The Law of Unintended Consequences, Child Molestation and the FLDS.

I'm not the first to the table with this observation, but I did eventually come up with it on my own, to a rousing chorus of "duh" from those that had already figured it out. The "Virgin Population Clock" makes a joke out of it, estimating that 16% of the world's population has "lost it" at 14 and if you're 21 and a virgin, you're in an even bigger minority, 14%.

Another treatment I saw had teenage girls even more active than teenage boys after a quick start by the guys. Check the stats at Child Trends Data Bank which pretty much explains why one in four girls have a venereal disease. Page 4 shows that 20% of 9th grade girls (14 year olds) are "sexually active," 31% of the 10th (15), 41% of Juniors (16) and 52% of Senior girls (17) are "sexually active." Sexually active as defined will scare you even more. It means sexually active (had intercourse) in the last three months. The report also declares on page 1;

"Teen pregnancy rates, birth rates, and rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in the U.S. are among the highest in the industrialized world."

12% of all pregnancies were teenage girls, and the declining rate of teenage pregnancy was due primarily to contraceptive use. By contrast 31 of 53 FLDS girls between 14 and 17 "have been pregnant" which means they do not adhere to the mantra of using birth control and since I'm betting they also do not have STI's, they have been in a "committed relationship." As compared to the population on the whole, we have evidence that 58% of FLDS girls have been sexually active at some time between 14 and 17, and 36% of the girls between the same ages in "the world" have been in the last three months. The "Virgin Population Clock" chuckles that the FLDS numbers are pretty normal.

The gripe centers on several "mores" that have crept into our society and into our laws. We want all kids to go to school, hopefully to college and marry at the age of about 24 or 25. By then says the Virgin Clock, less than 5% of the population are virgins.

We have constructed laws that criminalize older people or "adults" from having sex with people under our rising age of consent, but we have decriminalized sex for those people within about three years of one another.

Like it or not we've told our children to experiment with sex, to be careful, and to use the occasional abortion and birth control, preferably barrier devices like condoms to prevent disease and wait until they are tarnished and older, to marry.

Compare this then with the way the FLDS does things. Marry everyone in the community off, early. They stay for the most part in committed relationships not withstanding the occasional "forced divorce" and the "lost boy issue." The women are healthy and intelligent. The children are in good shape and the FLDS does not have a big issue with promiscuous sex and experimentation like we do out here, in the real world.

We have, without intending to, created a world of harlots and whore mongers. Damaged people some of which may have life eroding diseases, higher incidence of depression and a host of other ills.

What is our complaint? If polygyny is acceptable, we're complaining that older men in search of chaste women, of necessity end up marrying some younger ones. We shy away and call it all "creepy" and "abusive" but the women at YFZ ranch have yet to show that they are abused or feel the practice is "creepy." There is anecdotal evidence to the contrary of course, but exceptions prove general rules, not establish the contrary.

The real complaint is not that what the FLDS do is creepy, but what they do destroys the vision that the social engineers have. Men and women, side by side, as equals. Realizing themselves, having careers, and in the process, destroying many good things. On balance, do we do more damage with our lifestyle, or do they?

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