CUTAWAYS

You know, it’s gotta be tough these days for any old-school Devil worshipers still out there. I’m not talking about them there new fangled Satanists who are really just hedonistic egoists with no real belief in a supernatural God or Devil. I mean the original guys, the ones who pledged allegiance to an actual entity and might actually want to perform the occasional virgin sacrifice to their dark master. Imagine what it must be like for them…

Almost enough to make you feel sorry for them, isn’t it? Almost. After all, what do the heathens expect after a couple hundred years of creeping secularism? And it’s getting worse. Recently released results from a study of middle schoolers performed by the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston found that “by age 12, 12 percent of students had already engaged in vaginal sex, 7.9 percent in oral sex, 6.5 percent in anal sex and 4 percent in all three types of intercourse.” Christine Markham, Ph.D., assistant professor of behavioral science, says “These findings are alarming because youth who start having sex before age 14 are much more likely to have multiple lifetime sexual partners, use alcohol or drugs before sex and have unprotected sex, all of which puts them at greater risk for getting a sexually transmitted disease (STD) or becoming pregnant.” Wow, either these scientists are uptight Puritans, or youngsters having sex might actually be a bad idea. Either way, though, what’s there to do about it? I mean, kids are going to have sex no matter what, right?

Well, not exactly. One study by the Center for the Advancement of Health suggests that sex education can help cut down on early sexual behavior, at least before the age of 15. Which is great except for the fact that such programs, if successful, would seem to have the unintended consequence of increasing the number of virgins available for Satanic rituals. Fortunately, there is a solution to both problems. In what can only be called a shocking discovery, a 2003 study by the NICHD (a sub-branch of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) found that “religion reduces the likelihood of adolescents engaging in early sex by shaping their attitudes and beliefs about sexual activity.” Who would have ever thought that belief systems which strive for holiness might actually decrease risky sexual behavior among children? But science says its true, thank God! And best of all, since most religions actively combat all forms of Satanism (modern egoism, ancient wacko cults, whatever) on both spiritual and philosophical grounds, we’ve got that problem covered as well.