If these academics and pollsters are to be believed, Valentine's Day and Loy Krathong are the times of year when teenagers everywhere plan to engage in sexual activity, many of them for the first time. This year, one study reported that female students in Mathayom 1-3 (junior high school) have slightly higher libidos than their male counterparts.

Sensational media tend to lap it all up and fill column upon column with the most intimate details of teenagers' sex lives based on the supposedly academic studies and so-called scientific data from opinion polls.

With all the news reports about teen sex swirling around, it's time for agonising parents, prudish teachers and self-righteous do-gooders of all stripes to sing their chorus of outrage, lament Thailand's cultural degradation and start blaming permissive Western influences for young people's "loose sexual behaviour". All these things keep repeating themselves year after year, like a broken record.

But the sounding of such moral indignation does nothing to reduce the widespread hypocrisy towards sex that has always existed in this society.

These sermonising adults are inclined to paint an idyllic picture of a puritanical Thai society, which probably has never existed, where dutiful sons and daughters grew up under the watchful eyes of their role-model parents, keeping their vows of celibacy until marriage.

It never occurs to them that such nostalgic reminiscences about the good old days, even if they did exist, are so far removed from the stark realities in today's Thailand as to be irrelevant as a point of reference in public discussion on the matter. It used to be that the commercial sex industry served the needs of certain types of men back when people's attitude towards sex was much more rigid and governed by entrenched hypocrisy.

Now people, both men and women, have adopted a more open-minded approach towards sex. It is understood that anyone with some social skills can find a willing sexual partner - in or out of wedlock - and commercial sex has been relegated to the choice of desperate men. The stigma that people now attach to commercial sex is not a bad thing at all, and nothing is wrong with sex between consenting adults.

Today's youths are only taking their cue from adults and their more relaxed attitude towards sex. That's why impressionable teenagers with raging hormones need to be given an updated version of sex education. Older versions of sex education designed for previous generations of youths, which were filled with advice on how to completely abstain from sexual activity based on inflexible, moralistic views, are unlikely to work as intended.

This "no sex please, we're Buddhists" approach to sex education is likely to make teenagers' eyes glaze over. Teenagers still need to be told to delay their first sexual encounter for as long as possible, supposedly until they are physically, emotionally and mentally ready for it, or for as long as it makes sense. At the same time, they must be taught the specific skills of practising safe, responsible sex, particularly the use of condoms, if it comes to that.

Young people in this country are no different from their peers in any other society in their curiosity and eagerness to learn about sex. It seems inevitable that today's youths are likely to have sexual contact earlier and more partners as they get older, before they decide to get married, stay single or become single parents.

One of the ways to start raising the quality of public debate on this subject is to do away with this media circus about teen sex. Then teach parents how to talk to their own children not just about sex but also how to deal with the confusion of growing up.