What am I talking about? The ďvĒ word (no, not THAT one, the other one!).

Thatís right! VIRGINITY is making a comeback in a big way in the 21st century.

When I was in high school (a mere ten years or so ago), more than half of teenagers had sexual intercourse while they were in high school. Today, the number of teenagers who have decided to remain a virgin until marriage actually outnumbers the sexually active ones!

The reasons for the turnaround in the numbers vary depending on who you talk to. Some say that abstinence education has contributed to the decline in sexual activity amongst teenagers. Others say that the fear of getting deadly diseases such as HIV/AIDS have steered teenagers away from having sex.

Regardless of the specific reasons for the decline, the turning point in the numbers occurred around the time Republicans took control of the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate in the mid-1990ís.

You may recall that the federal government started funding abstinence programs with the federal Title V abstinence program passed in 1996 teaching teenagers to save themselves for marriage. Conservative Christian groups such as Dr. James Dobsonís Focus on the Family (http://www.family.org) and True Love Waits (http://www.truelovewaits.com) rallied hundreds of thousands of teenagers around the idea of remaining a virgin until marriage.

Of course, there is still a lot of work to do because a lot of teenagers (children, mind you) are having reckless recreational sex. This group is oblivious to the warnings about disease and to the real rewards of saving themselves for marriage. (This is a little known fact, but these kids grow up to become liberal Democratic voters and expect the government to pay for all their reckless habits. Itís true! Just ask Mike Cubelo.)

So we have two distinctive groups of teenagers here: one group who has their priorities straight in life and want to remain a virgin until they are married and another group who is living in the here and now and want to get all the sex they can get as quickly as possible.

The federally funded $50 million-a-year Title V abstinence-only education is up for debate in Congress this year. Some of the opponents of the measure say that there needs to be an additional $50 million-a-year spent to teach teenagers about how to prevent pregnancy and spreading disease should they decide to have sex (are we gonna start handing out condoms in school again?).

However, this would be nothing different from the stance the government has held in the past. The ONLY way teenagers will ever learn that it is better for them to wait until they are married to have sex is if they are taught that abstinence is the only way. Anything else is inviting them to experiment and be curious.

Some teenagers are going to have sex regardless of what is taught to them. I understand that. But I think the drop in the statistics of sexually active teenagers reveals that the abstinence-only education is working. This old saying says it best: ďIf it ainít broke, donít fix it!Ē

On a personal note, I am proud to say that both my wife and I saved ourselves until marriage seven years ago. Teenagers today are learning the value of abstinence before marriage, despite the constant bombardment of sexual images and explicit messages that they are receiving from music, television, Hollywood and the Internet.

Virginity is actually pretty cool these days. Itís the new sexual revolution!