A new study says those who pop cherries are less likely to pop caps. Is it true, or are they also confusing correlation and causation?
The Slate has posted a study (a few paragraphs down) saying that teens who lose their virginity earlier are less likely to become delinquents.
Unless you're part of the Christian right, where losing your virginity makes you a delinquent, this sounds like puzzling good news. If anything, it seems to help the case for a lower age of consent. (does anybody really wait until they're 18 now to have sex?)
The study claims that the students who had sex earlier ended up being less delinquent, but is it causation or merely correlation?
You may remember a post I did earlier called
Is The Media Politically Biased where I explained that correlation does not imply causation.
I think the same thing is at work here.
Sure, it could be that having sex earlier somehow caused these kids to be better behaved, but I doubt it.
It's more likely that the teens who had sex earlier were simply ready to have sex at that time, whereas their peers weren't.
Despite what their bodies tell them, most people need to be mentally ready for sex. Some can be mentally ready as young as 13, others may not be ready until their twenties, and some may never reach mental maturity.
I'd argue that a teen's mental state has a lot to do with whether or not they're delinquent. A teen who isn't mentally mature enough to handle sex and relationships probably isn't mentally mature enough to deal with other situations either.
So is early sex just a sign of mental maturity, or is there something about being slutty that helps us better adjust to society? I'm arguing the former. What do you think?