Well, I was sort of thinking of drugs when I made the analogy, but the government policy response is similar (i.e. the government wants to reach into my wallet to subsidize free syringes, drug purity tests, etc.)

> Sex is something hardwired into people

This is an appeal to nature. We naturally want to do it, therefore we shouldn't try to resist it? There are many counter examples: violence, incest, tribalism, and other undesirable evolutionary behaviors are hardwired into people (and animals) too, yet our efforts to reduce/temper their influence and emergence can be quite effective (though not 100% effective). Why is sex any different? I think we could temper sexual activity with the right messaging (and more importantly, leading by example) to youth.

Something like "sex is something that should be reserved for a committed relationship, not a recreational activity you should do casually - the latter leads to a lot of problems in society. Nevertheless, the choice is up to you and here are the risks and things you need to know either way..." Obviously "accidents" would still happen, but the idea would be to address the root cause of sex-related issues in society instead of throwing your hands into the air and deciding to just treat the symptoms.

You could say it's special pleading on my part, but for the continuation of homo sapiens, sex is required (at least for now).

> violence, incest, tribalism, and other undesirable evolutionary behaviors

None of the explicitly mentioned things in this list are similarly essential to the continuation of humans and human civilization. Like violence may in reality be unavoidable, but that doesn't mean it's strictly necessary.

But I do agree that appeal to nature alone isn't very strong. Like to me, I guess it's moreso what seems like extreme impracticality in trying to control people's sexuality to a finer degree than is already in place.

> I guess it's moreso what seems like extreme impracticality in trying to control people's sexuality to a finer degree than is already in place.

I agree trying to "control" people's sexuality is extremely impractical. That's why I think it needs to be more a cultural value that we collectively decide is worth teaching to kids (and leading by example), not something the government forces on us. I think that would work because it worked for me and my extended family as far as I can tell (with a few exceptions).

Isn't this still a form of control? Like the idea here is to psychologically manipulate people to have different values? What happens when some people don't respond to this proposed conditioning?

I would like to believe I have somewhat of a unique perspective on this. I was raised with the exact cultural values you talk about, and I ultimately chose to reject them (at least partially).

However, I do want to acknowledge what seems like a destabilizing, negative effect "hookup culture" or the like has had on society. Dating apps are part of this whole issue as well.

My own position is that I want to be in a committed relationship but never married. So I guess you could peg me as a serial monogamist.

How exactly do you expect to impose this value on everyone else who doesn’t share it with you?

I don't want to impose the value on people that don't share it with me. I want to convince people to share the value with me first and rely on network effects to convince others to share the value until those that don't share it are in a minority.

Yes but how? Is it really realistic to expect the people in this story are going to be talked into monogamy?

The people specifically in the story? Probably not. Americans in general over a period of time? Maybe. I could see a "religious renaissance" happening at some point where religion goes on the rise again if/when people become disillusioned with secularism/nihilism/etc, a side effect of which would be people being "talked into monogamy"

The actual trend with religion is precisely the opposite.

I — and I’d guess most Americans — got such messaging in health class. Can’t say it had much influence on my actual behavior.

School has limited influence on kids when compared to parents. If your parents don't see casual sex as a big deal, neither will you. If your mom got pregnant at 14, well, I guess it's not a big deal if you get pregnant at 14 either.

I grew up in a fairly wealthy little town where pretty much nobody was the child of a teen parent. It’s awfully facile, and to my own experience, to pretend the children of such parents are the only people having sex in high school.

I live in a part of Maryland with high teen pregnancy rates. Unsurprisingly, the pregnant teens are often the children of single moms who were also pregnant teens. Is this a coincidence? Even ignoring truancy problem, somehow I don't believe sending all these kids to wealthy gold-plated schools to get a "proper" sexual health education will fix the issue because my argument is that the messaging they receive at home through their parent(s) is 10x stronger and more influential than the school's messaging.

I would guess failure to use effective birth control methods could be correlated pretty well with income but I’d be pretty surprised to see any evidence that sexual activity was much lower in the tony towns. I’m also going to refer back to my memories of being a teenager to say that I often didn’t really put much stock in my parents’ values or wisdom, and hardly think I was alone in this.

Anecdotal evidence

Do you think I’m wrong to say that sex education courses, regardless of whether they’re abstinence-only or more modern, typically already include admonitions against promiscuous sex?

No, you are not wrong to say that... but that’s not what your parent comment was saying. Your comment was saying that messaging did not have much influence on your behavior later in life. I’m saying that just because it didn’t have much influence on your behavior does not mean it hasn’t had much influence on the behavior of others

Well, if it’s widespread, and yet people are not behaving as we would wish, I would conclude it’s not very effective at influencing their behavior.

You do not know that the problem wouldn’t be worse without widespread messaging.

That's impossible to prove or disprove. Fortunately we don't have to because it's been well demonstrated that it's not sufficient.

Certainly some governments have attempted to criminalize extramarital sex. However 1) limited efficacy 2) creates an extremely regressive society I think few Americans would welcome