I sit here, amongst the flowers of the Earth and I simply think. I wonder, and consider. I contemplate, and try to rationalize.

But... in the end. I frankly do not understand several things.

I feel as if society is rapidly changing, right in front of my eyes. This is true, no doubt. American society is evolving, quickly. But, is it evolving into something great? Something that will be truly wonderful and over all healthy for Americans?

I am amazingly proud to be an American, if I could, I would serve in the military. I have the desire to serve my country, to protect my fellow citizens, and to fight for freedom, to fight for my fellow Americans. Even to die for them, if it would mean peace in our country and with the rest of the world. Yes, I would give my life for that. I don't however, because of mainly Don't Ask/Don't Tell and also because I have other aspirations, but more and more joining the Marines feels right... I doubt I will, but it is a possibility, in the back of my mind.

Anyways, I am getting off topic.

I feel as if in the course of a generation or two our society has warped, become something vastly different than it once was. I personally don't know, a hundred percent, if this change is wrong, or good. But I don't understand why we are becoming this way.

In several ways I feel the changes in our society and culture are for the best. For instance: The acceptance of homosexuals. Though acceptance is an incredibly optimistic term to be used for that, for those of us who are homosexuals we know it is not true acceptance. But they are steps in the right direction, in some states and areas of the country, and in others, unfortunately, there have been steps back.

I fully believe that eventually, perhaps in a generation or two, homosexuals will be fully accepted, and equal in this country of ours. But time is needed, and understanding, and both of those will inevitably come.

However, there is one change in our society that has come to light, almost in a disturbing sense for me, and I find myself hard pressed to accept it.

This change is sex.

On average in American society today, girls will lose their virginity between the ages of thirteen and fifteen years old.

Thirteen and fifteen.

I cannot be the only one who finds that disturbing. In past generations, and even in other societies, generally, women, or women who wanted to be seen as respectable, would wait to lose their virginity on their wedding night. I don't think these thirteen to fifteen year old girls are getting married in America before they do their own disgusting, little teenage girl, monster mash.

Why is it, that in the course of a generation or two, sex has become so casual with us? I remember in high school when someone would find out I was still a virgin it was some great shock. "Oh my god, but you're seventeen! Why haven't you had sex yet?" Or, they would just give you this look, as if they thought something was wrong with you.

I went to school with a girl who was pretty much the most popular girl in school while we attended. I would say about 90% of the male population in my school wanted to be all over this girl, and several of them even claimed to have been all over her. Most of the girls I went to school with either envied her, hated her because she was popular so they called her slutty and bitchy, or thought she dressed slutty but was very nice when you talked to her.

I had a class with my senior year of high school, and I for sure thought she was kind of bitchy, but I have never been more wrong. She was one of the nicest people I have ever met, and was not at all the typical "popular bitch" she looked like. She did indeed look like a typical "popular" girl. Dyed blonde hair, perfect body, upscale clothes that were sometimes a bit too low cut in the shirts or tight, or in the pants/skirts were either very short, or very tight. Fake tan, high heel shoes. But this one most diffently an instance where you shouldn't stereotype or judge a book by its cover.

Anyways. I finally met this girl, we have the same class together for a year. Everyone thought this girl was not a virgin, for several reasons. One: 97% of the girls in our school were not virgins anymore, no, they all lost that around thirteen to fifteen years old. Two: All the boys she had dated had made several comments and suggested that they had, had sex with her. So, of course, I did not think she was a virgin. I figured she had done what everyone apparently does, or most everyone apparently does, in our society today and given up her virginity to someone she thought she loved too early, or to someone she kind of liked because everyone was doing it and hey, sex feels good.

No. I found out one day in Newspaper (the class we had together, she was an editor I was a staff writer) that this girl, who was incredibly gorgeous I think, was a virgin. And a feminist. But more importantly, she was a virgin. She was not a virgin because like so many think about virgins now a days, no one wanted to have sex with her. No, many people did. Of the same sex as her, and of the opposite sex of her. She was a virgin because she had very strong beliefs and I guess you could say morales about sexual activity.

She did not believe, or succomb to our schools and society's views that sex should be casual, that is should be done with anyone. Stranger, boyfriend/girlfriend, friend, anyone else. She wanted to wait until marriage, or at least wait until she knew she would be with that person for the rest of her life. She wanted it to mean something, to be something amazing when she finally gave her body to some man. She didn't want to have it be any less important than it should, she wanted it to be special.

I don't exactly believe in waiting until marriage. I do however believe in waiting until you are truly in love with someone, and committed. I believe, even if you have already lost your virginity and not to someone you love, that you shouldn't just have sex because it feels good.

Why does that belief make me a prude? Why does holding to that belief make someone immature? I have had two people tell me they used to believe sex was something you do with someone you love. But then they grew up. They said sex was something the used they believe was special, but they got tired of the pressure, and again, it feels good.

They grew up....

Did you? No, I don't think so.

I'm honestly just disgusted with my generation and the people of my generation who give up their beliefs and morales about sex. Why do you have to give them up? How does giving them up mean you grew up? You didn't grow up. You succumbed. You made something meaningful and beautiful into something casual and non-commital.

The giving of the body should be an almost profound moment of the declaration of love you feel for another individual. It should be a declaration of love you give to someone you are going to spend the rest of your life with, or who you believe 100% you will spend the rest of your life with.

It shouldn't be something you do with a friend because you're both in the mood after watching Girls Gone Wild or The Notebook, or because you're kind of bored and hey, sex is fun. Plus it feels better to have sex than it does to masturbate.

Why is it so hard to stand by your beliefs? Why is it so hard to tell someone, "No," when they go to have sex with you, or try to steer things in that direction? Why is it everyone just does it, just goes with it, instead of stopping it?

We wonder why we see thirteen year old girls walking around in shorts so short they are practically underwear and why men only care about sex when they meet a girl.

With the way how most everyone treats sex so casually you almost feel like you should drop them a five after they fuck, since it doesn't mean anything anymore. Or it doesn't mean what it is supposed to mean, what it did mean, for centuries.

No. Not in this society. Now in this society you can have sex with someone you work with and it isn't a big deal, it doesn't mean you two have any kind of attachment to each other, emotional or otherwise. You both had an itch and you scratched it together, no harm, no foul. Now you can actually have arrangments with your friends where you two can get together and fuck between classes, or before you have to go to work or even after work, when you really need to wind down.

Why bother even having relationships now? Or trying to form them with someone. Why bother looking for love? It isn't what it once was now. No. How special is it to give the person you love your body, when you've already given it to seven, ten, maybe even twenty or more other people who you had no strong emotional attachment to? To twenty or more people who you didn't love, who you weren't in a committed, loving relationship with? How does it mean anything now to let someone have you physically vulnerable, and exposed?

How intimate is a kiss when you kiss whoever you want when you're a little drunk, or high, or just bored?

How intimate is anything when you've already given it to other people who you knew you wouldn't be with forever, or who you knew didn't really give a fuck?

But that isn't important to people anymore. That doesn't matter anymore. No. It doesn't matter if you once felt sex, being physically intimate, is something you should only do with someone you love, who you are committed to in a relationship. Someone who you wanted to be with for the rest of your natural, mortal life.

No, not anymore.

Because sex feels good, and masturbating isn't as fun, or exciting, and it doesn't feel as great as it does when someone else is doing it to you.

I cannot find the words to express how low my respect is for something like that. To express how... utterly sad I find something like that to be.

There is no difference between a one night stand, and a five year long committed, loving relationship.

Afterall, it is just your body. Give it to everyone, whether you love them or not. Because you all "grew up."