Excerpt of article:

BOSTON, Jan. 31 /PRNewswire/ — Youthography, North America’s most significant full-service research and marketing communications agency dedicated exclusively to youth culture, today revealed that, contrary to popular belief, the prospect of lifelong partnership and marriage is more important to young Americans than having sex.

“This doesn’t mean they’re not having sex or enjoying it,” explains Mike Farrell, Director of Research & Strategy at Youthography. “Instead we’re seeing a lessening in the impact that sex, or the prospect of having sex, has on the young American id.”

In Youthography’s latest national, regionally representative Ping(TM) survey of more than 1,900 Americans aged 14-29, 77.8% and 64.2% of respondents put top box importance (a rating of “4″ or “5″ on a scale from 1-5, “5″ being “totally important”) on “having a lifelong partner” and “getting married” respectively. In comparison, “having sex” received top box importance from less than half surveyed (46.1%).

FROM RTF: I keep meeting teens, especially girls, who regret that sex was their first introduction to “love”.

It makes them cynical when a person says “I love you” and then the next day, or the next week, or maybe even the next month, they walk away or are strutting down the hallway with another girl/guy on his/her arm.

Sex is confusing in this culture. You are told to have it, lots of it, with lots of people. No big deal. No consequences. It’s all cool, right?

Except that love is defined in such a huge way by our faith:

• Love one another as I have loved you (Christ)
• This is how you show love for one another, that you are willing to lay down your life
• Love your wife as Christ loved the church
• Respect and lift up your husband with words that build him up
• Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ

It’s not surprise that you, the smart generation that you are, wants more than what culture defines as love.

How will that change? One person at a time — you — standing against the cultural definition as you accept nothing less than what God intended.