Conservative naivety does teenagers no favours
April 6, 2004
Society is already shirking its obligations towards the sexual education
of our young people, writes Mia Freedman.
It seems conservative baby boomer parents are concerned about teenagers
having sex. At the weekend, the Health Minister, Tony Abbott, outlined a
frightening new government policy that would see parents able to access
their teenagers' medical records until age 16, up from 14.
##### Parents and grandparents who were very sexually active in the
sixties, no doubt. :-) ...As the old saying goes, "There is no prude like
a reformed whore.####
This head-in-the-sand approach is not only naive in the extreme, it's
dangerous. It is also incorrect. Doctors are not pushing contraception on
teenagers. To suggest the threat of parents having access to their medical
records will promote teen abstinence is ridiculous.
####
True. Not only don't doctors push contraceptives on teenagers, some
refuse to prescribe them to
unmarried teenagers. A GP has a choice of treatment of patients other
than in an actual emergency. In normal circumstances, he is not required
to treat drinkers or smokers if doesn't wish to, let alone unmarried
teenagers seeking contraceptives.
Of course, nothing stopping them from going to another GP.
#####
Condoms are available in supermarkets and chemists with no proof of age
required. By invading the medical privacy of teenagers, all we will do is
take away a responsible source of information and help. If their privacy
can't be guaranteed, teenage girls will simply stop having Pap smears and
getting checked for STDs. Who knows where they'll end up if they
accidentally get pregnant and they don't feel they can confide in their
parents.
####
Also true
####
Are we going to force them back into backyards? Will that be the legacy
left by this alarmingly conservative Government?
There are other signs, too, that there is, disturbingly, a general mood of
regression when it comes to issues surrounding young women and sex. With
the Bulldogs rape allegations has come renewed acceptance of questioning
the sexual history of an alleged rape victim. On Sunday, the columnist
Miranda Devine questioned women's rights to wear certain clothes and
remain safe from sexual harassment. And the ABC broadcaster Sally Loane
and the Australian Families Association have been complaining that
magazines aimed at teens and young women should remove their sexual
content and stop encouraging girls to think about sex before they're ready
for it.
Ten years ago, the most explicit material a teenager was likely to see was
an old copy of Playboy in an older brother's bottom drawer. Today, if
teenagers have access to a computer, they have unlimited access to the
most extraordinary sexual content you could imagine. If they don't go
looking for it, it will find them in unsolicited spam.
#####
Also true, and rest assured that if they don't have an email account,
their friends will show them where to find the info they want or provide
printouts. Unfortunately, a lot of the info on the net isn't accurate.
There are plenty of places on the net where aspiring bomb makers can
find out how to make explosives, but as most people know these sites often
don't include any safety precautions.
A real cynic might suspect that security services of some countries
might provide
some fairly questionable info as a way to deal with terrorists. After
all, how often do we read of terrorists who manage to blow their bomb
factory up, or whose bombs detonate prematurely? :-)
No proof of this of course, just a passing thought. There might be
degrees of "entrapment"...
#####
Magazines are publicly accountable and governed by national censorship
guidelines. The internet is not.
Most parents are uncomfortable talking to their kids about sex. Most
teenagers would rather stay ignorant than ask their mum and dad the
extremely detailed sex questions they want answered.
####
Also true, and in many cases the parents may not know the answer either.
There is an old joke about someone had an Irish neighbor who had a kid
every year who noticed that
she was no longer having one a year. The Irishwoman replied "Yes,
begorrah, a bloke at work
finally told Paddy what was causing them and I could get pills to stop
them coming.
####
As for schools, there is no uniform sex education program across the
country or even the state. While some schools cover all aspects of sex
education and sexuality in detail, others gloss over key areas - Catholic
schools don't teach teenagers anything about contraception, for example,
or dispense with it entirely, as is their right.
Who fills the breach? To believe that teenagers are not curious about sex
is absurd. Girls, in particular, are in a hurry to learn about the next
stage of their lives and in the teen years, this inevitably includes sex.
If they're not doing it, chances are they know someone who is.
Try lecturing a teenager about abstinence and consequences and see how far
you get. Several years ago, Dolly published a virginity special and saw
sales fall dramatically. Teenagers do not want to be preached to. They
believe they get enough of that at home and at school.
It's also important to note that acquiring knowledge about a subject does
not mean the teenager in question is about to act on that knowledge. Kids
just like to know things. It makes them feel grown-up and empowered.
It's also wrong to assume magazines promote sex. Take a look at a sex
story in teen magazines and you will find it dominated by statistical and
anecdotal reasons to abstain: first-person accounts by teenagers who've
had sex and caught an STD, or been dumped by their boyfriend or fallen
pregnant. Sex is not portrayed as being cool or aspirational, rather as a
big step with equally big consequences.
####
Doubt that this is always the case
#####
In a perfect world, no one would even think about having sex until they
were in a loving, committed relationship and over 16. It is a sad fact
that kids as young as 13 are having sex. If magazines for young women
stopped publishing information about the potential emotional and physical
consequences of this, these teenagers would not stop having sex.
####
Or younger.
/////////
{{ excerpt}}
Parenthood
Youngest Mother
The youngest mother whose history is authenticated is Lina Medina, who
age of 5 years and 7 months. The child was raised as her brother and only
discovered that Lina was his mother when he was 10. And you thought
teenage pregnancies complicate matters.
Girls such as this suffer from a hormonal imbalance, or precocious
puberty, which is characterized by premature secondary sex characteristic
development. In a small percentage ovarian and uterine development
appropriate for fertility also occurs, making pregnancy possible. Lina,
for instance, began menstruating at age 3.
The full details of this event was witnessed by Edmundo Escomel and
written up in the Dictionary of Medical Science, May 1939. For the
original French text click here. For an English translation, click here.
Youngest Father
Sean Stewart, of Sharnbrook, England, became the father of a healthy 6 lb.
baby boy on January 20, 1998, at age 12. He was given the day off from
school to be at the bedside of his teenage girlfriend and next-door
neighbor Emma Webster when she gave birth. Described by Emma's parents as
"mature-looking", the precocious youth first told them he was 14, but
later confessed his real age when news of the pregnancy broke. Shocked at
first, Sean vowed to stand by both his girlfriend and his child, saying,
"I want to be there for the baby and to be part of it all." As for what
the future holds for the young couple, Emma said she planned to continue
her education and raise the child herself with the support of her parents.
[more at]
<http://www.sexualrecords.com/WSRprev.html>
////////////////////////////////////////////////
Taking away the access to information simply drives kids underground or
online.
Mia Freedman is the editor-in-chief of Dolly and editor of Cosmopolitan.
<http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/04/05/1081017100518.html>
Gerry 49M SOCAL USA
Shibumi? In the martial arts, it means effortless perfection. In art and home
decorating, it means in harmony with nature. Subdued natural colors, soft music
tones, and the sounds of falling water.
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