Those who advocated premarital sex in the '60s assured us that premarital sex was healthy and good for us. Liberated sex was not only pleasurable; it was even supposed to be beneficial. But now, 40 years later, what is the track record of free-sex relationships? Besides the fact that promiscuity causes relationship and emotional difficulties—rather than solving them—the physical results of casual sex have proven dangerous and destructive. Rates of sexually transmitted diseases have gone through the roof. What are we doing to ourselves? Consider:

• "Worldwide, estimates hold that there are more than 300 million cases of STIs (sexually transmitted infections) annually" (Johns Hopkins Family Health Book, 1999, p. 861).

• "Heterosexual intercourse is the fastest growing way to catch HIV. Around the world, over 90 percent of AIDS cases are spread by heterosexual intercourse"
  (S.I. McMillen, M.D., and David E. Stern, M.D., None of These Diseases, 2000, p. 111).

• "In America more children lose a parent to AIDS than to motor vehicle accidents" (McMillen and Stern, p. 115).

• "Worldwide in the next few decades AIDS is expected to kill almost 300 million—more than the population of the entire United States" (McMillen and Stern, p. 116).

• "Dr. Susan Weller of the University of Texas reviewed every study on condoms and STDs. Then she concluded in the journal Social Science and Medicine: 'Results of HIV transmission studies indicate that condoms may reduce risk of HIV infection by approximately 69 percent. Thus efficacy may be much lower than commonly assumed.' ... The world is placing its hope for AIDS prevention in a method that fails about one-third of the time ... There's nothing safe about it ... An article for doctors in Patient Care admitted the condom's 'effectiveness against STDs' is only '30-60 percent'" (McMillen and Stern, pp. 144-145).

• "An estimated 45 million people in the U.S. are infected with genital herpes, and 1 million new cases occur every year. Sexually transmitted disease rates in the U.S. are the highest in the developed world ... One in five sexually active adults may be infected with genital herpes" (Psychology Today, January-February 2002).

• "Nearly one in five U.S. adolescent females has an undiagnosed infection ... Chlamydia is the most common sexually transmitted disease in the United States, affecting an estimated 13 percent of women" (Women's Health Weekly, June 28, 2001).

• Chlamydia, which causes pelvic inflammatory disease, is "the most common curable STD and a major cause of infertility in women," and "10 percent of healthy young men carry silent infections" of the disease (McMillen and Stern, p. 123).

• In the United States "about 30 percent of young adults carry the venereal wart virus ... HPV. From 1969 to 1988, annual doctor visits for genital warts jumped tenfold ... Today Pap smears from thirteen-year-old girls frequently show dysplasia—a sign of HPV infection" (McMillen and Stern, p. 122).

• Many women infected with human papillomavirus (HPV) develop cervical cancer. "The disease has claimed the lives of more women in the U.S. than has AIDS" (Women's Health Weekly, Sept. 6, 2001).

• "Over the past five years notable rises have been observed in the United Kingdom in the incidence of genital chlamydia infection (76 percent), gonorrhoea (55 percent), and infectious syphilis (54 percent) ... The highest rates of sexually transmitted infections occur among 16-24 year olds" (British Medical Journal,
  May 12, 2001).

• In the U.K., sexually transmitted infections have increased across the board from 624,000 in 1990 to almost 1.25 million in 1999 (The Observer, April 8, 2001).

• "The Children's Aid Society estimates that one in every four sexually active American teenagers catches an STD every year" (McMillen and Stern, p. 141).

• Do not be fooled into thinking that you are safe from STD transmission if you use a condom. "Condoms, long the mainstay of the safe-sex public-health model, do not protect against the spread of nearly all sexually transmitted diseases ..." (Women's Health Weekly, Sept. 6, 2001).

Sometimes the consequences of sex before marriage do not surface until after marriage. For example, a man can be a silent carrier of herpes. When he marries he can pass the virus on to his new bride. She may be startled, sometimes within days of first having intercourse, to find her genital area invaded by unsightly, painful sores. The herpes virus can also spread to the brain and cause encephalitis. When a woman who has genital herpes gives birth, the baby can get herpes or suffer brain damage.

The only way to practice safe sex is for both partners to abstain from sex outside of marriage as God instructs. This provides the only sure shield against STDs. GN