Teen'Zine Crosses Line

This post is for John Horvat at returntoorder.org . I don't know that the editor of a teen'zine site is going to be impressed by non-subscribers' pronouncements about a pro-teen-sex article being an offense against God. I do remember, though, that there are teenagers who might appreciate a frank discussion of the fact that some teenagers want to obey the law that orders them to practice abstinence until they reach the magical eighteenth birthday that's supposed to make them old enough to become parents.

Here's the e-mail I sent the'zine, which does not deserve the publicity of a link:

"
Dear Editors,

In a world where it's treated as a crime if anyone over the magic age of 18 touches a teenager's back, you're *encouraging* teenagers to think about boinking their hearts out, buying birth control pills, considering prostitution? I'm a Protestant and don't usually feel as censorious as the Catholic correspondent who complained about the August sex article seems to do, but you should be encouraging teenagers to sublimate, sublimate, and sublimate some more--not to get themselves and the people they usually find attractive (who are over 18) in trouble that may ruin their lives even 30 or 40 years later.

Believe it or not there actually *are* teenyboppers who appreciate help distracting themselves from their hormone surges. Not because they think having hormones is a sin; because they want to do something besides become teen single parents. I was one, once. I know teenagers today who would prefer that magazines try to stir up whatever hormones we baby-boomers may still have, toward one another, and tell teenagers how to pass tests, get jobs, avoid being manipulated into silly quarrels...things their hormones are not already screaming at them nonstop for three days of every month, or, when the male hormones take over, every seven seconds of every day. They don't WANT to be jailbait, or single parents, or used to ruin someone's career. They would prefer to get on with their own lives.
"

Teenaged readers are hereby encouraged to set up alternative screen names your friends won't recognize and debate this anonymously, on Disqus, below, or on Twitter. Those of us who want help to practice self-control, whether tempted by sex, food, alcohol, angry outbursts, fears, procrastination, laziness, or whatever else, don't need to be teased about it, but we would appreciate not having temptation shoved in our faces.

Which is why, as a teenager, I seldom read the printed magazines that used to consist of "Darling, you are growing up" or "Look at this stranger's face, it's supposed to make your heart throb" or "Buy this so you'll look sexier in the sponsor-approved way" pieces. And I don't recommend them to today's teenyboppers, either.

Here's a book by a fellow who felt the same way. I didn't come to the same conclusions he does, because he and I grew up in different subcultures that used the word "dating" in different ways; as a teenager I liked dating, Seventh-Day Adventist style, meaning you go to a school or church thing with a friend of the opposite sex, free of charge, and if you had a particularly nice time you shake hands. But Joshua Harris, Wendy Shalit, and other writers are onto something. If adult society wants teenagers not to be single parents, we have to stop trying to use sex to sell them stuff, too. Fair is fair.