Dina tweeted this article from the UK Daily Mail. I don’t really have much sympathy for student, since my rule is NO SEX BEFORE MARRIAGE, and I’m twice his age and still a virgin. Still, the article had some interesting things in it.
Excerpt:
A teenager at one of the country’s most prestigious private schools has outed himself as a virgin and is encouraging his classmates to employ the same restraint to avoid getting their hearts broken.
Phin Lyman, 18, a sixth former at Wellington College, Berkshire, wrote an article in his school magazine warning peers that ‘casual sex never works in the long term’.
Mr Lyman – a pupil at the £30,000-per year school which counts author Sebastian Faulks and broadcaster Peter Snow among its alumni – described sex as ‘the glue’ which connects two people ‘physically and emotionally’.
And now the interesting parts:
The pupil’s comment comes just days after it emerged nearly one in ten students at British universities admit they first had sex at the age of 14 or younger.
The shocking survey of more than 6,000 students at 100 universities, carried out by Student Beans, found nine per cent of students admitted they lost their virginity before they reached their 15th birthday, with two per cent saying they had sex before they turned 14.
By the time they reached 16 – the legal age of consent – that figure had risen to almost one in four.
The survey also found that more than half have had unprotected sex while 61 per cent used camera phones to send explicit pictures or videos of themselves to partners, known as ‘sexting’.
After starting university, more than half admitted to having one-night stands and six per cent said they had already had more than 20 partners. Just eight per cent said they were still virgins.
Norman Wells from the Family Education Trust, which promotes traditional moral values, said: ‘The survey underlines the failure of contraceptive-based sex education to prepare young people for lifelong marriages.
‘Contrary to the claims of those who assert that marriage is an outdated institution, the overwhelming majority of students expect to get married, with only six per cent saying they do not wish to marry.
‘Yet the casual attitudes towards sex suggested by high levels of one night stands and multiple sexual partners indicate that students are ignorant of the character qualities they will need.’
Meanwhile, the latest figures from the NHS published in 2011 show 27 per cent of men aged between 15 and 24 had not had sex, compared with 22 per cent in 2001.
Those who admitted drinking alcohol in the previous week had also dropped by a quarter in that same ten-year period.
Of those aged 11 to 15, one in eight said they had drunk the week before, according to the 2011 NHS figures.
In my case, I am concerned about sex simply because I more interested in love, romance and a lifelong commitment. I believe that one of the best (and most risky) ways for me to make an impact for God would be to have a marriage that can be used as a base of operations from impacting the public square. A married couple united in purpose is able to work together to impact the church and the university, and raise influential and effective children. But to do that the bond has to be tight. I believe that refraining from premarital sex is my way of giving my future wife the gift of security in the marriage. Whatever happens, she will always know that I am not the kind of person who thinks that sexual activity is an appropriate form of communication between people who do not know each other, are not committed to each other, are not committed to their children and do not share a common purpose of serving God over the long-term.
I have no regrets about not being married yet, because you can train hard, save a lot of money and do a lot of good as a single person. But my chastity expresses the hope that one day the right girl will come along to know me and my plan, and want to participate in it in a self-sacrificial, submissive way. Until then, I’ll keep serving God in a disciplined, focused way and keep waiting for her to commit to me.
WINTERY KNIGHT 