Flame — HabitableZone

Flame » in reply to Lee does have a certain point...

but not a good one.
Mary Anne — (archived)

I heard the same news story. More instructive statistical breakdowns are needed. By age, for starters. If most of the girls who tested positive are 16 and 17, then we're talking about something entirely different than if the 14-year-olds are leading the group, or if the distribution is flat. Sexually active 17-year-olds don't send up the same kinds of alarms for me that sexually active 15-year-olds do. Still not a good idea, but not at the level of pathology, either.

Also, what kinds of sex education have our high schools been either promoting or being pressured into providing?

I would like to see how many of the girls in the survey have had any sex education at all in school; have had abstinence-only education, which is almost like having none (sex can kill you before you're married, so don't do it); have had abstinence-based education, with information about birth control and physical barriers (not included in abstinence-only education); and how many have had some of their sex education in gender-integrated classes.

The abstinence-only education, based on fear and ignorance, pleases religious conservatives but doesn't deliver useful information to teenagers. Once they decide not to abstain, which most people will do eventually, they have exactly zero information about how to protect themselves from STDs unless they have sought it out for themselves.

Gender-integrated classes allow for discussion of mutual respect and expectations regarding sexuality and sexual activity, self-respect, and mutual respect. Talks I've had with sex education teachers and other specialists indicate that teens of both genders often feel pressured to have sex but don't know how to resist. They need to understand each other, and they need the interpersonal relationship tools.

What I gather from the statistics as provided: Too many girls don't know how to protect themselves once they become sexually active. Too many boys are asking or demanding not to use physical barriers, thus infecting their partners. Too many boys have untreated infections that they're passing around. Too many teenagers are deriving their sense of belonging and closeness from sex in a world where person-to-person contact is diminishing.

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