No one is claiming that good sex ed classes will make the teen pregnancy rate go to 0. But teenagers think they’re immortal, and never had the experience of something they did bite them in the butt. If you can get one of the pair to insist on protection, it would help. We now know it doesn’t hurt.
Some kids never learn algebra either, but that doesn’t mean you don’t teach it.
OK, maybe we can establish some general stats, thanks to Wikipedia:
Peer pressure: 76% of girls and 58% of boys in a 1996 Seventeen magazine survey reported that teenage females had sexual intercourse in response to their boyfriend’s desire for it.
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36% in the 1997 PARADE survey said they believed that an adolescent might become pregnant to satisfy a desire for unconditional love. 24% said they believed that a girl might also become pregnant in an attempt to retain or win back a boyfriend.
More stats here: Teenage pregnancy - Wikipedia
I am still having to deal with adults who think that “safe sex” means the woman is on the pill.
At least they know what they’re for!
No, we don’t, thank Og. However, a few years back Quebec introduced a moronic system whereby sex education was taken out of the responsibility of moral education class, and was supposed to be distributed throughout all classes (“Bill has fifteen condoms. If he has four one-night stands…”), by which we mean that nobody will actually teach it any more. Don’t ask me what this was supposed to accomplish – it certainly wasn’t accompanied by any right-wing tubthumping – but pretty much everyone in the social services hates it.
My Lord… boys are pressuring girls to have sex? When did this start?
And how did Seventeen, a publication I’d not previously associated with high-caliber investigative journalism, manage to unearth such a scoop?
What seems to work well in schools, is hanging condom vending machines *inside *of bathroom stalls. Boys and girls have a good “innocent” reason to go into the stalls, and as long as the machine operates quietly, they aren’t afraid of being caught while buying a condom. Also, seeing that vending machine there reminds them of condom safety.
Won’t somebody please think of the children?
Well someone had to say it
I apologize. I was being completely facetious. That such misogynistic thinking can be found in mainstream thought and taken seriously is rather disturbing, but sometimes you just gotta laugh.
I had a similar experience. They told us that the microscopic pores in condoms could block sperm but not virus particles. They even had some fancy illustrations. And this seemed correct to me since I knew viruses were really, really tiny, much smaller than a cell. This was circa 1998-2000.
If you have a better source—I’m sure there are many—feel free to cite it.
Okay. Question. Do you think that has more to do with this…
than this?
Right. Why even count that, even though it’s a preventable sexually transmitted disease that can cause sterilization, cancer, and, y’know…death? It barely even registers, really.
Um, no. Sorry, but ignorance doesn’t “deserve” a sexually transmitted disease. And it isn’t the kid’s fault he was kept ignorant. Hard to say “it’s your fault” to someone who doesn’t know what’s out there.
Because, of course, everyone should do things just like you. Cuz, yer SMART. Yes. It would be great if everyone just KNEW all the dangers of sex. But they don’t. They don’t know because no one tells them anything except “don’t do it.” And y’know…they get told “don’t do it” about every possible thing they can think of. The eyes glaze over at a certain point. What is wrong with educating them? Explaining why everyone is telling them to be careful? In clear language that they understand, that is not condescending or degrading? They’re people. And if they’re having sex, they deserve to have all the facts.
And yet, the numbers continue to rise. You can’t tell me that many teens are just “stupid.” I’m not claiming eduction will cure everything and it will all go away and no one will get the clap ever. But at least they’ll be better armed against what may happen, and be able to take better precautions.
And HELL YES to what Maastricht said. Hang condom machines in the bathrooms at schools. It isn’t telling kids “go out and fuck.” It’s telling them “there’s some nasty shit out there. Protect yourself.”
I’ve always been partial to Tiger Beat, but they discontinued their sex column (and the back-panel condom ads) somewhere at the tail end of the Carter administration.
Better education would be a boon. My brother and I both watched that 3-2-1 Contact video when we were little and we both sat through the one day of health class that addressed STDs and such. I happened to think it was really interesting stuff and did some research and ended up debunking a lot of misinformation I had been given by friends and other students all on my own. My brother was not so inclined to research the topic and I had to go over some things with him. Namely that band-aids are not proper condom substitutes, pulling out is not a very effective form of birth control, and that HIV and Herpes are not the only to STDs out there (all ideas he had come to me to ask about at one time or another.) Had there been more time dedicated to the subject than a 1 hour class in high school and a presentation from the nurse one day in 5th grade he might have been more up to date and not needed his sister to tell him these things.
Also, why is the focus solely on teenage girls? Boys can get HIV, Herpes, HPV and all that other fun stuff too. They are just as responsible as the girls who get knocked up. Why isn’t there more focus on teaching them about sex and condoms the way they do with teenage girls?
I would understand your reasons for posting about Seventeen better if you appeared to disagree with their figure. But, fine, if you had a better source that shed some light on the discussion, why not share that?
…because you just want to throw stones while effectively contributing nothing to the matter at hand.
Go play with something shiny.
I’m pretty sure your inability to attract a girlfriend has more to do with it than the fact that you respect your parents. I respect my parents, and I respected them back when I started having sex. Having sex while in your late teens, twenties and (Og forbid you don’t marry by then! </hyperbole>) thirties doesn’t mean you don’t respect your parents. It just means that you were able to find a partner who was willing to have sex with you.
I think that society still puts more pressure on girls with these topics because they feel that they are more vulnerable to fall for peer pressure than boys and there’s still a view that boys sleeping around is “acceptable” as long as he doesn’t get anyone pregnant. Like other facets of American society, there’s more pressure on women to carry the responsibilities of safety and making sure that nothing “bad” happens.
Edit: Additionally, young women are increasingly becoming the “at risk” group, more so than the historically assumed “at risk” group of gay males. There should be proper education for both genders, but it appears that women are more at risk for these diseases than their male counterparts during their teens.
I don’t disagree with the figure so much as question whether it’s useful or revelatory. I would expect similar numbers if the same sort of leading question were posed to adult women. While exceptions certainly exist, males are traditionally the ones to instigate sex.
I’m also not sure I’d categorize it as “peer pressure,” which (to my mind at least) suggests pressure coming from “peers” other than the one hoping to get laid—for example, if the girl’s friends repeatedly exhorted her to get with the program and start banging her boyfriend.
I am fascinated by shiny objects, however, even without the benefit of lobotomization.
They do. We can always count on at least one young man to brag about his endowment. It makes a good lead in for the demonstration you’re talking about (in which the nurse educator fits the extra large condom over her fist and half way up to her elbow).
True…but the girls are getting the STIs from someone, clearly. Sort of like when advice on how not to get raped is targeted at girls–all very well and good, but it would also be a good thing to instruct guys on how not to rape.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t teach it. But if you can’t get the very basics of sex ed down in about an hour, you’re an idiot. Now, sure, more advanced stuff you might need multiple extended courses. But by and large it’s not that hard to understand that:
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Diseases can be transmitted via sexual intercourse. Using a condom is one means of preventing this transmission. It isn’t perfect, as nothing is, but it’s a lot better than no protection at all.
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Unless one of the people in question has a medical issue which prevents them from producing offspring, by and large anytime two persons of opposite genders have sex there is a chance it can result in pregnancy. Archaic methods like following some “I can get pregnant on this day of the month” calendar or the “pull out” method still leave room for conception. (Though I do have to say that the pull out method has proven historically to actually work reasonably well–I believe the Oneida Community was able to use it for many decades to drastically reduce birth rates.) The best means of preventing pregnancy is some form of contraceptive. I believe that all the major contraceptives have a very low failure % if used correctly, and most of them aren’t terribly difficult to use correctly.
I genuinely think any non-retarded person who is over the age of 10 or so can learn this in an hour, what they do with that knowledge after that point is their own concern.
People deserve the consequences of their actions. I do imagine some teens don’t get sex education to the degree you’d like them to, but I do know that most public High Schools have mandatory sex education which does teach the very basic things they need to know. If teens are too stupid to learn, that is no one’s problem but theirs.
All the data I have seen suggests that almost all U.S. teenagers have received some sex education.
I honestly don’t believe the only things teens hear is “don’t do it.” I think the overwhelming majority of teens hear the basics and just simply don’t care or are too stupid to process the information, in either case that isn’t my problem and the parties involved deserve whatever negative consequences follow.
Lots of “stupidity indicators” continue to rise. For example notice the current home foreclosures issue. Most people are stupid, period.
Most public universities distributed condoms for many years yet we’ve always heard about the high rate of STD infection amongst college co-eds. These are adults who still aren’t “getting it.” I think a lot of people don’t realize that some guys just simply aren’t going to use condoms, period. That might change if there were more women who cared enough to insist on them, but either way there’s a high proportion of both genders who obviously don’t think it’s that important.
Sure… until your 17 year old friend SWEARS that such and such works just as well. And you have no recourse to find out he’s wrong… and who do most teens trust more? Naively… it’s usually the friend.
Thankfully there are many exceptions, even so… rationalization is a powerful thing when you don’t like the “medicine” or just find it inconvenient.
You mean regular sex.
Not all SEX can cause pregnancy - even with hetero couples…