ABSTINENCE is not the "in" word nowadays. "Safe sex" is.

The general thinking is that it is difficult, almost impossible, to teach today's youth to abstain from pre-marital sex. Therefore the next best course of action is to teach "safe sex". Sounds sensible, although there is the obvious concern as to how safe is "safe sex" given that the protection accorded from condoms may not be as high as is perceived.

One can be exposed to infections even with the use of condoms. According to Consumers International (BBC) in 2002, it was then estimated that with a breakage rate of 5%, one million people a day would be exposed to sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies. Besides, it is easy to throw caution to the wind in moments of passion. It was also reported in a Durex sex survey in 2005 that one in three Malaysians (mainly youngsters) have unprotected sex and yet indicated that their greatest concern about sex was AIDS/HIV.

Clearly the issue of sexually transmitted diseases is a serious one. The risk of contracting them is high if one is sexually promiscuous. More unfortunately, even the occasional fling can be fateful if one's sexual partner happens to be a carrier of a sexually transmitted virus, unknown to themselves. "It won't happen to me!" is a delusion. The virus does not choose its host. The consequences can be fatal as in the case of AIDS/HIV, or irreparable as in some other STDs. In Malaysia, the Ministry of Health had reported that more than 78,000 persons have been diagnosed with HIV up to June 2007 and the number of infections due to sexual intercourse had increased from 18.2% in 2002 to 31.9% in 2006.

From the Durex sex survey in 2005, it was also found that Malaysians are losing their virginity at the age of 19 compared to 21 in 2003.

A better way is to bring back the virtue of "virginity". Teach abstinence before marriage. Reserve sex only for marriage. Sounds old-fashioned? Maybe. But it's a tried and tested path.

Question 1:

Someone told me the other day that there are more than twenty sexually transmitted diseases at an epidemic level, and many of them are incurable. I've been through five years of sex-education classes, and no one has ever told me this. I think that is scandalous!

Answer: Unfortunately, these facts are withheld from today's young people. That's what motivated our organization. Focus on the Family, to create a full-page advertisement that attempted to get the word out. It presented the dangers of viral and bacterial infections and was documented throughout with respected medical references. That ad, entitled "In Defense of a Little Virginity," was run in 1,300 newspapers, including USA Today. We've received thousands of letters of appreciation from students and from parents thanking us for sharing the truth with them for the first time.

Meanwhile, about one out of every five Americans are suffering from incurable viruses. Even more have bacterial and fungal infections that cause infertility and other physical problems. And numerous babies are aborted each year.

That need for information is especially evident to those of us at Focus on the Family. We receive heartbreaking mail from very young people who have been lured into destructive behavior. Some of them are still children, like the girl who sent us this letter. She wrote:

This has been on my mind for a long time. I've heard that if you have sex during your period you won't get pregnet [sic]. If not, I have a problem. I'm only 11.
[signed] Really Worried

We have permitted innocent kids like this one be dragged into destructive behavior before they've even gotten started in life. We have to begin giving them the whole truth of premarital sex and the difficulties it can cause.

Question 2:

When I've tried to argue the "abstinence" position with the advocates of safe sex, they have said, "You just don't live in the real world. Kids are going to do what comes naturally, it is ridiculous to ask them to abstain, so we might as well show them how to do it right." It is really a waste of time to try to teach principles of morality to this generation?

Answer: I've heard the same rationale from the advocates of safe sex. They don't want kids to abstain, so they tell us it is foolish to promote that behavior. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I remember a reporter from the New York Times coming to Focus on the Family several years ago to get a quote from us. She was writing a story about today's sexually active kids, making the point that morality is dead and gone. We disagreed and invited her to come to to attend a youth seminar. It offered teenagers straight talk about sex, drugs, their choice of friends, and other concerns.

The reporter accepted our invitation and was blown away by what she saw. The stadium was designed to hold eighteen thousand people, but 26,000 kids showed up for the rally. Several thousand who couldn't get inside stood listening to a speaker system outside the arena as they were urged to live a responsible life and stay out of bed until they were married.

The reporter went back to New York and--you guessed it--wrote that morality is dead among the young. It isn't true. But it will be soon if we continue to promote immoral principles to young people.

Question 3:

The spread of sexually transmitted diseases is very unsettling to me. I have three teenage daughters and am afraid they don't understand how easily these organisms are spread and what they can do to the body. This is a very scary subject.

Answer: Like you, I wonder what it will take to awaken our young people. I interviewed Dr. C. Everett Koop in the mideighties while he was surgeon general of the United States. He said, "The AIDS epidemic will soon change the behavior of everyone. When infected young people begin dying around us, others will be afraid to even kiss anyone."

The epidemic has spread since those days, just as Dr. Koop predicted. But he was wrong about the fear of sex. People continue jumping in and out of bed with each other as though they were immune to all the viruses and bacteria that stalk the human family.

Question 4:

Why are young people so oblivious to the danger? Why do they put themselves at such risk?

Answer: For one thing, their idols in movies, television, and rock music tell them absolutely everyone is having sex. Unfortunately, these voices from the culture never reveal what it's like to have herpes or HPV or the other incurable viruses that are at epidemic proportions today. Also the safe-sex gurus have convinced kids that these terrible diseases can be prevented with the simple use of condom. So why not?

Thank goodness for a few physicians who are sounding the alarm and trying to get the uncensored facts to our kids. They don't get much press, but someday they will be vindicated. One of the most vocal of these concerned doctors is my good friend Dr. Joe McIlhaney, an obstetrician-gynecologist who heads and organization called Medical Institute for Sexual Health (MISH). A frequent Focus on the Family broadcast guest, he talked about the fallacy of "safe sex" on a recent program:

"What you hear mostly from the press is what science is going to do for people who have a sexually transmitted disease (STD), how science is going to come up with a vaccine or treatment for AIDS, how antibiotics will kill gonorrhea and chlamydia. What is not discussed is how these STDs leave women's pelvic structures scarred for life, and they end up infertile or having to do expensive procedures to get pregnant later on.

I could name patient after patient in the twenty-two years I've been in practice where I've had to perform a hysterectomy before a woman had the children she wanted because of pelvic inflammatory disease, which is caused by chlamydia and gonorrhea. The public announcements about "safe sex" infuriate me, because what they're saying is that you can safely have sex outside of marriage if you use condoms, and you don't have to worry about getting an STD. The message is a lie. The failure rate of condoms is extremely high, and that's why married people don't use them."

He went on to say, "I see the examples of these failures in my office every day. These include victims of chlamydia, probably the most prevalent STD, and of human papilloma virus (HPV), which can cause a lasting irritation of the female organs, as well as cancer of the vulva, vagina, and cervix. It is one of the most difficult diseases to treat and kills more than 4,800 women a year. I also see victims of herpes, which some studies indicate is present in up to 30-40 percent of single, sexually active people, as well as victims of syphilis, which is at a forty-year high."

(This article was written by Focus on the Family Malaysia and the Questions and Answers are extracted from "Complete Family and Marriage Home Reference Guide" by Dr. James Dobson with permission.

Focus on the Family 90-second commentaries is aired over TRAXX FM at 9.30 a.m. Monday to Friday.)