It gets harder to write. “It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret” (Ephesians 5:12). Dredge up all your dirtiest adolescent fantasies—the stuff you never breathed to a soul—and teens are performing them in daylight in Chile.

Well, in the darkness. On page one of The New York Times, a photo of 14-year-olds, who should be open-faced and innocent, have that glassy-eyed look of dissipation that is the hallmark of Satan. In a formerly conservative Latin American country, someone has figured out how to culturally sanction a Hugh Hefner dream of disrobing, kissing, and groping as many strangers as you can in one evening. The contestant who pairs off with the most is hailed as the “Ponceo.”

The Times calls it a “sex rebellion” (as if this were a civil rights movement to throw off the shackles of oppression), and “sexual exploration” (as if we were talking about Vasco de Gama). It is disgusting to call it a youth movement at all. What it is is a cynical industry, born of the perfect storm of waning morality and waxing internet connectivity, in which adults are profiting from profligacy at the price of their children’s souls.

“Party promoters use Fotolog … to organize their weekend gatherings, inviting Fotolog stars—the site’s most popular users, based on the number of comments they get—to help publicize the parties …,” some of which have been attended by over 4,000 youth.

A Dr. Ramiro Molina, director of the University of Chile’s Center for Adolescent Reproductive Medicine and Development, says, “Chile’s youth are clearly … testing the borderlines with their sexual conduct.” With insight like that, what hope is there for the children if the fathers “grope at noon as in the night” (Job 5:14)?