Megan Alexander, who hosts Inside Edition for CBS, is not afraid to speak up for marriage and why it’s important for young people to say no to premarital sex.

Fox411.com is reporting that Alexander, 34, spoke candidly about her personal decision to wait for marriage before becoming sexually active with the hopes that it will encourage other young people to do the same.

“Sex is everywhere, it sells,” Alexander told Fox411. “It’s on magazine covers, it’s in television shows, it’s in movies and I think its pretty unusual when someone speaks out about waiting for marriage in the entertainment industry.”

Alexander was raised in a Christian home in Seattle and was always faithful to her beliefs.

“I claimed my faith for myself in about junior high,” she revealed. “I think we should never just do what our parents tell us to do. We should find our faith and claim it for ourselves. So I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior in about 7th grade and made that decision myself and that’s been the best thing I ever did.”

Speaking out about embracing chastity is something she feels compelled to do, especially in today’s sex-saturated culture.

“I decided to speak out, because I feel like young people today, specifically teenagers and millennials in their 20s and 30s, there’s so much pressure to just get involved [physically] and to think that that’s normal,” she said. “I wanted people to know, hey there’s another option. This is the option that I chose and it can work for you too.”

A chaste lifestyle may not work for everyone, she says, but it did for her.

“I certainly wish it was a little better represented in television and movies and they gave us a couple different scenarios instead of just the one of jump into bed immediately,” she said. “I want to encourage the next generation to take their time, to value their bodies and to realize that it’s okay to wait if you want to. And for me, it worked out great and I believe that other people need to hear that message and know that it’s just fine to take their time.”

Should they decide to wait, having strong support from family and friends will be of enormous help in sticking to a pledge to remain pure until marriage..

Megan with her “little man”

“I think family is important, family support, good friends are important, obviously my faith, I believe it’s God’s best design for us,” she explained of her decision. “And I had goals and dreams and stayed busy. I tell people I was too busy in my teens and in my twenties chasing my career to get in trouble with boys.”

Alexander’s husband, Brian Cournoyer, who was not a virgin when they decided to date, respected her decision to keep their courtship chaste and embraced a “second virginity” while the couple awaited their marriage.

“We really had a good friendship first,” she said. “I say that we never really had that awkward first date because we were always really good friends. But I do remember us saying, okay now that we’re dating, let’s set our boundaries.”

Her advice to young people is not to let Hollywood set the example for how to conduct themselves with the opposite sex. Women should play “hard to get” she says, and keep their curves covered in order to let their partner get to know them for their mind and soul first. Men need to “look beyond the physical” and search for someone who will be both their best friend and their biggest cheerleader.

Alexander and Cournoyer were married in 2008 and have a toddler son.

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