Sex & Teenagers
The Dangers of having Teenage Sex
Alcohol and other drugs can impair your judgment and put you in a situation of doing something you may regret later, such as having sex. The physical hazards involved in teenage sex include unwanted pregnancies and diseases. Emotional dangers exist as teenagers are often not mature enough for the complexities of these types of relationships. These dangers include the emotional risks caused by pregnancy or the fear of pregnancy; lowered self-esteem; barriers built between children and their parents; the pain of broken relationships; and the stress and inner conflict of dealing with the decision to carry a baby full-term, have an abortion or put a baby up for adoption. Problems such as these can interfere with the ability of young people to succeed in school. It can also lead to teenage suicide and clinical depression.
The Facts
More than one million United States teenagers become pregnant every year (one out of every five teenage girls). Of those who give birth, nearly half are not yet 18 years old. Teens are getting tested for pregnancy at or near an all time high. More than 400,000 teenage girls now have abortions each year. Unwed teenage births rose 200% between 1960 and 1980, and 40% of today's fourteen year old girls will become pregnant by the time they are 19.
According to the Washington State " Survey of Adolescent Health Behaviors (1988-92)" , almost one-fourth of the eight grade students responding to this survey reported that they had sexual intercourse at some time in their life. This percentage increases as students get older, so that 42% at the tenth grade and 60% at twelfth grade reported having had this experience. The survey found that about 1 in 10 (9%) of all female high school students have been pregnant, and 11% of males said they had gotten someone pregnant one or more times. Of females who have ever had sex, 20% have been pregnant. Seventy students of the 7544 surveyed have been pregnant two or more times. Pregnancy among all females increases steadily from 7% in grade 9 to 15% in grade 12. Among females that have had sex, however, the percent that have been pregnant is stable across grade levels, ranging from 20-24%.
An adolescents body may not be able to cope with the strain of carrying and nourishing a growing fetus or the procedures associated with the delivery. She is more likely to suffer from anemia, premature delivery and complications during labor. An expectant teenage mother is twice as likely as a woman in her twenties to have an underweight baby. Low birth weight babies face greater health risks than those born full term. Younger adolescents may not have fully achieved the cognitive developmental stages enabling them to perceive the longer term consequences of their actions or to plan for prevention.
Two-thirds of the 12 million new cases of STD's each year occur in people under twenty-five, and a quarter of them are in teenagers. Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STD's) have sky rocketed and the AIDS epidemic is out of control.
1 of 5 Americans between the age of 15 and 55 have a incurable viral STD. You can be scarred for life!
Abstinence as an option is being accepted by 51% of our students, but 49% are not and are sexually active. We are all only given one first time to have sex. Having sex for the wrong reasons (peer pressure) foolishly deprives you of one of the most special and unforgettable experiences of your life.
SEX EDUCATION ?
Due to these staggering statistics it is clear that something must be done to decrease these numbers. It has been proven that sexual education has helped curb the spread of STD's and pregnancies among teenagers. Sex education is one of those issues people will never agree on. Although some people feel sex education in schools is a bad idea, most feel it is a good thing and needs to be provided at every school. Students can be taught to put thought planning and responsibility about whether or not to have sexual experiences. Abstinence as an option must be stressed.
A recent study showed that only about sixty percent of teenagers receive some sex education in school. This leaves approximately forty percent whom are not receiving information from their school and are very likely not receiving any sex education at all. We cannot assume the remaining forty percent of students are receiving the information they need from other sources; since one poll indicated that only approximately forty-five percent of children talk to their parents about subjects relating to sex.
Young people should have accurate information about human sexuality, pregnancy, childbirth, parenthood, contraception, abortion, AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. Students receive a variety of invalid information from their peers that they take as fact. Misconceptions such as "the erroneous idea that a girl cannot get pregnant if the couple has intercourse standing up" could be cleared up. Classes that inform students about issues prevalent to sex help children differentiate between fact and fiction. Many feel these classes should be offered at school.
Among the many misconceptions is the common assumption that there is a safe sex. There is no foolproof way to have sex, There is only safer sex.
SAFER SEX
There are techniques and suggestions for safer sex. I will not talk about them on this page. For all the reasons that follow, unprotected sex is dangerous. It can ruin your life.
Being taught about the different types of contraceptives is a key factor in reducing the number of teen pregnancies. Along with providing students with the facts about different types of birth control, they need to be taught how to use them properly. Condoms have a twenty percent failure rate which is attributed almost entirely to people using them incorrectly rather then to the product itself .
As well as pregnancy, the contraction of sexually transmitted diseases has increased tremendously in recent years. Diseases such as gonorrhea, syphilis, genital herpes and genital warts are all on the incline. STD’s are of major concern because they cause illness and can possible lead to death. Safer sex practices reduce the risk of contracting one of these.
Although many STD’s are treatable, there is one that is not. AIDS is a diseases that is often contracted through sexual intercourse that is untreatable. There are many children who do not know anything about AIDS. AIDS is a very dangerous diseases and it is even more dangerous if a person is ignorant about its transmission and how to avoid contact with the virus. Safer sex helps to prevent the spread of AIDS.
Did you know...?
IN SUMMARY
I believe sex should not just be with anyone, but with someone you care for and truly love, and they feel the same way about you. But even if you do feel this way, does this mean you have to have sex? No. If two people truly do love and care for one another then they should put no pressure on each other of having sex. Once two partners have sex there’s no other first time. Would’t it just be nice over time to wait, and when it’s meant to be it happens. It seems as if that would make intimacy so much more romantic.
The information on this page includes material on the following web sites:
http://web.bu.edu/COHIS/teenpreg/teen/howmany.htm teenage pregnancy
http://www.bssc.edu.au/learning_areas/learning/hd/HDMag/Feature/preg/preg4.html teenage pregnancy
http://phenry.ssd.k12.wa.us/MacHTTP_2.0/t.aware/why.taware.html Sex ruins life
http://www.sosc.osshe.edu/English/Krause/wr122/Students/Rudisil/MINDY.HTM information on teenage sex, pregnancy & diseases
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Last Updated on
08/13/06