As a father of a little girl, what else can I say but...
According to an article on CNN.com today (thanks, twitter friends for bringing it to my attention), 1-in-4 teenage girls has an STD. The statistics are even worse for African-American teenage girls, where the ratio is nearly 1-in-2. The most common STD is Human Papilloma Virus, or HPV, which among other things can cause genital warts, infertility, and cervical cancer.
I think this is very disturbing. Something, somewhere, is terribly broken. Personally, it's a reminder to me to be there teaching my daughter values, responsibility, and (though it's terribly out of fashion) chastity. While the twitter friend who mentioned it said something about condom use, I can't help but point out that the transmission of STDs among teens would go way, way, WAAAAY down, if teens kept their pants on, zippers up. Some people might call that "out of touch". I'm reminded of my favorite line from "Aliens".
It's the only way to be sure.
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