Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #491864 in Books
• Published on: 2007-09
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 252 pages

From Publishers Weekly
In this fact-filled but overheated report, pediatrician Meeker cites medical studies and her own clinical experience to argue that adolescent promiscuity has led to skyrocketing rates of sexually transmitted disease and increased depression and suicide among the young. Spicing up her statistics with obscene rap lyrics and lurid reports of teen orgies and the high school "craze" for oral sex, she blames the usual suspects: post-60s permissiveness, the misguided equating of condoms with safety and sexualized media imagery in, for example, Cosmopolitan and Ally McBeal. In opposition to a "conspiracy" of sex-ed "bureaucrats" to "maintain sexual freedoms rather than prevent disease," Meeker advocates teaching teens to "postpone sex as long as possible" and, when they don't, to reflower themselves as "secondary virgins." In the end her advice to parents boils down to the age-old injunction to talk to their kids, with tips ("ask how he felt when he saw sex in a television show") that make this awkward task not much easier. On the other hand, forcing teenagers to read her unsparing and truly alarming descriptions of the ravages of venereal disease should kill their mood for quite a while.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Good read
I really enjoyed this book. This book does contain some of Meeker's opinion but it also contains many footnotes from studies and what not. It is well documented and the footnotes I have followed back to the source are correct. As some of the other reviewer noted the numbers are staggering sober. I hope people can realize that sex is killing our kids and nation.

Finally, the facts.
As a teacher who works with both junior and senior high aged kids, I have longed for a book that tells the hard truth about teenaged sex. Finally, I have found it. This isn't just a book for parents, this is a book that kids should at least be exposed to. They deserve the truth that we have failed to give them. For too long we believed we were protecting them by giving them birth control and they believed us (as an establishment). Now we are just beginning to glimpse the true scope of the problem that will face us over the next 5-20 years and beyond if this situation isn't addressed and reversed. I encourage parents and teachers who want facts that will stand up and speak for themselves without being preachy - get this book. Read it. Pass it on to your friends, talk about it with your kids and your students, carry it with you on the subway.
Are the numbers harsh, do the stories turn your stomach? Yes, this book is not a 'fun' read. And good for Meg Meeker.

Facts or Political Correctness....you decide....
Reading the reviews was interesting to say the least. Whether you are a parent or a teen, right or left you cannot fight against the facts. And what are the facts? As a health teacher for the last 24 years in a public high school in New York I can safely say that the information Mrs Meeker gives is in fact irrefutable. She is correct when she tells the reader that there is no such thing as "safe sex" unless it is with an uninfected partner and you remain monogamous for life "historically we called that relationship marriage". She is also correct when she tells us that condoms are next to worthless when it comes to STD's like HPV the number one STD in America that kill thousands of women every year in America not counting the thousands of early hysterectomys. It seems that the negative reviews come from people who do not want to be confused with the facts but simply want to call Mrs Meeker "names". Hurray for a refreshingly honest look at a difficult subject. She tells the reader how it is.