The New York Times seems especially fascinated with smart kids who don't sleep with each other. First there was this story, and now there is this one, from last weekend. Both focus on Harvard. The second story reports, though, that abstinence movements/clubs are far more prevalent at high schools than on college campuses. That's too bad. While I don't disagree with the ideas that undergird such clubs (although some of their members, quite frankly, seem analogous to penguins who would join an anti-flight society), I do think that sex-related groups--be they for the act, against it, whatever--do not have a place at high schools. Sixteen-year-olds who wish to have sex and those who adamantly do not should do it or condemn it elsewhere. In schools, all the sanctioned chatter and controversy is a distraction from learning.
Hypothetical interlocutor disagrees: "But sex is a part of reality for many high-school kids, who need a safe place to explore sex-related ideas." Well, sex is a part of reality for many people in their 20s, 30s, and (I've heard it's true) 40s, 50s, 60s, and French in their 70s. But that doesn't make offices suitable places to hold abstinence rallies. Many of the people who complain ad nauseum that sex now pervades every aspect of our lives are also the ones who open the door and usher it in.