“I`ll Keep My Chastity”

The weekly news magazine News Week reported in its recent issue (9th) that there rose a sexual revolution, which valued `the virginal purity before marriage,` among teenagers.

According to the report, in the 2001 survey of the US CDC, the number of high school students, who determined the virginal purity before marriage increased about 10% from the same survey in 1991.

This is a phenomenon that has clear distance from the reality that sensational popular culture is overflowing. The magazine pointed out that this wave of teenagers, who refused the sexual liberation trend of their parents` generation, speak for `the new opposition culture.`

The magazine pointed out that not only religion, but also care for parents, self-judgment that they were not ready, and desire to decide their fate by themselves collectively influenced the resolution of the teenagers.

An 18-year-old college student, who responded to the interview, explained the reason for refraining from sex, “I think that I am not old enough to control the deep affection toward the partner, which will be occurred after sex.” Regulation of parents was a cause. Many teenagers keep the principle that their parents set when they just became teenagers; “Do not let them touch the body part that can be covered by the soccer uniform,” and “Sex is prohibited until the high school graduation.” In relation to this, the magazine reported that most experts agreed that the sex of teenagers were particularly dangerous. That is because teenagers are fragile to sexually transmitted diseases much more than adults and they are not familiar with the use of condoms. And the experts pointed out, unlike the general recognition, birth control pills, use of condom, and oral sex cannot secure safety from the sexually transmitted diseases. The magazine said, “As a result of a research, it has been proved that the role of parents had definite influence on delaying the time of teenagers` first sex,” and stressed, “you must actively talk about sex with your children.”

Hye-Yoon Park parkhyey@donga.com