Why Jonathan Jackson won't have sex until he's married.
Soap Opera Weekly April 13, 1999
Whether or not Liz and Lucky sleep together, Jonathan Jackson plans to wait until he's marries to have sex. While he doesn't feel responsible for the choices his character makes, and rejects the notion that viewers would or should base their own life decisions on what they see in television, he welcomes the opportunity to use his fame to let others know that they have options about premarital sex."It's a decision I've made, to wait until I'm married to sleep with somebody I want to spend the rest of my life with and have kids with,"says Jackson, who turns 17 next month, and graduated from high school last fall. "I think it shows more respect for yourself and for the other person. I don't think sex was really meant to be something that you compared to everyone you did it with. I think it was meant to be with one person, and you can only really compare it to that experience. I think that's kinds the way God intended it, and for me, I want to follow down that road. I'm not going to condemn anyone for making other choices,but for me it just seems that the benefits are richer, and it makes more sense to me in the long run. And I would be more pleased to find a woman who wanted to wait till she was married also."
Jackson knows that his take on premarital sex might surprise people who hear and read about the looser lifestyles of other actors (His critically acclaimed role as Michelle Pfeiffer's sone in the recently released film The Deep End Of The Ocean upped his status among Hollywood's young high-profile stars) "They probably think that if you're on TV then you're automatically just sleeping around, getting a bunch of women and things like that," he says. "I guess that just makes it even more fun to tell people that it doesn't have to be that way.Really, the way I live my life is going to be more important than what I say, because I can say all I want, but if I don't live it then it has no meaning. I really think people are Hungary to see another side of the possibilities in life. I don't think they only want to see people screwing up their lives."
Jackson credits his family with helping to shape his ideology. "We talked about sex when I was really little," he says. " I was the youngest, too, so they had already gone through it. I was probably 7,and I understood what I needed to know about it, and it was just constant thing. Every year if I had questions they would be completely open to talking about it. It's the same thing with drugs, with any kind of touchy subject. There was always a very open dialogue with my parents, and that was defiantly a huge help to me."
Jackson hopes Liz and Lucky's dilemma will encourage other teens to discuss sex with their parents. "regardless of whether I think they should, TV does influence people, and if it was a perfect world, in my opinion, people would be able to watch TV and then discuss things with their family, figure out what they think is the right thing to do regardless of what was on TV. I don't think that goes on as much as I should, and I think people do kinda get influenced by what they see.That's kind of a touchy subject for me, because I don't think it is(television's) responsibility to teach, because there are people with different standards, and there's no one standard that the whole world goes by."
Jackson credits his family with helping to shape his ideology. "We talked about sex when I was really little," he says. " I was the youngest, too, so they had already gone through it. I was probably 7,and I understood what I needed to know about it, and it was just constant thing. Every year if I had questions they would be completely open to talking about it. It's the same thing with drugs, with any kind of touchy subject. There was always a very open dialogue with my parents, and that was defiantly a huge help to me."
Jackson hopes Liz and Lucky's dilemma will encourage other teens to discuss sex with their parents. "regardless of whether I think they should, TV does influence people, and if it was a perfect world, in my opinion, people would be able to watch TV and then discuss things with their family, figure out what they think is the right thing to do regardless of what was on TV. I don't think that goes on as much as I should, and I think people do kinda get influenced by what they see.That's kind of a touchy subject for me, because I don't think it is(television's) responsibility to teach, because there are people with different standards, and there's no one standard that the whole world goes by."