported in the news sex in the school house isn’t an uncommon thing.
Years ago the winner of a contest sponsored by a major railroad offered the following safety slogan: “STOP, LOOK, LISTEN.”
The same three steps will lead to an understanding as to why promiscuity is increasingly rampant.
Look and listen. For example view “Sex in the City,” and “Friends” on TV. These are two popular cute shows watched by youth. Observe what moral standard they depict.
Change the dial to MTV: stop, look, listen.
Look! Look at what youth are reading and viewing and evaluate what moral teachings are inherent in it. Go to a news stand, youth do, and read such teen targeted magazines as “Twist” and “Boy Crazy.” They are explicit and encouraging of promiscuity, especially oral sex. Take time to look at copies and evaluate what moral standard they represent.
Listen! If you can’t understand the words of most rap or other youth directed music the words are often printed on the label. Most Top 50 radio stations are playing recordings that leave nothing to the imagination. They depict unbridled sex as the norm commonly practiced.
Did you listen to what former President Clinton said wasn’t and was sex? The youth of America did. They can quote him on it.
There is an old computer norm: GIGO. It means what goes in goes out. What is programmed in comes out. The same principle applies to the most marvelous of computers, the human mind. What goes in the portals of the eyes and ears is acted out in life.
Now comes the “STOP” part. How can runaway immorality be stopped? The common answer is appropriate more money for security guards and surveillance cameras. In effect, build a higher fence.
Build a nine foot fence and a way to build a ten foot ladder is the result. To compensate for the ten foot ladder build an eleven foot fence. The ladder business doesn’t work. Taller ladders are always on the drawing board. They are built faster than fences.
A kangaroo was introduced in his new habitat at the zoo with an eight foot fence. The next day he was found wandering around the zoo. They built a ten foot fence with the same result. They built a fifteen foot fence and the next day he was still enjoying his freedom. Not even a twenty foot fence kept him in.
The lion in his adjacent compound asked the kangaroo, “Do you think they will ever devise a way to keep you in?” He replied, “Not unless someone thinks to lock the gate.”
The gate is the individual human mind and will. Only when youth are disciplined by parents who will “STOP” and give the attention youth deserve in order to develop self-discipline will the situation improve.
Marcus Aurelius, one of the “five good emperors of Rome,” said, “The life, like a temple, must be arched and buttressed from within or it will waver and crumble to the ground.”
This is an appeal for full time parental involvement by modeling and mentoring morals.