teenage sex

There are many parents who believe that if they don't discuss sex with their children, then their kids won't engage in sexual behavior. That is simply a myth. Your children are being exposed to sex multiple times every day.

The change from child to adult is an especially dangerous time for adolescents in our society. From their earliest years, children watch television shows and movies that insist that "sex appeal" is a personal quality that people need to develop to the fullest. Teenagers are at risk -- not only from AIDS and STDs -- but from this sort of mass-market encouragement.

Sexual content is regularly marketed to younger children, pre-teens, and teens

and this affects young people's sexual activity and beliefs about sex. According to the fact sheet, Marketing Sex to Children, from the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, children are bombarded with sexual content and messages:

• In 2003, 83% of the episodes of the top 20 shows among teen viewers contained some sexual content, including 20% with sexual intercourse.
• 42% of the songs on the top CDs in 2004 contained sexual content -- 19% included direct descriptions of sexual intercourse.
• On average, music videos contain 93 sexual situations per hour, including eleven "hard core" scenes depicting behaviors such as intercourse and oral sex.
• Girls who watched more than 14 hours of rap music videos per week were more likely to have multiple sex partners and to be diagnosed with a sexually transmitted disease.
• Before parents raised an outcry, Abercrombie and Fitch marketed a line of thong underpants decorated with sexually provocative phrases such as "Wink Wink" and "Eye Candy" to 10-year-olds.
• Neilson estimates that 6.6 million children ages 2-11 and 7.3 million teens ages 12-17 watched Justin Timberlake rip open Janet Jackson's bodice during the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show.

TV, movies, and music are not the only influences -- the Internet provides teens with seemingly unlimited access to information on sex as well as a steady supply of people willing to talk about sex with them. Teens may feel safe because they can remain anonymous while looking for information on sex. Sexual predators know this and manipulate young people into online relationships and, later, set up a time and place to meet.

Teens don't need a sexual predator to introduce them to online pornography. It comes to them through porn spam on their e-mail or by inadvertently clicking on a link to a porn site. Through pornography, young people get a twisted view of what constitutes normal relationships. In fact, pornography is directly related to sexual abuse, rape, and sexual violence.

Just as sexual preferences are learned behavior, most or all sexual deviations are learned behaviors, with pornography having the power of conditioning into sexual deviancy. Pornography can be addictive, with the individual becoming desensitized to 'soft' porn and moving on to dangerous images of bondage, rape, sadomasochism, torture, group sex and violence.

At the very least, addiction to pornography destroys relationships by dehumanizing the individual and reducing the capacity to love. At worst, some addicts begin to act out their fantasies by victimizing others, including children and animals.

Teens also have their own cultural beliefs about what is normal sexual behavior. Although most teenage girls believe that sex equals love, other teens -- especially boys -- believe that sex is not the ultimate expression of the ultimate commitment, but a casual activity and minimize risks or serious consequences. That is, of course, what they see on TV. The infrequent portrayals of sexual risks such as disease and pregnancy trivialize the importance of sexual responsibility.

Other misconceptions include:

• all teens are having sex
• having sex makes you an adult
• something is wrong with an older teen (17-19) who is not having sex
• a girl can't get pregnant if she's menstruating
• a girl can't get pregnant if it's her first time
• you are a virgin as long as you don't have sexual intercourse -- oral sex doesn't count

Clearly, parents are in a tough spot. But there are some key ideas that help make sense of things.