"Every point of view is useful, even those that are wrong - if we can judge why a wrong view was accepted."

Alright, I thought I'd be done writing, but something really has been bugging me tonight. Now, I'm not one to really rage at an institution that has done good in the past and still continues to do good even today, but there is a particular subject that I feel that a certain institution has really failed to address. The certain institution here being the Christian Church (Orthodox Church in American in my case, but I feel that my points may ring true elsewhere) and the topic being sex/sexuality.

Now, since I was young(er), the prevailing view of the church seemed to be pretty much that sex is bad unless you are married. Easy enough concept to explain to a young child, who may or may not be currently throwing spit wads at the opposite gender while said lesson is being taught. I mean, if at that given age, if the child already finds the opposing gender to be annoying anyways, what's the damage? None. Ah, but when that same child gets older, say teens, what do you tell them? Guess, what? The whole abstinence message really doesn't work as well when you are looking at girl X and she's looking really good today (feel free to substitute boy X, depending on gender/preference). I mean, what do you tell teens then? Do you honestly tell them that sex is fun, exciting and all that? Because that would encourage teens to do it more, no? So, then should the church lock up sex along with drugs and rock 'n roll? Maybe not the best option as that seems to have been the game plan for the last while and it doesn't seem to be working.

I mean, seriously...take a look at TV. There are so many TV shows- "Sixteen and Pregnant," "Secret Life of the American Teenager," "Baby Borrowers" (though to a lesser extent) that use this as a plot device. Is this because teenagers are having sex earlier or because they are not using contraceptives or what? And, though I do not follow SaP incredibly well, the majority of the teens who get pregnant seem to be from the South or Bible belt. Seriously? If this is where the abstinence only program is being promoted, it's obviously not working.

Let's examine the evidence here. Sex outside of marriage is not considered to be good. Ok, fine, sure. Obviously the best way to get teens to not have sex is to simply tell them not to do it, right?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Ahem. Let's not forget the first or second story in the Bible in Genesis where a similar dialogue takes places.

God: Don't eat the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
Adam/Eve: Why?
God: Bad things will happen.
Adam/Eve: Uh...sure...

And we all know how *that* story ends. Even barring the serpent coming into the picture, Adam and Eve would've eventually eaten the fruit. And thus the whole authority figure telling his/His children to not do a forbidden thing fails.

What would a solution be? Well...I can think of a few. Because I want to keep this blog relatively PG/PG-13 and keep it accessible to all readers, I'll only list the one that would fall in that range. I can think of about five or so other possible options to release sexual energy that would probably be considered sins by numerous churches that may involve a computer or other small electronics. However since these wouldn't create a pregnancy and wouldn't bring a new life into the world to two probably not ready parents, I'm alright with that. But, since that wouldn't be an option due to it probably being considered sinful (though the lesser by far, IMO), possibly a different route is needed.

Since sex is probably inevitable, the best people could honestly do is have an open dialogue with someone- ANYONE- about it. I mean, who is a young adult going to want to talk about sex with? Their parents? HAH! See the aforementioned God/Adam example. Extra minus points if the parent may be self righteous and say "I told you not to do that..." A priest? Hah! See God/Adam example. Also, (and I hate to take this shot) the fact that in some churches the priest is unmarried or celibate doesn't help. It'd be like if your car stopped working and you talked to me of all people about auto repair. Sure, I know of various parts that are there, and I have some vague idea of how they fit together, along with some rudimentary understanding of how the system works. If you are having trouble understanding how your car works, you probably want to talk to someone who has better than a rudimentary understanding of something that is PART OF YOUR EVERY DAY LIFE.

I mean, honestly. I can't even imagine how difficult that would be for women especially...the celibate priest, having no woman in his life would not possibly understand where she is coming from. So, maybe an older brother or sister? Could work in some cases, not in all. If only there was some kind of young adult leader...possibly a late twenties/early thirties young married couple that could educate younger adults on this sort of thing. That way, the duo would be old enough to be respected, but not too old to be boring. See? Could this work? Possibly.

Additionally, I hear bellyaching from my priest that our parish is shrinking. Hmm. Well, it doesn't have anything to do with his slightly detached personal nature, that's for sure! Well, sarcasm and criticism aside (for now), I have heard that parishioners are leaving the churches and not coming back. Why? Well, either divergent beliefs or the fact that there is no one to date. I go to a parish of about 100 or so people. There are no girls in my year of schooling that still regularly attend. The nearest girls in my age range (who do *not* annoy the crap out of me-there are a couple, I may get into that later) that attend church regularly are in early high school. I am twenty-one. Giving that having such a disparity in age is rarely socially acceptable, starting a relationship would probably not be a good idea. So, then what is a lonely Orthodox Christian male to do?

I propose that churches that WANT intrafaith marriages (which, I'll hazard a guess and say all of them), should DO something about it. That's right. DO SOMETHING rather than complain about falling attendance. Possibly have teen/young adult mixers with local other churches of the same set of beliefs as you do and hope that it works and two crazy kids end up with each other. Now, as a stipulation of meeting at thee mixer, have it so that the kids meet with a priest or that young couple duo mentioned a few paragraphs above monthly and review their relationship (think of it like counseling) and hope that the teens don't start having sex. See? Maybe it's a two for one here. I may be onto something. Or it may be nearly two in the morning and I'm delusional. Either way, I'm done writing. Later.

-Reven