sexEdvice

_{Unpublished post, originally written 12/31/08 for my now defunct state of sex education blog on gURL.}

For a number of years, I worked with Planned Parenthood. My main job was to answer teens’ sex questions on the organization’s website.

Most of the questions were earnest, but some were downright hostile.

Amidst inquiries about how to use a condom or put in a tampon, I’d get the occasional, “WHY DOES PLANNED PARENTHOOD KILL BABIES???? YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF!!!!”

Of course, Planned Parenthood does not kill babies, but one of the many things that some of its health centers do is provide abortions. Because Planned Parenthood is the most famous organization to offer such a service, it attracts a lot of hate mail from those opposed to allowing women this reproductive choice.

I was reminded how deeply anti-Planned Parenthood feelings run while reading a recent article on sex education in Alaska (a hot topic since Sarah Palin stepped onto the scene).

The article was talking about the efforts of a college student to get more funding for sex education. It mentioned that “University of Alaska Anchorage junior Amber Sawyer heads a group called Vox, Voices for Planned Parenthood. It is circulating a Planned Parenthood petition that has collected 1,100 names since late August.”

It was a pretty harmless reference that wasn’t central to the article. Still, it managed to elicit a passionate response from one reader who left this as a comment:

“It always comes back to Planned Parenthood ,the company that stands to profit greatly off of unplanned pregnancies, pushing their agenda of teaching kids its OK just use a condom. It disgusts me that this company gets involved with pushing there agenda and making a mockery of those that tell their kids abstinence is the best form of birth control. It is obvious that teaching alternative forms of sex ed benefits Planned Parenthood. The only sure method to prevent unwanted pregnancies is abstinence and that will not make them a dime.”

The claim that Planned Parenthood encourages teen pregnancy to line its pockets is nothing new, but that doesn’t mean it’s true. Planned Parenthood, a not-for-profit agency, is more likely to cover the costs for health care than it is to run laughing to the bank.

Unfortunately, it’s not only random commenters who twist the truth when attacking this organization. Recently John Weaver, a strategist for John McCain’s presidential campaign called Planned Parenthood “one of the most radical pro-abortion groups in the country.”

Wanting to keep abortion safe, legal and accessible is not the same as being “radically pro-abortion.” (What does that even mean?)

Weaver’s comment reinforced the idea that the only thing Planned Parenthood does is provide abortions. This is obviously incorrect. The president of Planned Parenthood responded to Weaver’s statement by clarifying exactly what Planned Parenthood does:

“Ninety seven percent of Planned Parenthood’s services are focused on prevention, including family planning, contraception, and testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections. Three percent of Planned Parenthood services are abortion care.”

This is important information. It is also important to realize that:

• Planned Parenthood tries to prevent unplanned pregnancies and hopes that every pregnancy is a wanted pregnancy.
• As a non-profit organization, they do not benefit financially from teen pregnancies. In fact, they tend to offer heavily subsidized health services that young women can afford.
• Not all Planned Parenthood health centers even provide abortions. Many just offer gynecological and pre- and post-natal care.

In its ninety year history, Planned Parenthood has helped countless women facing reproductive health challenges. The fact that it is constantly attacked is a sad sign that this country has a long way to go towards accepting the importance and scope of women’s health needs.

What is your impression of Planned Parenthood? Have you had any personal experiences with them?

_{Unpublished post, originally written 12/24/08 for my now defunct state of sex education blog on gURL.}

If you were in the middle of a crisis, who would you talk to about it? Would mom and dad be at the top of your list? Or would it be a sibling, friend or stranger?

Everyone is going to have a different answer, yet parents often assume that their kids aren’t talking to them–even if they are. I know my parents thought that! In fact, to this day, I still try to convince my dad that as a teen I wasn’t harboring a secret life that he knew nothing about. But he assumed that because I copped to smoking cigarettes and sleeping over at boyfriend’s houses, then I must have been hiding the more serious stuff.

I didn’t tell my parents absolutely everything, of course, but I also wasn’t secretly giving birth at prom, or hiding a drug addiction.

And I’m not an anomaly. Plenty of teens are talking to mom and dad about plenty of things. For example, according to the ACLU,

“Even in the absence of any legal requirement, most teens who are pregnant and seeking an abortion involve a parent in their decision. The younger the teenager, the more likely her parents are to know about her decision: ninety percent of adolescents fourteen or younger report that at least one of their parents knew of their decision.”

And the one’s who don’t tell a parent? Well, they usually have a pretty good reason for avoiding the subject—say, because they are a victim of incest or fear being kicked out of the house.

It’s not just the biggies like abortion of course, and I’d love to hear your thoughts about what you share with your folks and what you don’t. If you don’t share with them, why not?

_{Unpublished post, originally written 12/24/08 for my now defunct state of sex education blog on gURL.}

Kids are coming out as gay and lesbian younger than ever before. This has benefits and drawbacks. Though many teens no longer have to live a lie, GLBT youth are still likely to be victims of both physical and verbal harassment.

Indeed, a study done by the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network found that nine out of ten GLBT teens had been bullied for their sexual orientation. Equally disturbing are the facts that young men who have sex with men are contracting AIDS in huge numbers, and that GLBT teens are three times more likely to attempt suicide than are their straight peers. Additionally, a high number of young GLBT teens have been victims of sexual assault, and many have significantly older partners.

Is this a crisis. Yes. Is life worse for gay teens today than it used to be? No.

For all the challenges queer teens face, today’s world also presents them with opportunities impossible to imagine even a decade ago. Despite the setbacks of California’s Proposition 8, gay marriage is a reality for the first time ever.

Hollywood has moved from showing gays only as pathetic or predatory to portraying them in a range of multidimensional roles. Combine this with the fact that GLBT teens now have access to gay/straight alliances, community programs and Internet support, and we have a much more encouraging future to offer queer youth.

But that’s just my opinion. What do you think? Is it easier to be a GLBT teen today than it was in the past?

_{Unpublished post, originally written 12/24/08 for my now defunct state of sex education blog on gURL.}

Teens and sex: it’s a topic that never seems to run out of steam. One minute we are hit with a story about Jamie Lynn Spears’ baby, and the next we are told that Bristol Palin is hot on her trail.

If that doesn’t catch our attention, reports that one in four America girls carry an STD, or warnings that access to Internet porn will eternally thwart a teen’s development, are sure to do so.

But do these headline grabbers really tell the whole story? Not by a long shot.

Sure, some teens are uneducated and uninformed. Some make bad choices, and some have questionable morals. But plenty are on the right track.

For example, a recent study done by the Centre for Sexual Health & HIV Research at the University College London found that teens are actually more likely to use condoms than are adults. And while the American teen birthrate is shockingly high, it is nowhere near its 1954 level.

Though it is often assumed that teens are more sexually active today than they were at any other point in history, this assumption handily ignores both reality and the past.

Generation Y did not invent the concept of underage sex. Colonial youth engaged in something called “bundling,” where it was considered acceptable for young couples to lie in bed together to “stay warm.”

Kids in the fifties were getting it on in the back seat of dad’s car, and seventies teens took advantage of one of the safest periods of sex in history: syphilis had long since been cured, morals had relaxed, the birth control pill was an option, abortion was legal, and AIDS was a decade away.

Today’s teens often get blamed for their promiscuity, skewed values and risk taking as if their lifestyle choices are completely novel. Really though, while the cast and setting are ever changing, much about the plot remains the same.

_{Unpublished post, originally written 12/24/08 for my now defunct state of sex education blog on gURL.}

When you think of a pregnant teen, who comes to mind?  For a lot of people, it wouldn’t be a church going, purity ball attending evangelical Christian teen.

However, an article published this fall in the New Yorker explains that in a lot of cases this is exactly who is getting pregnant! The article reported on the findings of a survey done by Mark Regnerus, a sociologist at the University of Texas at Austin. Here are some of the things he discovered:

• 74% of white evangelical adolescents said that they believed in abstaining from sex before marriage.

Yet…

• Evangelical teenagers are more sexually active than Mormons,
  mainline Protestants, and Jews.
• White evangelical
  Protestants are among the youngest teens to first have sex, on average first losing their virginity at 16.
• Evangelical
  Protestant teenagers are significantly less likely than other groups
  to use contraception. Evangelicals are also among
  the most likely to believe that using contraception will send the
  message that they are looking for sex.
• Only half of sexually active
  teenagers in the study who said that they sought guidance from God or the Scriptures
  when making a tough decision reported using contraception every time.
• Alternately, sixty-nine per cent of sexually active youth who say that
  they most often follow the counsel of a parent or another trusted adult
  consistently use protection.

With the recent rise in teen pregnancy rates, it is important to look at all the contributing factors. However, I have a sneaky feeling that this information isn’t going to sit well with the abstinence-only, no sex before marriage crowd.

What do you think of this piece of the puzzle?  Does it ring true to you?

_{Unpublished post, originally written 12/2/08 for my now defunct state of sex education blog on gURL.}

December 1st was the 20th World AIDS Day. It also marked almost 30
years since the emergence of the AIDS crisis. Yet, despite the fact
that AIDS has been something we’ve all grown up with, and something we
know how to prevent, the virus continues to affects millions of people
around the world — a lot of them women and girls.
 
But
for a lot of people, AIDS hasn’t shaken the early stigma and
association with certain “risk groups” like gay men, IV drug users and
sex workers. 

This was a stigma that was reinforced as the crisis emerged in the
1980s. In fact, in 1987, President Reagan’s administration told the
public that if they didn’t fall into one of those categories, then they
had nothing to fear from AIDS.

The following year, Cosmopolitan Magazine published an article from
a doctor assuring women they could not contract AIDS from vaginal
sex with men!

Even today, I see this attitude.  A student of mine, a man in
his 20s, just got his first AIDS test this year, despite having had
unprotected sex with many women.  Why had he waited? “I”m not
gay,” he said. “And I don’t sleep with dirty girls.”

Regardless
this guy should have known that anyone can get AIDS, and tragically a
lot of people still do.  Today, a lot of those people are actually
young women.  Here are some facts from the CDC:

• The largest number of HIV/AIDS diagnoses during recent years was for women aged 15–39.
• High-risk heterosexual contact was the source of 80% of these newly diagnosed infections.
• According to a recent CDC study of more than 19,500 patients
  with HIV in 10 US cities, women were slightly less likely than men to
  receive prescriptions for the most effective treatments for HIV
  infection.
• A woman is significantly more likely than a man to contract HIV infection during vaginal intercourse.

AIDS
is not someone else’s problem and the crisis isn’t over.  So take
care of yourself. If you are sexually active, use condoms and get tested.

Do any of you have experiences with HIV/AIDS you’d like to share?

_{Unpublished post, originally written 12/18/08 for my now defunct state of sex education blog on gURL.}

The other day the New York Times ran an op-ed by Charles M. Blow lamenting the advent of hook-up culture.

The piece cited a study by the Washington research group, Child Trends, which found that high school seniors don’t date seriously. The writer concluded that instead they were simply hooking up without commitment.

He then talked to Kathleen Bogle, the author the 2008 book, Hooking Up: Sex, Dating and Relationships on Campus. She helped him understand that, “Under the old model, you dated a few times and, if you really liked the person, you might consider having sex. Under the new model, you hook up a few times and, if you really like the person, you might consider going on a date.”

I have to say, this reeks of alarmism.

In fact, the next day I was indulging in a guilty pleasure and reading the same newspaper’s wedding section. In it, I came a across a newly married couple in their fifties. They had actually been together thirty years before, but things had been different then. As the woman reminisced of their 1975 romance, “People didn’t date. You hung out and then you slept together.”

Um, that sounds a lot like this new phenomenon of hooking up that folks find so shocking.

People love to act as if teens today are loser morally than they were at any other time in history. But if history can teach us anything, it’s that when it comes to young people and sex, trends may come and go, but we aren’t really reinventing the wheel.

_{Unpublished post, originally written 12/15/08 for my now defunct state of sex education blog on gURL.}

A few years ago, we were warned that oral sex was being used in great numbers by teens trying to protect themselves from STDs and “technical” virginity loss.

Then another study informed us that the first study had been flawed. In fact, this later study said, most teens were not actually substituting blow jobs for vaginal sex.

Now an anal sex study, that sounds suspiciously much like the original oral sex one, has come out. According to the researchers, unprotected anal sex on the rise among straight teens.

According to ABC News,

“Researchers at the Bradley Hasbro Children’s Research Center in Rhode Island suggested that anal sex is on the rise among teens and young adults, particularly those who have unprotected vaginal sex. Experts say girls and young women…are often persuaded to try such sexual behavior for the wrong reasons — to please a partner, to have sex without the risk of pregnancy or to preserve their virginity. But many don’t understand the health consequences.”

In light of the change of heart on oral, I won’t be shocked if somewhere down the line we subsequently hear that this study wasn’t totally on the mark.

_{Unpublished post, originally written 12/16/08 for my now defunct state of sex education blog on gURL.}

A new study done by researchers at the University of British Columbia just found something that might surprise a lot of people: teen lesbians are at a great risk of pregnancy.

According to the study,

“In 1992, LGB students were two to seven times more likely to have been pregnant or caused a pregnancy than their straight peers; in 2003, they were still more than twice as likely to be involved in a pregnancy.”

They attribute some of this to girls being the victims of discrimination and found that lesbian and bisexual girls who were harassed at school were much more likely to get pregnant than those who weren’t.

The relationship between discrimination and pregnancy exists for a few reasons. If a girl is being harassed, then she might try to counter discrimination by sleeping with a guy to quash rumors. Also, girls who are harassed are less likely to feel comfortable coming out and may try to hide their sexual orientation by dating guys. Additionally, girls who are lesbians may be victims of sexual abuse and rape.

Lesbian teens are also at risk or pregnancy because they are less likely to get messages about birth control and preventing pregnancy than are straight girls.

Combine all this with the self-esteem destroying effects of being bullied for being gay–which may result in girls having sex with guys they aren’t interested in, and not insisting on using protection when they do–and you have a lot of explanation for the findings of the UBC researchers.

_{Unpublished post, originally written 12/16/08 for my now defunct state of sex education blog on gURL.}

Teaching middle and high school, I regularly find myself dealing with issues of texting or Facebook gone wild. So I was interested to see that CosmoGirl and the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy had teamed up to produce a report on sex and technology among teens and young people in their twenties.

Here are some of the findings:

• 15% of teens who have sent sexually suggestive content such as text messages, email, photographs or video say they have done so with someone they only know online.
• More than one-third of teens (38%) say exchanging sexy content makes dating or hooking up with others more likely.
• Nearly one-third of teens (29%) believe those exchanging sexy content are “expected” to date or hook up.
• Sending sexually suggestive messages is even more prevalent than sending nude/semi-nude images.
• Nearly half of young people have sent sexually suggestive text messages or email messages to someone.
• Even more have received sexually suggestive messages: 48% of teens and 64% of young adults (56% total). Fully one-third of young teen girls (ages 13-16) have received sexually suggestive messages.
• Teen girls who have sent or posted sexually suggestive content provide a number of reasons why: Two-thirds (66%) say they did so to be “fun or flirtatious,” half (52%) did so as a “sexy present” for their boyfriend, and 40% as a “joke.”
• Even though nearly three-quarters of young people (73% total, 75% of teens, 71% of young adults) say that sending sexually suggestive content “can have serious negative consequences,” nearly one-quarter (22% total, 19% of teens and 26% of young adults) say sending sexually suggestive content is “no big deal.”

So why is this going on? A recent British study on sexual communication on the internet found that a lot of girls said they were sexually more aggressive and bolder in online communication than in person.

That is pretty easy to understand. It is a lot easier to say suggestive things when you don’t have to look at the person and see their reaction. It is also easier to respond to suggestive comments when you have time to craft an answer. Additionally, many people feel like they can be anonymous when they are behind a screen.

There is nothing inherently wrong with any of these beliefs. However, there are risks to be aware of. A big one is that ANYTHING you put on a screen can be saved and forwarded forever. Another is that it is easy to forget that there are real people behind those screens who may be hurt, offended or uncomfortable with what they are receiving. Finally, the trend of sharing passwords with your friends can also lead to real heartache when someone maliciously, or even jokingly, logs in and sends something as if it was coming from you.

The link between sex and technology is here to stay. So we might as well be smart about what we are doing and think about the long term consequences before hitting send.

Have any of you had positive or negative experiences with sex and technology?