GUEST POST by Jud Kossum: Review | An Exposé on Teen Sex and Dating by Andy Braner

My good friend, Jud Kossum, is an avid reader and a deep thinker.  He reviewed this book that’s pretty relevant to youth ministry, so I asked him if we could post it.  You can follow his blog here.

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My rating: 3 of 5 stars.

An Exposé on Teen Sex and Dating: What’s Really Going on and How to Talk About It is something of a misnomer for Andy Braner’s latest book. Braner does give us the low-down on the sexual behavior of teens and what “dating” really means to this generation, but an exposé would provide us with some hard evidence. Braner simply tells us, “Teenagers have told me all about hooking up and what their dating relationships look like, and it’s scary!”

Not only does he offer nothing more than anecdotal evidence – and not a lot even of that – but he presents it as though ALL teenagers are involved unimaginably sordid behavior. The lack of evidence and the abundance of alarmism were off-putting for me. I found myself doubting whether teens were really involved in the kinds of behavior he was talking about and doubting his insights into dealing with them. (The question isn’t whether they’re engaging in these types of behaviors. It’s whether the behaviors are as prevalent as Braner’s rhetoric makes them seem. They may very well be, but he gives the reader no real reason to believe so.)

In the end, though, the title and the alarmism do a disservice to this book. There’s a lot of good material to chew on.

The fact is, teens ARE engaged in sexual hookups that are completely devoid of commitment – among other things – and the strategies that youth pastors and parents have used for years to help their students stay pure just aren’t working. Many teens have no problem going to a purity rally Friday night and having sex with their significant (or not-so-significant) other on Saturday.

Braner’s idea is that we cast aside the notion of courtship (he calls special attention to Joshua Harris’s well-known book I Kissed Dating Goodbye) and help teens engage in a type of dating that centers around communication, getting to know each other, getting to know themselves and learning what it means to be in a committed relationship. I found myself agreeing enthusiastically.

There’s much more going on here, including how student pastors and parents can communicate the realities of marriage and sex to their teenagers as well as how we model some of these behaviors for them.

I’d encourage any youth pastor or parent of a teen (or younger – my girls are four and one, and I found a lot to think about) to read this book. Just remember, it’s not really an exposé, but it can be a big help in the battle for students’ purity.

I received this book for free from NavPress for this review as part of their blogger review program.