STILL MORE TEEN SEX: I would let this drop, but I’ve decided it’s going to be the topic of my FoxNews column for next week, so I have every incentive to keep the idea-stream flowing. Reader Francis W. Porretto sends these observations:

With regard to the teen sex debate, I find myself substantially in agreement with your position — and I’m an observant Catholic. Even so, I think it wise to attach a couple of observations to the subject that have largely been overlooked.

In earlier societies in which teenage sex was less exposed to condemnation, because the typical newlywed couple was two teenagers, there were stronger protections for the young woman involved, in the form of social constraints.

Often those constraints, though entirely private, rose to the level of coercion, usually applied to the young man to “do the right thing” by a girl whose virginity he had taken. (Cf. “shotgun weddings.”) [True, though those constraints typically only applied within, and not across, class lines].

The Western world, and particularly the United States, is a far different legal, social, and economic environment from those earlier societies. I’m sure I needn’t tell you about the many legal changes! My point here is that the incentives and disincentives to irresponsible sex, and the penalties for unwise decisions, are quite different from those times of yore, so we must be careful about invoking them for comparative purposes.

Porretto also sends a link to this thoughtful earlier post of his on the topic, and Orchid weighs in with the voice of teen sex experience, and Jody says teens aren’t as dumb as we make them.