Ruth Institute Blog

by Shannon Buckley

A survey by a condom maker has found New Zealand women to be the most promiscuous in the world.  Not the most flattering thing to be leading the world in.  The survey found that New Zealand women had 20.3 sexual partners on average.  Another long-running Otago multi-disciplinary study finds that half the female participants had 8 or fewer partners by age 32, but that a smaller group of highly active women push up the average.  The New Zealand Herald reports: Read more…

by Sheila Liaugminas

Usually, celebrities command press attention for causes like war and disaster relief and AIDS. This isn’t usually one of their causes.

But David Schwimmer is concerned about the sexualizing of young girls in pop culture, which he admits is getting worse. Read more…

By Carlos Polo

The age at which teenagers begin to engage in sexual activity is a critical variable for those who would make public policy in the health field. Early onset of sexual activity is associated with higher rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), teen pregnancy, depression, suicide, and other adverse consequences. Read more…

by Mariette Ulrich

In the 1980’s, my hopelessly outdated mom counselled me not to kiss a boy on the first date. I tell my daughters not to kiss (or, for that matter, date) anyone they wouldn’t be prepared to marry. As someone who espouses values possibly more old-fashioned than those held by my pre-sexual-revolution era parents, I found this Mail Online item worthy of note. Read more…

by Anthony Esolen

Let the sexual revolution be justified on the grounds of the common good.

Why should two men who are sexually attracted to one another not be allowed to pretend that they are married? That we are even asking such a question is the result of our having accepted the premise of the sexual revolution, which is, essentially, that what people do with their bodies is their own business, so long as no one is harmed. By “no one” we mean the people involved in the sexual act, and sometimes, though much less reliably and without a great deal of concern, an unwitting spouse who happens, at the moment, not to be in the bed but, perhaps, shopping for dinner, or laying pipes at a construction site. By “harm” we mean obvious physical or psychological violence. So we frown upon rape and, after two generations of knowing smiles and winks, pedophilia. Everything else goes. Read more…

Totally not cool. Those poor kids.

Twenty percent of US mothers have children with different biological fathers, a study presented at the Population Association of America meeting revealed today. Cassandra Dorius, from the University of Michigan Institute of Social research added that mothers of multiple children of different biological fathers tend to be less educated, under-employed, and have lower incomes.

Meaning: Multiple partner fertility defined as having children with more than one partner.

When Dorius examined patterns in families with more than two children, she discovered that 28% of them had different birth fathers. “It’s pervasive.”, Dorius added. Read more…

As well they should be.

Charlie Butts – OneNewsNow -

A storm continues to brew over Abercrombie & Fitch’s marketing strategy, which according to some is again sexualizing youth.

A&F is back in the business of pushing eroticism on children by marketing a new push-up bikini top, which was originally being sold for girls as young as seven years old – according to Bill Johnson of the American Decency Association. Read more…

By TAMAR LEWIN

The popular stereotype of college campuses as a hive of same-sex experimentation for young women may be all wrong.

To the surprise of many researchers and sex experts, the National Survey on Family Growth found that women with bachelor’s degrees were actually less likely to have had a same-sex experience than those who did not finish high school. Read more…

Ignacio Ibarzábal
For LA NACION

Zygmunt Bauman, a Polish sociologist, has achieved great editorial success describing our “liquid” society. On his book “Liquid Love: On the Frailty of Human Bonds”, he captures the postmodern outlook regarding relationships: In these days, bonds among people are fragile, weak, almost ethereal.

Liquid love is the legacy we inherited from the sexual revolution. And while adults may believe that young people comfortably swim in its waters, many of us are filled with dissatisfaction. In fact, a reaction is about to start. Read more…

by R.J. Snell

In the latest issue of The Atlantic we learn that the world of online pornography reveals eternal truths about men and women. These aren’t happy truths, and the needlessly prurient article makes them all the more miserable.

“Sexual aggression and the desire to debase women … are not, perhaps alas, deviant,” writes Natasha Vargas-Cooper in the article, “for sex can be a bitter, crushing experience [for women]. No matter how much power you think you have.” Read more…

When it comes to behavior, society gives them a very mixed message.

By KATHERINE KERSTEN

Today, I wouldn’t trade places with an 18-year-old guy for a million bucks.

It’s a wonder our sons don’t end up in the loony bin, given the schizophrenic messages we bombard them with.

The latest “you’ve-got-to-be-kidding” example to cross my desk involved frat-boy antics at Yale University — home to lots of folks who pride themselves on being among our nation’s best and brightest.

A few months ago, it seems, a group of Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity pledges marched onto Yale’s campus and chanted crude slogans “making light of” rape and necrophilia, according to the Yale alumni magazine. Read more…

by Elizabeth Landau – CNN.com Health Writer/Producer

When I heard the trailer for this movie on pandora, my first thought was, “What a piece of trash.” My second thought was, “. . . . No, my first thought was correct.”

Here’s the premise: two friends decide to sleep together. Not because they like each other in that way, mind you, but because they want sex and are willing to provide that service for each other “no strings attached.”

How nice. Read more…

by Carolyn Moynihan

Many young adults believe that they will have a better marriage if they try out some components of marital life first, but the opposite effect is more likely. For example, a new study shows that couples who keep sexual intercourse for marriage then have a significantly better relationship.

The study involves 2,035 married individuals who participated in a popular online marital assessment called “RELATE.” From the assessment’s database, researchers selected a sample designed to match the demographics of the married American population. The extensive questionnaire includes the question “When did you become sexual in this relationship?” Read more…

The New York Times has a long history of plumbing the depths of depravity.  This article, however, represents a new low.  In it, two (married) selfish, narcissistic creeps leave their spouses and families to marry one another because they’re “in love.”  Bully for them.

Writes The New York Times:

As Mr. Partilla saw it, their options were either to act on their feelings and break up their marriages or to deny their feelings and live dishonestly. “Pain or more pain,” was how he summarized it. Read more…

Stuart Schneiderman devotes a post to the Ivy League professor  who got a bit too friendly with a family member.    The most important takeaway from that incident is this:  ideas have consequences.

Dr. Schneiderman writes:

The fact is, the incest taboo is nearly universal; it is part of nearly all human societies. While its moral force may be affected by court decisions, there is more to morality than what the courts say.

I would prefer to ask this question: What was David Epstein thinking? Whatever made him think that having a sexual relationship with his daughter was morally unobjectionable? Did he think that no one would notice or care? Did he imagine that in an internet age, he could involve himself in sexting with his daughter and not risk disclosure? Did he think that it was alright if she was not his student? Read more…

A young man at Rutgers University committed suicide. His roommate had filmed him having sex with another man, and posted that film on the internet. In the wake of this tragic incident, the question of electronic sexual harassment has become more urgent. This week’s quiz is about the phenomenon known as “sexting.” The term “sexting” can include sending suggestive photos, videos or messages of yourself, receiving messages with images of someone you know, and receiving sexually suggestive messages that were originally intended for someone else. Such images can become the basis for harassment, teasing and bullying. At least two high-profile suicides of teen girls have been attributed to the fall-out from sexting.

So, how common is “sexting” among teens? Read more…

Caitlin Flanagan has an interesting article in the Atlantic.  In it, she discusses the narrative some proponents of the sexual revolution had in mind when they promoted the new sexual morays to the next generation of girls.  That narrative can be called “The Boyfriend Story.”  What is the “Boyfriend Story”?  It is “the gossamer-wrapped quest for true and perfect love.”

Flanagan describes how her mother was one of those who hoped her daughter would attain happiness via the “Boyfriend Story.”  (Emphasis added).

[M]y mother became one of those kindly, kooky older ladies whose dedication to volunteering at Planned Parenthood bordered on the unseemly, given the distance between their age and their own need for the services provided. She was part of a generation of women who helped build an infrastructure not just of attitudes but of medical services (from birth control to abortion) rendered to teenage girls and built on a host of assumptions: that a girl is capable of great sexual desire, and that this desire should not cause her to lose her chance at an education or an independent life; that a huge number of modern mothers were committed to helping their daughters incorporate sexual lives within a normal teenage girlhood, one in which sex did not cleave the girl instantly and permanently from her home and her family. These mothers were willing to run as much interference as was needed to make these things possible—with dads, who tended not to be as enthusiastic about the prospect of a cherished daughter’s becoming sexual; with PTAs, which often balked at the kind of sex education these beliefs would require; with the long-entrenched double standard that said a boy could have sex and retain his good reputation, but a girl who went all the way was ruined. Read more…

An awful lot of nonsense has been said about the supposed “double standards” between the sexual histories of men and the sexual histories of women.  The discussion of sexuality is full of it like so much verbal ipecac.  The typical whine goes like this “why is it that a man who’s been with a hundred women is a ‘stud’ while a woman who’s been with the same number of men is a “slut’?”

The short answer is because men value the sexual loyalty of women more than women value the sexual loyalty of men.  This also explains why hooking up is a much worse idea for women than it is for men.  Because a woman’s value as a lifelong partner for marriage diminishes with each passing dalliance.  For men, not so much.  This does not mean that hooking up is a good idea for men, just that it’s not as bad an idea as it is for women. Read more…

I’m pretty sure a couple of movies have been made with topics similar to this. The difference here, of course, is this woman’s plan was not for the sake of comedic effect.

by Carolyn Moynihan

Maybe something is changing for the better out there among Generation Y. A British journalist in her early 30s has written a book about renouncing sex for a year in order to get control of her emotional life. It’s called Chastened. Read more…