The Romeo and Juliet Effect: Why Christians Keep Having Sex Before Marriage

In William Shakespeare's play, "Romeo and Juliet," the titular star cross'd lovers fatefully decide to pursue their love, despite the chaos and war unfolding around them. Their decision ends up being a fatal one. I suppose the ironic question that some people might want to ask the protagonists is: Out of all the wo/men in the world...

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I don't see why people think that abstinence programs or religion do any good when it comes to keeping their kids from having sex. They're surprised that 88 percent of those kids break their vows of chastity? It's a red flag for them to sign the oath anyway. You know who you can always find to sell you drugs? Someone with a DARE sticker on the back of their car. "Dare to keep kids off drugs!" = dealer. In any case, the entire environment is just bad to begin with. First off, you keep telling kids sex is bad, sex is bad, sex is bad. That's all you tell them. You don't tell them how to use a condom. You don't tell them that they can get pills or shots to avoid pregnancy. You don't tell them about how to be safe or how often to be tested, because you're assuming that they'll listen to you and that they'll stay virgins forever anyway.

News flash: people don't care if you tell them sex is bad. They don't care if you tell them it's immoral, it's a sin, it's dangerous, whatever. They're going to do it. We're programmed to do it. You telling a person not to have sex isn't going to make them decide to be chaste. However, if you tell them the dangers of unprotected sex and then teach them how to protect themselves, they may listen to you.

The other problem with a lot of parents who go this route is that then you have kids who are so afraid that you'll be angry that they're not willing to talk to you about it when they DO start having sex. They're afraid to ask about buying condoms. They're afraid to ask to be put on birth control. And so then you end up with high schoolers catching STDs or getting pregnant, where, if they were able to have a healthy discussion about sex with their parents who cared more about their child's safety than about their chastity, they might not catch these diseases or become pregnant. The entire idea of putting so much pressure on kids not to have sex just hurts us in the long run. You have people who aren't informed and who are afraid to talk to their families about getting medical care but who are still doing to do whatever they're going to do.

Why do people have such a problem with sex in the first place, anyway? I mean, it's perfectly natural, it's necessary for the survival of the species, and we're programmed to do it. The things about women that men find attractive? Large breasts, hourglass figure? Those women are more fertile, which is why men are programmed to find them more attractive. Women find big, strong men to be more attractive most of the time. Why? Natural selection of a sort. The ones with the best genes are the ones who procreate. All of this is programmed in our brains to begin with. Why go and fight it? It doesn't make any sense. And since when is feeling good sinful? Who are you hurting by having sex with your boyfriend or girlfriend? What's more, a lot fewer people would get hurt through sex if we were intelligent about it and informed, but we still have people pushing abstinence-only education in schools, doing the exact opposite.