Two friends were talking about birth control. One friend was trying to discuss the various options like condoms and birth control pills, when the other announced, “I use a fail-safe birth control.” “What do you use?” the first friend asked. The other’s reply was simple. “It’s called a pair of pants!”
That’s a simple solution, but for most teens it is not that simple. There is so much pressure and influence on teens to be sexually active—and it is not all from their peers. Movies and television have normalized the idea of teens having sex. Sex is sung about and talked about openly. Advertisements for the HPV vaccination make it sound like it is just assumed that teens will have sex.
In great-grandmother’s day, the most common form of pre-marital birth control was a chaperone. It was difficult to do more than hold hands with Aunt Harriet looking on. Queen Victoria’s mother slept with her every night until she was married. Unless she was a heavy sleeper, this would definitely have prevented the little princess from sneaking out at night.
Boys and girls today have more freedom, more choices, and more danger. Sex education should include information on how to use those choices responsibly. Any program we endorse, whether as educators, church leaders, or parents, should have the welfare of teens as the first consideration.
Teens need to be empowered to say no to sex if they want to, and to respect the boy or girl who says no. They need to be taught safety measures to prevent rape or sexual abuse—and what to do if it happens. They should be taught the emotional consequences of sexual activity and pregnancy. They should also be taught about birth control and disease prevention and treatment, not in a scare tactic way, but as facts.
Let’s not play “Truth or Consequences” with sex ed. Let’s teach the truth, the facts, in hopes of avoiding dangerous consequences of uninformed sexual activity among teens.
