CCP191: On Teenage Sexuality

You probably noticed something quite different for today’s conversation. Alexis Drye is joined by Pastor Jonathan Emery White, who serves children and families at Mecklenburg Community Church. Along with his pastoral role at Meck, he also teaches classes through the Meck Institute, instructing parents about the realities of the new digital world when it comes to their children. It’s this background that he brings to today’s episode about some recent interesting studies and trends related to teenage sexuality.

Episode Links

There’s an on-demand class at Mecklenburg Community Church that was taught by Jonathan called “FaceTime: What Parents Need to Know About Technology, Social Media, Video Games and More.” You can find that on the Meck website HERE. Dr. White also did a series at Meck called “Streaming Now,” which featured background on four of the most popular streaming series at the time and the lessons that can be applied to the Christian life through them. One of the installments was on the show Adolescence - you can find that series HERE.

Jonathan mentioned the software that he recommends to protect parents and their children from the dangers of pornography and the online world. It’s called Covenant Eyes, and you can find that HERE. There are also a number of articles relevant to our conversation today if you’d like to take a deeper dive on this topic. We’d encourage you to check out:

Selena Simmons-Duffin, “Teen birth rates hit another historical low in 2025, CDC says,” NPR.

Lyman Stone, “Sexless America: Young Adults Are Having Less Sex,” Institute for Family Studies.

“The Impact of Pornography on Children,” American College of Pediatricians.

Mar Alvarez-Segur et al., “Impact of pornography consumption on children and adolescents: a trauma-informed approach,” National Library of Medicine.

Carmen M. Leon et al., “From Pornography Consumption to Sexually Violent Practices: Uncovering the Hidden Influence of Sexual Norms,” National Library of Medicine.

Taylor Lorenz, “The Hottest Chat App for Teens Is … Google Docs,” The Atlantic.

“Injections, Bone Hammering and the Pursuit of Peak Male Beauty: Inside the image-obsessed subculture that is ‘looksmaxxing,’” The New York Times.

John Koetsier, “80% Of Gen Zers Would Marry An AI: Study,” Forbes.

Finally, there are two past podcast episodes that we’d encourage you to go back and listen to when you have the time. They are: CCP152: On Women's Porn, CCP72: On Toxic Masculinity and CCP146: On Hooters and OnlyFans.

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