January 4, 2018

CDC Says Teens of Color Are Having a Lot Less Sex

Teenagers are having less sex. Actually, strike that. White teenagers are having about as much sex as ever. But among black and Hispanic teenagers, there’s been a sudden and steep dropoff among the number of high school seniors who say they have ever had intercourse:

I’m a little skeptical about how reliable these numbers are. Among Hispanic kids, for example, it’s a little hard to believe that the number with sexual experience was 70 percent in 2007, then down to 60 percent in 2011, back up to 70 percent in 2013, and down again to 60 percent in 2015. And do we really think that in the space of two years, the number of black kids with sexual experience plummeted from 77 percent to 63 percent? What could possibly have caused such a huge drop in such a short time?

So take this with a grain of salt. It’s good news, I suppose, but I wonder if it’s fake news?

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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