Liberal Talk Radio

“Oops!” That’s how a former girlfriend of mine used to annotate the moment of, er, “crossing the threshold” as it were.

Which gives me an opening to talk about a book reviewed by Slate. Sociologist Mark Regnerus’ new book Forbidden Fruit: Sex & Religion in the Lives of American Teenagers finally answers the age-old question: do Christian girls get busy?

And the (surprising?) answer: yes, yes they do.

Teenagers who identify as “evangelical” or “born again” are highly likely to sound like the girl at the bar ["at Bible study the other night … Pastor Ted says … saving it for marriage"]; 80 percent think sex should be saved for marriage. But thinking is not the same as doing. 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.

No wonder my dad keeps telling me I should hang out at church to attract more women.