"In a perfect world, no teenager would be having sex,"

Excuse me--In a perfect world, every teenager would be having joyous, protected sex, safe from pregnancy and disease, until they are prepared to conceive and bring to term wanted children.

This being an imperfect world, the situation is a little more complex.

I couldn't agree more. The notion that sex is a terrible and traumatic event that no teen should engage in - much less want - is censorius nonsense. Must we demonize sexuality along with abortion?

Sex can be joyous, wonderful, and an important part of learning to explore oneself and others - which is what growing up is all about. Mutual respect, self-determination, and an understanding of the possible consequences of sex (pregnancy, STDs) and how to prevent them are essential. But there isn't a magic number for suddenly becoming responsible and caring. Those qualities develop over time, through the very process of going through and gaining life experience. Which you can only do through . . . lived experience, including sexual experience.

By the way, I write here as a woman (and now a lawyer) who became sexually active with a loving, committed boyfriend when I was seventeen. I mention my gender because part of the anti-sex message that seems most regretable - and regressive - is the idea that girls shouldn't want, enjoy, or participate willingly in sex. We do, we can, and we should if we want to.

I don't think anyone is seriously demonizing sex here, but there is a question of whether or not teenagers are aware of the consequences of their actions and whether or not they're capable of making proper decisions.

No parent wants to see their child get sick or pregnant as a result of a rash decision. This is simply an issue of emotional maturity.

As someone who graduated from high school and attended college recently, I can safely say most of the people I knew in high school weren't ready to have sex. They were simply still children in mature bodies.

By college, some of them had grown up a little, but the majority were still acting childish, never having had responsibility for anything. The way we raise children in this society prolongs their dependence on their parents and makes it hard for them to learn responsibility. As long as this remains the case, most teenagers won't be ready to have sex.

They'll engage in sex because of social pressure, or out of curiosity, or because their parents never properly educated them. Some will come out fine, while others will be emotionally or physically injured. Too many will fail to use birth control or use it incorrectly.

I, too, recently graduated high school and college, and speaking as a female, the amount of turmoil and pain and emotional agony I saw my close friends go through because of sex-and this is sex without pregnancy, without disease-was tramatic enough for me to wait. Yes, orgasms are nice-so is chocolate and grease, yet this country is routinely telling and judging people who want to eat whatever they want no matter the health consequences. (Oh the looks I get for admitting I frequent fast food more than once a month.) My biggest argument against teen sex is that sex seriously complicates an already complocated stage of life, where identity, physical growth, and maturity are changing at light speeds. Why add the complications of sex-the heighened intimacy, and emotional dependence, along with the possibility of disease and pregnancy? Because condoms break. Girls forget to take their pills. This isn't a perfect world, but teenagers should avoid unneeded complications whenever they can.

Americans have gotten a great many things right, but one thing I think we can learn a lot from Mediteranean and European and and I'm sure other cultures is an almost innate sense of what to eat/act/live/experience sexually. To use food as an example, in order to be 'healthy' we have to follow a chart, then count calories, talk and discuss our weight and food decisions with near perfect strangers, and of course hit upon a great personal epiphany that will solve our weight problems.

How I grew up, you enjoy every meal and every bite like a good healthy woman should. No breakfast bars for me- give my a burger (minus the bun because its too filling with two patties) any day. But then, that'd probably be eaten in the late afternoon, it would be my dinner and I'd probably had eaten only an apple, 3 bites of French bread or a muffin top, half a cup of coffee with a tablespoon of half n half in the morning, and a chicken breast with a smear of cheese and pesto, peperonni and another half-cup of coffee with cream. The next day I'll have tomotopaste-olive oil fried broccoli, or a salad if I'm busy, with a little chicken for dinner. I eat well and happily and keep a size 2 with bad genetics and only walking for exercise. And, I always eat dessert when out with my friends. I'm not Giselle or Heidi, but I'm passionate about life and try to dress that way too and thats enough.

Sex should be dealt the same way. It is not about "getting maximum pleasure" or "being intimate with your partner" or "connecting emotionally." Sex is sex. It is what you want it to be, at that evening, that week, at that instant, or at that time in your lfe. Young women need realize it is just as okay to want to show someone love and attention and detail (no it is not self-diminishing or anti feminist) as it is to just want to rut it out. It is also okay to have not kissed anyone before age 18 (sorry, but most adolescent guys really arent the epitome of attraction), to hate PDA (am I the only one who finds this effeminate in most guys ?), and finally to be single or relatively "romanceless" compared to their friends.

If you don't have self-confidence as a woman or man, sex can be really bad compared to good sex, and this is from someone who had never been in an at risk situation for pregnancy or disease. Personally, I have no patience for fumbling/ stupid guys with no imagination and I'm more than happy to wait it out. The mean time, there is way more pleasure in dancing for 4straight hours to 80s pop and crashing at the burger place for chili dogs with good friends and company and maybe some harmless flirting than being in a smelly dorm room with a smellier guy.