OREM — Substance abuse, electronic entertainment and pornography are three counterfeits that can rob teens of real relationships, a BYU professor and author told high school and junior high school students Wednesday night at Mountain View High School.

"Tell yourself, 'I don't need to settle for something that is pretend, something that is fake … when I have something that's real all around me,' " Brad Wilcox, an assistant professor of teacher education at BYU, told the packed auditorium as part of a parent and student meeting. "Don't settle for a counterfeit. Reach out for all that is real around you."

Wilcox likened himself to Timothy Mouse, who in the Disney cartoon "Dumbo" convinced the young elephant with exaggerated ears he could fly by holding onto a "magic" feather and then revealed that the feather wasn't magic at all.

"There are three feathers that people try to give us so we can fly," he said. "Tonight I'm telling you that you don't need the feather to fly."

Wilcox said smoking and drinking were one feather their friends would tell them they need.

"We think, 'Oh man, I'm missing something if I don't use these things.' If you choose not to smoke, you're not missing anything," he said. "The ones using them are missing something. It's called a brain."

The second feather is technology. Wilcox said recent studies show that with television, texting, video gaming, social networking and Web surfing, teenagers are spending up to four days a week in electronic stimulation.

"Many of us will go online and talk to complete strangers or bare our souls on the Internet, but we refuse to talk to Mom or Dad who is asking us how our day went," he said. "Are you settling for fake relationships when you could be having a real relationship?"

Wilcox said pornography, the third feather, "is nothing more than the illusion of intimacy. It is not intimacy. It is … lust. It is not sex education. In fact, it is sex miseducation marketed for gain."

Individuals who embrace pornography, masturbation and casual sex will find that when it comes time to develop a mature sexual relationship, they are unable to do it.

"All that person can do is take, because every sexual choice he's made since he was 12 has taught his mind one thing — complete and total selfishness," Wilcox said. "So he shows up in his marriage ready to do one thing — take. And nobody wants to be the one who is always giving to the one who is always getting.

"The best-kept sex secret in the world is love in a healthy marriage relationship," he said.

Wilcox encouraged students who found they were relying on these "feathers" to fly to reach out for help by talking to a parent, a counselor or a member if his or her clergy.

"The more you try to keep these things a secret, the more you will be sinking," he said.

e-mail: mhaddock@desnews.com