by May Plaige

Created on: September 11, 2007

Sex and IQ are two completely unrelated things; any correlation found between the two should be disregarded as mere projection on the part of the people conducting the study. As a student who has been in honors courses since the 6th grade, I can honestly say that if there was any difference between the sexual activeness of my friends on both ends of the "intelligence" scale it was only due to the strict sheltering done by some of the parents of the students in the higher-level courses and earning higher grades. The fact that they were less sexually active had nothing to do with their intelligence; it had to do with the fact that their parents had them on a set schedule of school, supervised extracurricular activities, and home life. Of the honors students I met who were not sexually active, it was usually due to the fact that sex was not an option to them due to the hold their parents had, or simply because they had made the mature decision not to be active.

This is NOT to say that most of the non-sexually active honors students had chosen to do so, nor is it in any way meant to be taken as a suggestion that the non-honors, "lower IQ" students were not making the same mature decision. I knew just as many non-honors students who made the decision to hold off until later in life as I did honors students. In all honesty, the first friend that ever confessed to me that she was sexually active was one of these "high IQ" students, and she confessed this to me at the age of fourteen. Her choice to become sexually active was in no way a reflection of her intelligence or character; again these things are unrelated. Her choice was a reflection of how ready she felt herself to be and how much she trusted the person she was being active with.

The choice to become sexually active is one of maturity, not intelligence. These things should not be confused. People seem to group intelligence and maturity together, and I think that the reason young students choosing to become sexually active is such an issue is because so many people view choosing to hold off as the "smart" decision. How, exactly, is that "smart" if a mature (read: mature, not intelligent) student who can judge whether or not they are ready for sex decides to hold off until they're past school age to satisfy the expectations of society?

I am not arguing that all students of all IQ's who think they are mature enough should run off and have sex. I do believe that more intelligent students will be more likely to have SAFE sex, which makes it MUCH easier for them to hide their sexual activities from others. I also believe that more intelligent students in general may be hiding their sexual activeness, even in anonymous questionnaires, simply out of the necessity to hide what they are doing from very involved, concerned parents.

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