Things I learned as a teen mom: Absolutely nothing you say will stop a teenager from having sex
For thousands of years teenagers have been giving into the urge to procreate, and there is no reason to think that anything you say to them will stop the trend from continuing. I would think that by now most people would have some understanding and acceptance of that idea, but I would be wrong.
I don’t know why, in the twenty-first century, we cling to these Victorian-era mentalities.
Let me talk about my sex-ed experience. I had what I consider to be a pretty “cool” sex-ed teacher. She put up with all of the classes’ typical middle-school giggles and managed to teach us all about our reproductive systems, puberty, and even a bit of stuff about diseases and safe sex. Of course, the “abstinence is the only 100% safe option” mantra was repeated countless times.
The thing is, and something that this article from Time touches on very briefly, is that sex ed only deals with the clinical side of sex, and not the emotional. There was no talk about pain or pleasure, nothing about the very real urge to procreate we were about to experience, and nothing suggesting that we *gasp* almost certainly would have more than one sexual partner in our lifetimes.
The closest the classroom instructions got to the emotional was that sex was an act only for someone who was mature, and you should save sex for someone you love.
So there I was, probably like countless other girls, with a head full of curiosity, a fascination with the forbidden, and burning desire in my pants. Oh but sex is for someone I love, and I have to be mature…*bing!!*
That’s when the teenage brain makes up any logic necessary to permit the sex act.
“well, I do love this person”
“I am pretty mature for my age”
Forget the influence of the media or peer pressure, a teenager can come up with a reason to have sex all on their own.
To the people still trying to push abstinence-only sex ed: save your breath. Trying to teach kids to wait until marriage is like trying to teach a fish to breath air. It’s just not natural.
Oh, and if you don’t just want to take my word for it here is a 164-page scientific evaluation on the effectiveness of $87-million-annually Abstinence Education Program in the US. Here’s a taste: “Program and control group youth were equally likely to have remained abstinent.”
Big surprise.
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2 Comments on “Things I learned as a teen mom: Absolutely nothing you say will stop a teenager from having sex”
First, let me applaud your bravery and intelligence in speaking about this topic. You can definitely speak from experience on this subject.
Our biology cannot be removed from the subject of teen pregnancy. While each of us has free will, each of us is also the product of countless generations of parents, each of whom most likely started having sex in their teens. Those who had the strongest sex drives passed along those genes, even in the most difficult of situations. Those without that strong urge were more likely to make safer decisions, and so they didn’t pass along their genes. Look around the world at the less industrial cultures: most teenaged girls are getting married, let alone having sex.
We also have to look at our own history. Today we talk about teen pregnancy like it is some kind of social plague. In the 19th century, young women were afraid of being labelled “old maid” if they weren’t married and pregnant by the age of 20. That pretty much means teen pregnancy was a happy expectation, at least if it happened after marriage. Often the pregnancy hastened the marriage. One of my grandmothers was just barely 14 when she married my grandfather, and she had her first child less than a year later. There was no stigma attached to this. It was expected. See my paragraph above about biology.
British colonial law gave us our relatively young age of consent of 14 because that’s when girls of their time (four centuries ago) physically matured, became attractive to men, and also became attracted TO men. Emotional maturity of the boys and girls in question had little to do with their law: increasing the colonial population, and cutting down on court cases, probably did have something to do with their decision.
From my own perspective, an undiagnosed brain tumour was limiting my libido during my adolescent years. I could actually keep myself under control and almost always treat the girls around me with respect. To sum up the result: they were NOT interested in me. A friend of mine later confided in me that the girls of our circle thought of me as a good choice for a husband (in about a dozen or so years), but not for a boyfriend.
Besides being completely disappointed by the young women of my peer group, it gave me a tonne of insight into just how driven and shallow are the sexual decisions of teenaged girls.
I KNEW the boys of my age were driven and shallow. That was obvious to me from their actions and conversations, and it seemed to be expected of them. Sometimes I was disgusted by their behaviour, and sometimes I was angered by the stupidity of the girls who were attracted to the worst of the boys.
Soon enough, I was in a very small minority of teenagers NOT having sex. This was not a conscious decision to abstain, but rather my unattractiveness and the decision not to make it a priority in my life. Without my brain tumour, those two factor would probably have been different, and it is possible I could have been a teen father.
I was fortunate enough to have been raised by enlightened parents whom had no illusions about what kids could, would and probably were getting up to. That being said, we were also well informed as to the various things that could result from sex. But like all things in this world, the only two sureties in life are death and taxes, the rest ,despite the best laid plans is all really a crap shoot.
Knowing the realities of safe sex, true love, maturity etc. are a help but y’all HORMONES have control of most of our brain cells and shit happens, it is what we make of our situations that matters in the end.