Don't think about pink elephants. No! You just did it, didn't you?! Your mind flashed to an image of a cute little pink elephant you're not supposed to think about. Come on now. You can do it. Let's draw our attention away from elephants as a whole. Don't think about Dumbo or circus elephants. Don't let your thoughts wander to their trunks or to their tails. No elephants in your thoughts, you hear?
Chances are, the more I talk about avoiding elephants, the more they'll be on your mind. According to psychologists the brain doesn't hear words like "don't"; it bypasses "don't" for the tangible word in the sentence: "elephants." Sports enthusiasts know that focusing on where they don't want the ball to end up often leads the body to send the ball to that very place. Tell a child not to pick the grass, and even a child who'd never considered the idea, suddenly wonders how much fun it might be to pick the grass.
So why do we think we can take teens who live in a culture where they've been constantly exposed to sexuality since childhood, throw them a few "don'ts", and expect this to miraculously curtail the pull of biology?
