Mind your body issue on yesterday's The Straits Times shouted a proclamation: Dangerous Liaisons- more teens are having sex and infections are on the rise. In this article, it states of how teen sex is becoming more common among the young ones of today.
"It's almost like no one's talking about it but everyone's doing it."- 17yr secondary school student. the page highlights the dangers and the statistics of the number of sexually transmitted infections(STI) among teenagers such as human papillomavirus(HPV) and cervical cancer. last year's figure hit a high of 820. in addition, there were 833 pregnancies in girls 19 years and below, 16 of whom were 15 years old. there were also 1363 teenage abortions.
In a survey of 600 youths, 13% of those between 16-23 years old were sexually active. within this group, 23% did not use contraception.
the article also mentions of a mis-informed generation whereby the the "school's programme was more on contraception and childbirth and the screening of a "horrific video of a women giving birth." - Sarah, now 17, who lost her virginity when she was 14 and still having sex with several men. "i loved the guy i lost my virginity to."
discussing about communications, to have effective ones that are supposed to have an impact on teenagers, to advise abstinence instead.. how are should schools go about it? Sarah also mentioned that she "learnt about sex mostly from the Internet. There are things you want to know and you Google it." given such situation, how do you propose to insert sex education into a teenager's life? i think the modern media is not helping much... how can sex education be taught through media? so as to convey effective lessons to the young ones of today?
"i don't want to be like my mother and have one man my entire life. but i also don't want to be the woman where half the men at my wedding are people i've slept before" - Sarah
8 comments:
i read that article too! and i was shocked by the figures. oh god. what is our world turning into?!
what sarah said about using the internet to google to "learnt about sex" was not a surprise. with modern technology and the easy acessibility of the internet in any place, teenagers are exposed to everything under the sun! indeed, the media is a very powerful tool in sending messages across. And in this case, the wrong message. :(
how to avoid this is a tough question. the school education is very important, not forgetting that families do play a role too. together with education and guiding from the parents, i believe that we can teach our teenagers to control their 'desires'.
Although everything can be googled, the reliability of the sources remains unreliable. The internet is such a vast network and we cannot possibly monitor every single thing and we will never know what teenagers can access to.
Thus, schools should provide realistic sex education in order to educate the teenagers. The current sex education system is very much textbook based. The emphasis is also weak. There should be trained personnel teaching such topics instead of teachers as different teachers may feel uncomfortable with the topic and thus omit certain information that students should learn.
In an Asian society such as this,open discussion about sex between children and their parents usually never happens.
What you get is a society,so bottled up in curiosity in the unknown that they justify what they do under the guise of "learning".
I got no problem with teens having sex,but they got to be responsible for their actions.Unfortunately,many aren't.
Someone should educate "sarah" haha..I do agree the damaging effects media has on the society. e.g. in every hollywood movie, Love is associated with Sex. It seems that Love without "immediate sex" is not counted as Love!
it is not a easy problem to tackle. somewhat i am not surprised by the figures.
i agree with Yijing that indeed let's not forget that families play a role. in fact, i believe one's moral principles very much is shaped by the family culture in which we grow up in. thus it is impt to spend time to inculcate the right values in our children since young. it is not easy in our society now when everyone is super busy. it takes sacrifice indeed. but it is worth it.
Sensitive topic being discussed. But we should all take an open-minded approach here.
It is inevitable that youth nowadays will learn about sex at a much younger age than those of an earlier generation. And of course, curious minds and hands will go to great lengths to satisfy their lack of knowledge in this area.
As you have mentioned, what we do not know nowadays, we simply google it. Google's success story has been simply amazing and it will continue to be further integrated into our lifes, I'm sure. The fact to consider is that, how can a search engine offer people different perspective to the same issue. It is impossible for them to do that.
Thus, we should also exercise caution and research on a topic based on various sources to get a clearer picture of the issue. Be it for sex education or for any other matters.
indeed it is scary.teenagers are going wild! recently, there are so many articles on teenagers making out in public places too.
I agree that education plays a very important role. I feel that it is essential that teenagers are informed of the consequences of their actions. However, the final decision lies with the teenagers themselves. Whether they love and respect themselves or they must be prepared to face the consequences.
Abstinence is best if you're not married. It's not about morals or anything, but why even have sex when you know that everytime you do it, you can produce a kid? Unless you're fine with abortion or have the resources to raise a child, please control your urges, people. Our reproductive capabilities should be respected and taken seriously.
If schools are teaching sex ed, they should be frank about it and cover all avenues. I remember when I had sex ed in school, it was a waste of my time because the facilitator was too meek to discuss anything of substance. If the government is serious about educating teens, they should put more effort into making sure their sex education system is effective. Straightforward, totally honest, unbiased, and tactful. That's the key.
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