One of the things that many parents worry about is if their teen is having sex. Most parents worry about whether their teenagers are behaving responsibly when it comes to sexual intercourse. If truth be told, from worries about unplanned pregnancies to concerns over sexually transmitted diseases, many parents worry about how sexually active their teens are. Undeniably, there is some cause for distress.
The Guttmacher Institute (guttmacher.org) reports that the United States has the highest levels of teen pregnancy amongst other developed nations. This is hardly surprising, since nearly 75% of teenagers have had intercourse by the time they turn 20; only 15% report staying virgins until the age of 21. Also, the Institute reports that teens in the US are more likely to have sex before the age of 15, and to have more than one partner in a year, than teenagers in Sweden, France, Canada and even the United Kingdom! Crazy right, but that’s just the beginning teen sex has become a fantastically huge issue and along with that teen pregnancies. With a teen pregnancy rate that is nearly twice the rate of that in other developed countries; many parents rightfully worry what can happen to their child if they are having sex. Despite a recent government push for abstinence only sex education is schools, teen pregnancy and teen sex statistics remain with popular trends.
According to Pregnant Teen Help.org teen males who have received sex education is connected with having higher rates of condom use and are more consistent in the practice of doing so compared to those who have not. They also reported that the type of sex education, whether abstinence based or about safe sex, did not make a difference in these numbers of teens practicing condom use. About 1 in 5 teen males who had sex did not receive any kind of formal sexual education instruction beforehand. This seems to imply that sex education needs to target teens before they actually begin in engaging in sex to help encourage the use of condoms. The teen condom use statistics, provided by Pregnant Teen Help, also found that older teens or teens in longer sexual relationships were not really into using condoms. Their study concluded that this was because there is a greater likelihood of the teen male’s sexual partner to be using a more effective method to prevent unwanted pregnancy like the birth control pill. Knowing that that may be the case another reason is some teens in long sexual relationships do not use condoms because they feel as though they can trust each other to stay true and faithful or at least use a condom when they are not. Age and relationship length played strong roles in the likelihood of teen condom use.
New teen condom use statistics report than most sexually active teens do not use condoms regularly. In fact, over half of all sexually active boys have said they don’t use them, according to the new teen condom use statistics. This disturbing behavior puts teens at risk for not only unintended pregnancy, but for sexually transmitted diseases. The lack of teen condom use is a likely suspect for why the number of unintended pregnancies and rise in the number of teens with STDs continues to rise. Why teens some aren’t using condoms? According to the teen condom use statistics from Child Trends, a non-profit research center, about 53% of teen boys say they do not always use a condom during sex. About two-thirds of teen girls say a condom isn’t always used. About seventy % of sexually active teen boys say they use a condom occasionally. The problem seems to be with consistency. Positive attitudes associated with teen condom use and condom use in general have been found to increase levels of condom use and consistency among teen males. Teen males who engage in intercourse and believe that condoms reduce physical pleasure (“I can’t feel anything.”) or are embarrassed to discuss condom use with a partner are less likely to use condoms. This belief is why marketing and the messages portrayed with condom use are beginning to be kind of positive and encouraging to help increase the teen condom use. Great example, the Trojan condom commercials that put emphasis on there being such great physical pleasure that the couples dash back to the pharmacy to get more condoms. On a good note, Child Trends Data Bank (childtrendsdatabank.org) says that condom use is increasing. The reported instances of having protected sex have risen from 46 percent in 1995 to 63 percent in 2005. (Child Trends also reports that condom use has remained steady from 2005 to 2007.) Back to the other news, birth control use by teenage girls, however, has not followed this trend. Birth control pill use has remained steady at somewhere between 16 and 18% since 1993. This probably goes back to the teen sex statistics that show that just under 33% of teen girls become pregnant (Teen Pregnancy Statistics
http://www.pregnantteenhelp.org).
As a result of these statistics and studies, according to the Kaiser Family Foun-dation (www.kff.org), 80%of parents think that contraception and protective practices (condom use) should be taught as part of a comprehensive sex education course and I, myself as a teenager who is sexually active second that motion. I think that instead of parents and adults trying to get teens to just wait they should think a little more realistically. Though not all teens are having sex at all, the one who are as well as the ones who aren’t should be educated about what exactly they are getting themselves into when they decide to instead of a bunch of just don’t do it’s and just waits. I also think that all of the responsibility should not rest on the schools shoulders .Parents have to take the initiative to talk to their teens and inform their children to prevent the worst from happening as well.