During high school, sex is often seen as a badge of honor. It is seen as something to boast about to your friends and future relationship prospects. Why is it that losing our virginity before marriage is something to be proud of?

Maybe it’s because I am naive, but when I was younger, I thought that losing your virginity before marriage didn’t happen unless it was by mistake. I wanted to believe that the world was pure. I thought that losing “it” was like losing your favorite doll or teddy bear – the worst thing to possibly happen. You can imagine my surprise when I eavesdropped on conversations on Monday mornings when my peers were discussing  what they did on the weekend with their significant other. I thought that surely they were talking about a raunchy TV show, or maybe an older sibling who was now married. It only dawned on me that they were talking from personal experience when similar stories were shared week after week.

Despite the fact that I’ve chosen a different lifestyle than the majority of my peers in this way, I honestly don’t believe that sexual intercourse in high school is something to boast proudly about. Sex is a personal matter, not something to wave around like a flag. I do not understand why people vaunt about sex. They are more proud of the sex they had, and how far they went with their partner, than say, their performance in school. They would much rather compare notes about sexual encounters than the latest sporting events. They are more caught up in who they are hooking up with, than celebrity gossip.

When did this change? When did this become the norm? When did this become OK?

This obsession with sex at a young age can all be funneled down to what relationhips are now. In the past, relationships were made with the idea of marriage in mind. Courtship was something that actually happened – not something to be made fun of in old movies. More recently, relationships have become a way to take advantage of someone for a month or two and then have it end in heartache. This heartache is more substantial because the boundary of dating was crossed when the decision was made to be sexually romantic.

As high schoolers, we are consistently bombarded with song lyrics, TV shows and celebrity icons that glamorize sex or drugs. What kind of influence does this have on us? It relays the idea that sex as an adolescent is normal. And if you don’t have multiple sexual partners in high school, then you aren’t normal. This is the world we live in. And this isn’t normal.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]