May 19 2009
Teen Sexuality: What To Do?
Dear Friends in Christ,
I am writing this letter to you all becasue so many of you have teen ager in your life and I would like your thoughts on this. Mind you I will print any of your responses and quote you unless you say not to or just give me permission to print your comment without your name. I am placing my thoughts on teen sexuality into Catholic America Today and want to know and have some responses to it to add to my thoughts. I have an idea in my head how I want to address sexuality among teens and just want to knock around some ideas with you all. I have chosen you becasue you either have teens or have recently been one. Our society has become faster and highly mobile one. Do our teens have time to smell the roses? The recent death of the one teen who texted her nude pic to her bf has made me think long and hard about teens and our family structure and more importantly how Jesus can help. Teens need to be involved in Jesus. This is my conclusion. The next question is where is Jesus in the High School I speak about it and how do we get him there. Here are my thoughts:
I have been spending some time with some teens lately through a mutual friend. What I learned from my interaction was very disturbing. Through conversations with these teens I became aware of the need for the love of Jesus. Many of our teens lack this and by the time you read this you will know why I feel this way. The mother I talked to extensively is named Jen. Jen has two teen daughters. I have been very alarmed to hear what they have to say. They are very sweet girls but on a daily basis they put up with a lot of adult topics. I am so overwhelmed that I do not know where to begin so I am just going to start from the beginning. I have changed the names so as not to embarrass anyone. We will call the daughters Jane and Lisa. Lisa being the older one of 17 and Jane just turned 16. They attend a high school in
North Las Vegas. We will call this North High. The name really does not matter. With all the sexting messaging and internet porn around I knew that teen knowledge of sex would be high. How did I come upon this information which I am about to reveal to you? I did something that most adults would find hard to do. I just listened to the kids. This is the product of about one to two months of just listening to the kids talk.
Here is little back ground on the family: Jane and Lisa are the product of a divorce. They live in house of all females. The mother works for
Clark
County and is a school teacher. There is no male role model currently in the home. There mother Jen has been married seven times and currently there is no faith at home although Jen is seeking information on being Catholic. She has been married so many times that it will cost her over 1000 dollars to annul all the marriages. The teens go to school and come home after 1:30. From 1:30 till about fiveish they are at the library. The library is kind of a local hang out. That is either here or there for at least she is trying. On a daily basis her kids interact with similar families at school. Jen’s situation is not out of the norm.
Jane and Lisa have a variety of friends my favorite of theirs is Jake. Jake is a tall skinny teen kind of a cross between the actors Ben stiller as a teen and Ashton Kutcher. He is on the feminine side and he relates well too girls because he likes to gossip and shop. He has the goofiness of Stiller and the long haired look of Kutcher in the That Seventies show. Jake has an interesting life. Both his parents are porn stars and he is gay. By far he is the most interesting of the friends but there are more. Bonnie reminds me of Thelma from the Movie Scooby due. She is a very sweet seventeen year old and is sexually active but she is gay too. She is slightly over weight and has short hair. She related to me while we worked together on a project that her mother and father have given her permission to have sex with other teens. One of her typical comments is how much she enjoys oral sex, which she will happily relate to you in a normal everyday conversation. Lisa and Jane engage in sexually related conversations on a daily basis, mostly about there far from innocent relationships.
On a daily basis they interact with very troubled teens. Jane related to me that many of the girls will become bisexual because the boys are so sexually aggressive at the school. The boys become bi because the girls are not giving them sex so they need a sexual out let. Again this was all news to me. Students at this age should not have to deal with this type of behavior nor could this be healthy. What I plan to do is forward this info to Eddie Olivas who is a counselor for Catholic Charities. I would love to hear his take on this to see if he is dealing with this too. I would love to hear his professional opinion on what I have been hearing. I will also forward this to a priest and see what he thinks.
Jane is currently best friends with Jake. They have not had sex yet to my knowledge but they still make out with each other which is a tell tale sign to me that perhaps Jake is a bit confused. I would bet that the two have had sex. Jane tells me she is not sure of Jake’s gayness for he says oral sex with a man does sicken him. The bottom line is Jane and Jake are in separable and enjoy each others company. They regularly tell each other everything that goes on. Jake tells Jane about his troubled home life. His mom often comes home drunk and has wild parties. The latest thing is Jake’s parents have been doing reality tv shows t make extra cash. Jake is a drama queen. So film crews invade his peace on a regular basis. This constant sharing and meeting of the minds is what teens are looking for. In my opinion they are seeking the friendship and the love of someone who just will listen to them. In all the conversations that I heard at no time did they ever put down a person because that person was gay or bi. This reaffirms my statement that they see only human beings and not sexual preference.
On one conversation I had with Jane she asked me out right what I thought about abortion. I told her as a Catholic that I was against it. She told me that she would have one in a heart beat because right now she is not ready to have a child. I told her that abortion is killing and that is wrong. She told me she never thought about it as a human being. She said, “wow, I really never thought of it as killing a human being. I was so into how inconvenient to me it would be to have a baby at a young age. I talk to my friends all the time and they all tell me they would have an abortion in a heart beat.” This definitely was an eye opener to me. Teens at this age are so “me”oriented. She was starving for information. I could tell. I was so shocked though that I could not recover enough to have a stimulating conversation and she quickly turned the subject to her new boy friend. Her new boyfriend Harold, who I learned was a bad kisser because his breath stunk and he always kisser her with food in his mouth. She told me she met him that day and kissed him too, probably too much information. I learned the majority of my information by listening to the two teens talk at dinner. How often do the teens eat at a table with an adult? Hardly ever, most conversations they have with an adult are in a car on there way to school or at school with a teacher.
The youth I talked to were starving to know about Jesus. They wanted to know about the churches position on sex and abortion. Jen is worried about her sixteen year old. She just caught her with her boy friend in a compromising position. After a stern conversation with the boy, the boy promised not to have sex with her daughter. She trusts them but would you trust the hormones of a seventeen year old? She is truly worried and is seeking answers.
Catholic America Today is currently seeking prayers to reach people who have been affected by pornography. I think the situation at this high school is interrelated. As Catholics we need to be aware that over 70% of the male teens have viewed pornography. These are startling numbers. As a person who was addicted to sex, I can say teens need to be reached at a younger age. They are starving for attention at this age and looking for answers. I believe a Catholic presence should be felt in this area. A mentor of mine, Fr. Stan Bosch, who works diligently in Los Angeles with the gangs, has lead me to believe that anything can happen if you just listen to people and let you tell them their concerns. I believe this is the case here. We have a population of teens starving for Jesus and they want to be listened too. Please let me know what you think.
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Vern Paul Hee
catholicamericatoday.net
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