JUST CALL TODAY'S TEENAGERS GENERATION V - FOR 'VIRGIN' By BILL HOFFMANN
Here's some news sure to have moms and dads jumping for joy - our kids are having much less sex than a decade ago.
In fact, the number of high-school students who say they've never gone all the way has risen nearly 10 percent between 1991 and 2001.
One reason for the substantial increase in virginity may be that more than one in three high schools across the country teach abstinence until marriage, Newsweek says.
In addition, some 700 independent "wait-until-you-wed" programs have shot up in all 50 states.
And President Bush hopes to boost abstinence spending to $135 million - up from $60 million in 1998.
Teens told Newsweek they're comfortable admitting to peers that they're virgins.
"If you're not sexually active and you're willing to discuss the subject, you can't be called a prude," says Alice Knuck, an 18-year-old sophomore at Wellesley College.
"In high school, you could have oral sex and still call yourself a virgin. Now I'm like, 'Well, what makes one less intimate than the other?' "
Kris Nicoletti, 16, of Longmont, Colo., who says he and his girlfriend are waiting, adds, "The culture today makes it seem OK to have sex whenever, however, or with whoever you want. I just disagree with that."