Fewer Sexually Active Teens Are Using Condoms

[marmar]

via AlterNet:



Fewer Sexually Active Teens Are Using Condoms

By Marissa Miley, Huffington Post. Posted June 3, 2008.

What should we do about this alarming trend? We could rend our garments and cry to the heavens. Or we could talk to teens about safe sex.



Once again, the alarm has sounded. Here's a novel idea for this time around: Let's actually react to the noise.

Yesterday the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released its biannual Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance data and revealed that across the nation, teens' condom use has flat-lined since 2003. This means that just over 60% of sexually active teens use condoms. Teen sexual activity may be on the rise, too. At the same time, fewer teens (89.5% in 2007 vs. 91.5% in 1997) are learning about AIDS or HIV infection in school. No doubt this is in part because of the push for abstinence-only education and the series of school budgetary cuts that have eliminated sex-ed entirely.

Though disturbing, the data shouldn't surprise you. Back in March, the CDC issued data showing that 1 in 4 teenage girls has at least one sexually transmitted disease.

Clearly, these STDs had to come from somewhere.

Still, it may have been easy to dismiss the significance of the March data. That study looked at only 838 girls. Surely those girls with STDs must live in some other neighborhood, some other town, some other state. That's not going on at my local high school. Next story, please.

But this time around, the CDC surveyed over 14,000 teens. How much more data do we need before we're willing to see the reality?

In the 1990s, we saw a decline in risky teenage sexual behavior. More students were using condoms, fewer were having sex. But a countercurrent is threatening the tide of progress, and we need to pay attention.

By this, I do not mean we should freak out for a few days, read every article about teen sex and so-called scandal, and tuck the horror stories in the back of our minds until the next cause for freakout comes along, months later. I do not mean we should throw up our hands in despair and cry out, We give up! I do not mean we should blame pop culture, though I see how easy that could be (just think: Gossip Girl, Jamie Lynn Spears' pregnancy, Juno; hey, even that Today Show Casanova sensation/creep Paul Janka). ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/sex/87322/

[zbdent]

1. What's a few STDs among friends when you're constantly told

by your fundie religious leaders that electing Barack Obama will bring about Armageddon?

[babylonsister]

2. That's just plain dumb. We are regressing, aren't we. Yes,

education is the only answer.

[Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel]

3. Think the price of condom$ have have anything to do with it?

You know, everything has had big price increases lately.

[BanzaiBonnie]

4. We have the abstinence only people to thank

They were in my daughters high school. They were teaching that condoms don't REALLY protect you from anything.

Yeah. Scare tactics do not make kids stop having sex. They just don't bother with condoms --- if they don't do anything anyway.

[MountainLaurel]

7. You're right on target

Why bother spending money and time on something that doesn't work anyway?

[glowing]

5. I grew up in that 80's/ 90's where they beat into our heads the fear of

sex and the fear of drugs.. by the time we were 16 and 17, we threw all the fear out the window... but we did it with caution.. we used marijuana and condoms.. I cannot believe how many don't today.. its russian roulett.

[LibDemAlways]

6. Predicatable given the push toward abstinance-only

"education." Don't teach kids what they need to know to protect themselves and this is the outcome. Thankfully I live in an area where kids are provided with the facts. My 9th grader took Health Ed this semester and the discussion of STDs and how to prevent them was thorough and informative.

If a kid is taking Driver's Ed you expect that kid to be taught the rules of the road and what the consequences are for not following them. You don't gloss over talking about accidents and safety measures to prevent them. You don't suggest that kids simply not get behind the wheel and then hope for the best.

Sex ed should be the same. Assume that kids will be active and give them all the information they need to make wise decisions. Anything else is negligence.