Posted on 01/05/2006 6:54:35 AM PST by Millee
Most sexually active teenage girls know relatively little about sexually transmitted diseases until it is too late, according to new research.
In a survey of 300 adolescent girls in the Pittsburgh area, Carnegie Mellon University researchers found that girls who reported having been diagnosed with an STD knew more about that particular disease than other girls, but did not know more about the other diseases.
The findings are published in the January edition of the Journal of Adolescent Health.
On average, with the exception of HIV/AIDS, the teens did not know many basic facts about STDs, said Julie Downs, lead author of the study.
"Our schools have decided to focus on AIDS, and that has come at a cost," she said. "Teens just aren't being taught about these other diseases, and so they may come away with a false sense of confidence."
The study's findings are troubling because teenagers who know little about STDs are more likely to engage in risky sexual behavior and to delay the treatment of STDs, the researchers said.
And the consequences can be severe. Genital herpes, for example, cannot be cured. Genital warts can render a woman more susceptible to cervical cancer, and chlamydia can lead to infertility.
Yeah but the park authorities hate seeing 40 year old women using the swings.
Wrong! These things are neither intuitive, nor readily available information. They need to be taught in school. This for one, is not the fault of the left, but rather those religious fanatics who associate themselves with the right and are so out of touch with reality that they think teaching kids about sex is going to increase the likelihood that they will engage it in.
All the while, they damage America and America's reputation abroad as millions die from diseases that would be easily preventable through teaching people how to prevent it.
Of course, it would make them feel uncomfortable and squirmy, so what are a few million lives in comparison to that?
"I always thought that "Safe Sex" was when both I and the girl were locked in seperate bank vaults."
Laz...don't tell anyone, but there's this hole in the vault you're in...right behind the stacks of $20 bills. It leads into the other vault. It's a secret.
Why do you believe this is the job of the government? I thought most conservatives wanted government out of our lives?
"But she knew how to get pregnant when she did it. She made a decision to ignore the risk and do it anyway. Why? She wasn't taught to say "No"."
Actually, according to many repeated sex surveys of teenagers, there are still teenage girls who think "I can't get pregnant the first time!". Your assumption of "She knew how to get pregnant" is sadly naive.
Teenagers are stupid. We should try to remember how stupid and naive we all were at 14-16.
I was taught abstinence. Growing up in a strict Catholic family, I had no other education than abstinence, except for some "Horrible Results of VD" film in high school biology. But when I "fell in love" at 17, all that flew out the window. Luckily, no teenage pregnancies resulted. But my religious upbringing was no match for my hormones.
Abstinence is nice...it's just not very grounded in reality...the 'reality' being that teens throughout history have had sex, despite the best intentions of prevention by their elders.
That's ludicrous.
Perhaps you recall the "Heather Has Two Mommies" furor of a few years ago?
Geez, I am sick of the hysterics. Maybe it's time for me to step back from FR again for a while, I'm getting fed up with the nutbars.
Yup you've bought into its all about Aids and Pregnancy... Not the literally dozens of sexually transmitted diseases, many of which are not prevented by barrier birth control!
For some reason sexual openess seems to occur in cycles. Look at art from ancient India or China and you will see how incredibly sexed up their cultures were. Today they are quite conservative about the issue. The same has been true of Europe in the past. An interesting phenomenon.
Much more poignant is the difference between the prevalence of violence in European entertainment as opposed to American. More breasts = less blood and goar.
"Why do you believe this is the job of the government? I thought most conservatives wanted government out of our lives?"
Good question. If I had children, I'd make sure they had this information myself. I'm not bashful or embarassed about sex.
In this country, right or wrong, we have public schools, where most of our children get their education. Even if I have taught my own children the comprehensive sex education information I want them to have, I want the kids they encounter to have the information as well. That protects my children, too, even though I have taught them.
You see, I don't trust the parents of the other kids to have taught them this information.
"The pill doesn't prevent STDs. Maybe you need a sex ed refresher course."
Maybe you need a refresher course on post-reading and sexual culture.
The question was (to paraphrase) "Why weren't our parents' generation as sexually active as today's?".
My answer was that the Pill fueled the Sexual Revolution of the late 60s/70s that helped shape the sexual mores many teens have today. No claims about the Pill and STDs were made by me.
"Teenagers are stupid. We should try to remember how stupid and naive we all were at 14-16.
"
I'd use the word "ignorant" instead of "stupid." It's important to teach them things, so they won't be ignorant any longer. That's the point that seems to be missed.
You don't trust parents but you trust the government-run schools? LOL. I can tell you don't have kids in public schools.
Can you site a referance to this?
Then why weren't STD's rampant back in the day of our parents and grandparents?
The one thing I never learned in Drivers Ed was how fast I could go over the speed limit and not get caught. I guess they figured that was an implied consent.
One of my friends taught sex ed to teen mothers. Her take was that the girls were incapable of saying "No". They wouldn't take the Pill because they couldn't remember it or afford it and they didn't use condoms because "he doesn't like it". Their birth control method was hope. The problem was not ignorance of methodology and tools. They simply never learned to abstain.
Recommended for anyone with a teenager..
http://www.americandecency.org/resources/pricetag.htm
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