It’s not news to anybody these days — not if they watch any television or glance at the covers of the magazines lining the checkout counters at the grocery stores — that we live in a sex-saturated society where supposedly the majority of young people are “doing it,” more often than not without “benefit of marriage.”  The “Playboy philosophy” is trumpeted by a thousand voices that glamorize casual sex, while most of the shrinking mainline churches present pitifully watered-down messages about morality that confuse rather than clarify.  Academic institutions, particularly the women’s studies programs, promote the idea that marriage is optional and young people are advised to “just do it!”  The secular mantra, heard from middle school on up, is that sex will make you popular and happy; it’s great recreation that is free and fun. There is a mountain of media out there promoting a phony philosophy about the joys of casual, risky sexual experimentation; one need look no further than the junk advice featured in magazines like Cosmopolitan to see just how pernicious it is.  Even the “Dear Abby” column in many daily newspapers spreads the expectation of sexual activity even for the youngest of our teens.  This assault will not be neutralized until a brigade of those who know better find their voices to convince today’s Sex in the City generation of young women that only discipline and restraint — it is having an attitude that says, “I won’t mess up my tomorrows by fooling around today” — will open the gateway to achieving their dreams and ambitions. Read On

DRIVING CHILD PROSTITUTION A former federal prosecutor says the easy availability of online pornography is contributing to another, much more dangerous problem. According to the San Jose Mercury News, in the past ten months police have discovered more than 170 underage children, some as young as 11, being pimped out on the streets of Oakland, California. Pat Trueman, an attorney with he Alliance Defense Fund, is former chief of the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section in the Criminal Division of the Justice Department. He believes that the growth of the child prostitution industry can be easily traced. "What you're finding in today's society is a greater interest in illicit sex than ever before," he laments. "The Internet has caused that because an individual can go on the Internet, see hardcore pornography, see child pornography, and have almost zero chance of being caught. The next thing they want to do, then, is have sex with a prostitute," Trueman contends. Trueman believes the blame lies first with the men who seek out children for sex. "The 'John' -- that is, the person who's looking for a prostitute -- will pay more, thinking that the child prostitute has less a chance of disease. They're prettier than someone who's a 40-year-old prostitute ... it's a novelty that they think, by paying for that, they'll enjoy [a child] more than an older prostitute," Trueman points out. U.S. 'sex culture' driving child prostitution

CONFESSION OF A MONSTER - AMSTETTEN Austria —  A man has confessed to imprisoning his daughter for 24 years in a windowless cell with a soundproofed door and fathering seven children with her including three who "never saw sunlight," police said Monday. The man, now 73, also told investigators that he tossed the body of one of the children in an incinerator when the infant died shortly after birth, said Franz Polzer, head of the Lower Austrian Bureau of Criminal Affairs. "We are being confronted with an unfathomable crime," Interior Minister Guenther Platter said. The daughter, who is now 42, had been missing since 1984 and was found by police in the town of Amstetten on Saturday evening after police received a tip. She and her children have been placed in psychiatric care. Police on Monday released several photos showing parts of the cramped basement cell, with a small bathroom and a narrow passageway leading to a tiny bedroom. Investigators said an electronic keyless-entry system apparently kept the daughter from escaping from the cell, which was made of solid reinforced concrete. The suspect, identified by authorities as Josef F., was expected to appear in court later Monday. Confession of a Monster

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