By Jim Brown
January 21, 2003

(AgapePress) - A former Miss Black California and Black Miss America runner-up is telling young people about the dangers of teenage sexual activity and the benefits of remaining pure until marriage.

Every year, Lakita Garth -- one of the country's leading abstinence advocates -- speaks to over half a million school students, stressing that abstinence is a lifestyle.

Lakita Garth

"A lot of people think abstinence is shaking your finger and saying, 'Just say no' -- but abstinence is not about saying no," Garth explains. "It's mastering the art of self-control, self-discipline, and the delay of self-gratification because you cannot achieve sustained success in life unless you've mastered those three skills."

She says while most young people are impressed with the discipline required to achieve athletic or academic prowess, few kids today are being told to apply such discipline to their personal behavior. It should not be surprising then, she says, that between two and four million teens will contact a sexually transmitted disease (STD) this year.

"And this is why President Bill Clinton can say [he] did not have sex with ... Monica Lewinsky," she states. "As a result, you will find that there's an increase in oral sexual activity -- and sexually transmitted diseases are now orally transmitted."

Parents and their young people, Garth says, must know that the common cold is no longer the most commonly reported virus. It is now STDs. "[When it comes to orally transmitted STDs] the largest influx of people who come to the doctor are now middle-school students," she says. "They were given the notion that what you do behind closed doors has no effect on anything else in [your life]-- but it does."

The social commentator and media consultant says many young people are consenting to have sex and do not know the consequences that come with such activity -- and neither do their parents, Garth says.

"People tend to think that abstinence means you only talk about abstinence and you don't mention anything about contraceptives," she says, "but when I talk to kids, they learn more about contraceptives from me than they did in their sex-ed class.

"I'm telling them that [use of contraceptives is] not fail-safe, it's not a hundred-percent proof, it's not prevention -- it's actually risk-reduction and that you're playing roulette with your life," she says. "And that is reality."

Garth is set to release a new book called The Naked Truth About Sex, Love, and Relationships. In the book, she says young people must know that abstinence is not the end, but rather the means to the end.

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