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While so many parents out there seem to be overwhelmingly concerned with keeping their teens’ Myspace pages private and making sure their Walmart-bought CD’s are equipped with “Parental Advisory” stickers; their teens are still getting into trouble.
We know this because we were teens not too long ago. The more you are protected by your parents, the sneakier you learn to be. It’s no accident that some of the worst kids you knew in high school came from some of the “best” families. Teen girls rebelling is about as natural as shopping or gossiping. If all of their parents only knew what they were doing at all those “sleepovers”….
Well, what it seems like they’ve been DOING…are the boys from school.
At least one in four girls out there between the ages of 14-19 has a sexually transmitted disease. This alarming study has brought a lot of attention to the fact that teens ARE, regardless of what we want to believe, having sex.
Some have jumped to the conclusion that this STD rate is a direct effect of all of the abstinence talk promoted throughout schools. This particular argument is an easy one for me to get on board with. After all, my own parents taught me nothing about SAFE sex…I was only taught about NO sex. Did that stop me from having sex? Absolutely not. It just made me a lot less smarter about sex at first than I had to be.
While I do think that these numbers are at least partially a result of teens not using proper protection…I’m not sure that’s all there is to it. The virus that can cause cervical cancer, HPV, was by far the most common STD found in the teens who participated in the study. But was it so common because teens weren’t being safe with their sex? Well, see, that’s what I’m not sure about.
The more research I do on HPV, the more unavoidable it honestly seems. If you catch the strand that causes genital warts, well, then you can see it. However, the kind of HPV that causes cancer does not have any symptoms at all. Girls can get tested for the virus and they can also get the relatively expensive vaccine. However, it seems as though HPV can be spread in almost every way possible. It’s not just through vaginal, anal, and oral sex. It’s through any sort of genital contact. How can condoms help this?
It seems as though the only REAL way to avoid HPV is to find a partner who you can confirm doesn’t have it after making sure that you don’t have it yourself. AND somehow knowing for a FACT that your partner is not cheating. How many teens are going to do this? In fact, how many single people, in general, are going to do this?
So the only other option is apparently this: Oral sex can only be performed with a condom on or dental dam. And sex of course is with a condom. Touching and groping and even cuddling naked, though? OUT OF THE PICTURE.
I DO think that teens need to be taught safe sex to a much higher degree than they are being taught at the moment. My only concern with this study is the fact that most girls had HPV and this virus is starting to seem more and more unavoidable to me each day. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not a big deal, but every consequence of HPV can be amended early on enough that girls can actually stay healthy.
Abnormal cell changes that could indicate cervical cancer can be frozen or removed. Genital warts aren’t pretty, but there is medicine for them. What do you guys think? Are we all blowing HPV out of proportion? Has anything ACTUALLY changed when it comes down to teen girls? Would this study have been exactly the same if it had been conducted in light of HPV ten years ago?
13 Comments
The concept that teaching abstinence somehow makes kids dumber just doesn’t hold water at all. There’s absolutely no reason you couldn’t teach your children the value of abstinence (if that’s what you believe) while also explaining the dangers of STDs and casual sex.
Teaching teens more about sex just makes them want it more - it has the same effect as flashing a big picture of boobs on the wall. It’s going to get their pubescent hormones all hot and bothered anyway.
As to why so many teen girls have STDs? That’s a pretty easy one to answer: there are more sexually promiscuous girls (translation: slutty chicks) than ever before and most teen girls these days have better things to do (e.g. text someone from their cell phone) than actually pay attention during those important health topics.
So, fixing the problem would require parents to raise less skanky, smarter kids. Probably not too likely in this day and age. While our society has grown increasingly high-tech and advanced in many ways, our morals and intelligence, as well as our decency and politeness have declined drastically. I weep for the modern generation and those to follow. Poor shmucks….
If there are more “slutty chicks” than ever before…wouldn’t that mean there are more SLUTTY DUDES than ever before, too?
Also, no need to weep for me, Joe. Everything’s cool ever here.
Joe - thanks for the comment, but that is quasi-douchy. The whole concept of the above is that HPV is almost non-detectable and that both prude and “slutty” chicks can get it. It is b/c of thinking like yours that prevented certain legislation that could have resulted in women getting the vaccine for free.
Joe, with your current charm and thought process, you will undoubtedly be forced to masturbate a lot in lieu of some girl skanky enough to agree to touch the likes of you.
I wish my 6th grade sex ed class had shown boobies.
Your argument that exposing teens to real sex education makes them want sex more is exactly what the government has been doing (this is wrong). And subsequently the reason why STD’s are so common nowadays.
I am from Texas, and the only reason the cervical vaccine was not mandated for all little girls in the state is people like you think all little girls are slutty by nature and would try and get into gangbangs since the worst thing that could happen is not being able to walk the next day, right?
Worse comes to worse, I would rather my sister be a slut than get cervical cancer thank you very much.
Hi Elizabeth. You’ve attacked a deleterious presupposition of modern education, and that is that a person can teach people - most specifically teenagers - what they ought to do. Fortunately, this is not the case. Challenged to define what it means to be human, I think the majority of the population, myself not excluded, will describe free will as intrinsic to existence. That being said, it seems that many educators forget this when they teach sex education (or anything else for that matter.) Ask any good cognitive scientist. You can’t teach someone how to be. You can only demonstrate how things look to you, and hope that they’ll employ your guidance. Teenagers are horny. You can preach abstinence, safe sex or Scientology until you’re blue in the face. But ultimately they’re going to do whatever they want. Because that’s what humans do. The best course of action, in my opinion, is to describe in vivid detail all of the options available, along with evidence concerning the potential consequence, and let people make their own decisions. They’ll do it anyway, HPV be damned. But if the educator seems sincere and non-authoritative, the guidance might go much further. Teenage girls aren’t any more slutty. They’ve just been liberated without many positive role models.
Wow and I thought I liked to hear myself use large words strung about in consecutive sentences! haha
Just kidding Austin, however I think you’ve strayed WAY off the point when you dragged the free will debate into this discussion. We aren’t writing a report for an ethics/phychology class or discussing the ‘deleterious presuppositions’ of underpaid and underappreciated teachers in our school systems.
However, I do think that teenagers nowdays posess the same invincibility complex as they always have, and although there are many who are smart, educated and try to make good choices, the truth is many just dont think that far in advance. The teachers and government have a responsibilty to take into account how the material they are presenting these students is recieved, sure, but these kids are far old enough to understand the risks involved.
Also one of the biggest contributing factors to their actions that has yet to be presented is the media’s glorification of sex andeverything young hollywood, and now girls assume that’s where their worth will come from. Sexy seems to be the new smart. And until we address that, along with these completely hypocritical religious impositions of chastity onto this confused generation, nothing will become any clearer for these young girls.
both Joe and Austin have made some good points. the Free Will thing certainly applies; as does the wreckless influence of the crazy media. girls *do* need positive role models in their relatively newly “liberated” position. but all kids need positive role models.
a significant part of what kept mandated vaccinations from being implemented is the political opinion that the state has no right to force people to do this or that with their body, which i completely agree with. not to say i disagree with the idea of having a vaccine available; don’t get me wrong.
as far as there being more promiscuous girls goes: there’s some truth in that. it’s funny how people attack Joe’s words by mis-stating his point and getting all personal. reminds me of youtube comments.
but seriously, in all fairness, there always has been no shortage of slutty guys either. neither sex is to “blame” for this problem. that’ll get us nowhere fast.
i was wondering the other day if perhaps this report/study is being announced in terms of girls instead of boys because, in a way, it hits-home/has more impact on waking people up than if it were stated the other way around. maybe as a (much needed) scare tactic for boys to be more cautious and be more protected? just a hunch, but seems like people (both boys and girls alike) would take a bit less heed if the statistics were mentioned in terms of boys. who knows. but it’s interesting to think of the PR work that always goes into things. curious what anyone else thinks.
HPV is being blown way out of proportion. The only reason people are freaking out about the statistic is because there is no way to test if guys have it. If it were the same statistic for guys as it was for girls, I don’t think it would be such a big deal. I was diagnosed with it a few months ago, and what most people don’t know is that it can just go away by itself without any treatment and the only way to find out if you have it is through a PAP smear. Yeah it sucks to hear from your doctor that you have an STD, but at the same time, over 70% of women have or have had HPV at some point in their lives. My gyno said she’s only seen like two cases of cervical cancer being caused from HPV in the past ten years. Stop freaking out, it happens. And if you get warts or your cells become abnormal, it can easily be fixed.
According to the CDC, there are over 65 million Americans currently living with an STD, 19 million new STD infections each year, one in three sexually active men and women living with Herpes, and about 50% of all sexually active Americans affected by HPV. One-third of all single and dating Americans now exploring online personal ads (BusinessWeek, 2006) and niche dating has never been hotter at stdromance com
Does any one know any more about this? I am doing a report for it in my health class.
Do you all also realize that HPV can be present in your system even if you have not had sex?
Most all people have some form of HPV.
Also, abstinence only education does not work. You can teach its the safest way to go, but for most people, it isn’t an option.
But, if you really want to be sure that you don’t contract the sexually transmitted form of HPV, don’t have sex! Or get tested…and I really kinda think you should be trusting your partner enough to know whether or not they may have contracted the virus…and if they don’t know, I would hope they would be willing to get tested for you.
I realize people want to protect young adults from having sex, but the truth is that hormones is taking over and all the abstinence classes in the world will not stop people from having sex. The best option, give them the cold hard facts. Tell them the risks and let them know the realities. I lost a family member to AIDS 11 years ago. The fact is they had unprotected sex in a gay relationship and paid for it with their life. I invented the carnival condom bead to promote STI awareness and abstinence in a light hearted way to reach young adults. Check out my site at campuscondomstore.com and see how it can help educate our young adults to save them from a life of pain and misery.
Yes. According to a survey by the famous STD dating site STDcupid.net, the teen girls with std have increased 30% during the past three years.
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