Yet another book as been published on teenage Christian sexuality. It is called, Forbidden Fruit: Sex & Religion in the Lives of American Teenagers. It is by Mark Regnerus, a professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Austin. I have not read it, but Slate has an interesting piece on it and its content.

It starts with a discomforting statistic if found to be true…

Evangelical teens are actually more likely to have lost their
virginity than either mainline Protestants or Catholics. They tend to
lose their virginity at a slightly younger age—16.3, compared with 16.7
for the other two faiths. And they are much more likely to have had
three or more sexual partners by age 17: Regnerus reports that 13.7
percent of evangelicals have, compared with 8.9 percent for mainline
Protestants.

And why is this? According to Regnerus,

Evangelical teens today are much less sheltered than their parents
were; they watch the same TV and listen to the same music as everyone
else, which causes a “cultural collision,” according to Regnerus. “Be
in the world, but not of it,” is the standard Christian formula for how
to engage with mainstream culture. But in a world hypersaturated with
information, this is difficult for tech-savvy teenagers to pull off.
There are no specific instructions in the Bible on how to avoid a
Beyoncé video or Scarlett Johansson’s lips calling to you from YouTube,
not to mention the ubiquitous porn sites. For evangelicals, sex is a
“symbolic boundary” marking a good Christian from a bad one, but in
reality, the kids are always “sneaking across enemy lines,” Regnerus
argues.

When doesn’t sex happen, you might ask. This too is interesting…

Among the mass of typically promiscuous teenagers in the book, one
group stands out: the 16 percent of American teens who describe
religion as “extremely important” in their lives. When these guys
pledge, they mean it. One study found that the pledge works better if
not everyone in school takes it. The ideal conditions are a group of
pledgers who form a self-conscious minority that perceives itself as
special, even embattled.

Check out the whole article at: http://www.slate.com/id/2167293/pagenum/2/