The plot thins. It seems that, despite Nelly's best efforts, kids may be having less sex. How do we know this?

They did a study.

Now all we need is a study to show what music kids listen to, and how much. That'll clamp the lid down on this, right?

I remember my senior year in high school, when the students were given an anonymous written survey to fill out. It was about drugs and alcohol. It was "anonymous" because the point was not to bust us, but to see what attitudes kids in general had towards illegal partying. Our identities were safe, we were told.

I also remember not believing that for a second.

Never mind the fact that many adults with authority over children will renege on a promise to a teenager in a split second if they feel that it is in the kid's best interest (and yes, sometimes it is). It was the fact that I grew up in the country, and our entire high school had a student body of about 300 kids. Everybody knew everybody, and all the teachers knew every student. And I had very distinctive handwriting.

I never really got cursive down to looking good, so I print. My printing then seemed to merge with cursive in some ways, so I ended up with a unique blend of the two that all my teachers had commented on at some time or another. No one else in that school, or even that town (or probably the whole damn district), had handwriting that looked anything like my distinctive scrawl. I didn't need to put my name on that survey to sign it, so to speak.

Given that, despite the fact that I had been to parties where I drank beer and was smoking pot at least a year before survey time, I lied through my teeth on that poll. I made myself look cleaner than Greg Brady.

Now, many of these kids don't have the situation I had. Many of them are in schools so large that only the most dedicated teachers are likely to know their names without consulting a seating chart. But that doesn't mean that they trust adults enough to tell them the truth about their sexual activities. Or even what music they listen to. Lord knows I didn't want my folks to see the printed lyrics to "Walk This Way". Or "Big Ten Inch Record".

So what is the point of doing all this?

Hey, pollsters have to eat, too, I guess.