“No one is sure why it happens, but I heard it has something to do with how you smell. That’s why perfume and deodorant are so popular.” So says 9-year-old Jan about why people fall in love. Howard, age 8, said, “The rule goes like this: If you kiss someone, the you should marry them and have kids with them. It’s the right thing to do.” Dr. Joe S. McIlhaney, Jr., MD, quoted Jan and Howard along with five other children—each giving his or her opinions about love—at a Family Research Council event discussing McIlhaney’s book Hooked: New Science on How Casual Sex Is Affecting Our Children, coauthored with Dr. Freda McKissic Bush, MD. The book was written about a study on sex done by McIlhaney and Bush.
Dr. McIlhaney found that “The brain[‘s] final structure is formed as a result of experiences repeated over and over again.”
“The patterns of behavior become part of ‘who we are’ and ‘what we do’ because that is what our brain structure has become.”
Dr. Bush said that everything is connected in the body: “We are more than just by-parts that come together…sex is more than just a physical pleasure.” She said, “When a person comes together in an intimate contact the entire person is connected, not just the physical body parts. Everything that we are is involved in sexual activity, and it can be nurtured an protected or it can be greatly damaged.”
She suggested that there are only two roads you can take with regards to sex: non-marital or marital, “bonding occurs regardless” of which it is. In her slideshow, she said, “Non-marital sex often leads to damaged connectedness, more relationship problems, more emotional problems and compromised opportunities for health, hope and happiness.” She argued, “Marital sex often leads to healthy connectedness, fewer relationship problems, fewer emotional problems and enhanced opportunities for health, hope and happiness.”
Heather Latham is an intern at the American Journalism Center, a training program run by Accuracy in Media and Accuracy in Academia.
