by Joseph P. Shapiro and Andrea R. Wright

About the authors: Joseph P. Shapiro and Andrea R. Wright write for U.S. News & World Report.

The problem with teen sex is not simply that teens are having sex. Adults, in disturbing numbers, are having sex with teens. It is not just Joey Buttafuoco and Amy Fisher,Woody Allen and Soon-Yi Previn or the fact that O.J. Simpson was 30 when he began dating an 18-year-old waitress named Nicole Brown. Federal and state surveys suggest that adult males are the fathers of some two-thirds of the babies born to teenage girls. According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, 39 percent of 15-year-old mothers say the fathers of their babies are 20 years old or older. For 17-year-old teenage moms, 55 percent of the fathers are adults; for 19-year-olds...