The Secret Life of the American Teenager

So there I was, relaxing after school flipping channels, and I come across The Secret Life of the American Teenager on Much.

At first I was so turned off by the clearly Christian influence (created by the same women who wrote 7th Heaven), promoting abstinence and highlighting all the terrible things that you have to deal with if you get pregnant out of wedlock when you are young. But then I became intrigued...this is what youth watch on TV; and apparently this is how youth react around sex and think about it. Worse than that, it's this type of programming that is no doubt impacting how some kids view sex, love and all those other hormonal time bombs. To top that off, the stereotyping throughout the program is horrifying. The religious cheerleader who has a purity ring and plans on abstaining until marriage, her boyfriend who kisses the 'slutty' sexually open girl, the badass drummer who knocks up the innocent quiet band geek...throw in a smart Asian girl who recites sex statistics at the drop of a pin and you have your high school student body.

I think what bothers me most is the idea of love and how in North American cultures we condone having sex with someone by putting the label of love on it. "I love him, so it's ok." "It's only been two weeks, but I love him." What does love have to do with it? That's called lust and infatuation kiddies. Not love.

Actually, who am I to say what one person calls love isn't love? All I'm trying to get at is that I think for many young people nowadays we try to justify something so utterly natural as the act of sexual intercourse as an act of love, and that it can only be an act of love. If there isn't love attached to it, then it is a sin and wrong.

I think what I'm getting at is best described by the article "Sex, Sin and Social Policy" by Susan Rose, which focuses on the practices of abstinence-until-marriage programs versus comprehensive-sex-education programs and discusses with students and teachers from Denmark (pro sex-ed) and the United States (anti sex-ed) the impact and views on both. One of the passages I remember most clearly from that article was an observation made by a Danish teen along the lines of, "Sure I have sex with my boyfriend, sure I like him. But I don't love him. Love is something I attribute to people I've known for many years, like my family and good friends...I've only known my boyfriend for a few months in comparison."

Really you should probably read the article for yourself. I wish I had a link for you, but I read in it my Sociology of Sexuality text (Stombler, Mindy et al. 2006. Sex Matters: The Sexuality and Society Reader (2nd ed).) I wish I hadn't sold it back...