ual desire. The only sure plan is to avoid sexual stimulation. You can separate, change the subject, get out of a dark corner, join the crowd. 3. Cultivate in youth the feel ing that any intimacy without affection is distasteful. We enjoy intimacy with those we love and shrink from it otherwise—in spite o f the physical thrill. There is something tawdry and out of place, a cheap substitute, when you are intimate with a casual ac quaintance. 4. Where there is a religious background in the home, these in timacies should be discussed with the child against that background. There they are. These are the responsibilities that parents need to face. Parents can understand that their children tend to chafe un der their watehful eye. Teens can understand that their parents’ in terest and close supervision are intended to help them manage a powerful urge. What About Kissing Good-night? A difficult question. Perhaps the answer lies in the reason for the kiss. Does it mean, “Good night, my friend, it’s been real” ? Or is it an invitation for more? The girl must be the judge. A short good-night kiss, not intend ed to arouse the passion o f either of you, seems acceptable. Kissing does arouse passion and high school dating is hardly the reason for doing so. When a short kiss leads to two, it’s no longer say ing, “Good-night and thank you.” It’s saying, “Let’s not go yet; let’s become aroused.” You must be the judge. You are the steward of your own body. The sex urge can be fanned. Talking about sex, exposing your self to loose company, reading about sex, deliberately going out to park and make out are ways of fanning the urge. There is the possibility of pregnancy and ven ereal disease. There is the fact of embarrassment and shame. But the pleasantness of the experi
other girl. This girl had had re lations with five other men, who in turn had been with nineteen women, some of them prostitutes. The girl who thought her rela tionship had been limited to one person had had contact, through him with at least ninety-two oth ers.” Even more subtle and harmful than organized vice is the parade of paperbacks available at the corner drugstore. For years, fic tional works have portrayed sex ual looseness. Now, however, non fiction works are recommending premarital relations as a way of life. Books deal with sex and the single girl, sex on the campus, sex and the career girl, sex and the office girl. These are impas sioned arguments for sex outside of marriage. Why Parents Are Concerned The freedom that young people have today adds to the conflict. The automobile presents parents and teens with a grave problem. It allows two people to sit togeth er very closely. Parents know the strong attraction that closeness brings with it. Teens feel confi dent of their ability to handle these close relationships. “Donlt you trust me?” is the heated retort that many young persons have hurled at parents. The answer should be, “ No” . You shouldn’t even trust yourself. It’s a fact of life that physical close ness is sexually stimulating and hard to manage. Dr. Dickerson, an experienced health educator, offers four guide lines to parents. See what you think of them. 1. Don’t permit the young ad olescent the opportunity to pet. Boys and girls even at 13 or 14 want to be by themselves. They may resent observation by par ents. Dickerson says it’s foolish to rely too much on immature judgment and self-control. It’s on ly fair and smart to have older people around. 2. Point out that there is al ways danger in trifling with sex
ment sorely tempts you to ignore the dangers. It will take a higher goal to carry you through. It takes a power not your own. There is help if you want it. The help comes from God. The Apostle Paul points the way: “ God’s plan is to make you holy, and that entails first o f all a clean cut with sexual immor ality. Every one of you should learn to control his body, keeping it pure and treating it with re spect, and never regarding it as an instrument for self-gratifica tion, as do pagans with no knowl edge of God. You cannot break this rule without in some way cheating your fellow men. And you must remember that God will punish all who do offend in this matter, and we have warned you how we have seen this work out in our experience of life. The call ing of God is not to impurity but to the most thorough purity, and anyone who makes light of the matter is not making light of a man’s ruling but of God’s com mand. It is not for nothing that the Spirit God gives us is called the Holy Spirit” (I Thess. 4 :3-8, Phillips’ translation). The sex urge can be managed. You can be careful what you look at, what you read, what you are willing to listen to, what you are willing to do. God will help you if you want His help. The Bible says, “ If you believe in goodness and if you value the approval of God, fix your minds on the things which are holy and right and pure and beautiful and good” (Phil. 4:8 Phillips’ trans lation) . There are two sides to the coin. What the Bible says makes sense. You know it’s right, but the temp tation to enjoy the pleasure of sexual thinking and sexual con tact is strong. You enjoy the freedom of making your own choice. Reprint by permission Scripture Press Publications, taken from “ When a Teen Falls in Love” by Dr. Henry R. Brandt, 1965.
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NOVEMBER, 1966
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