Why Aren’t We Talking? Issues Surrounding Teen Sexual Health Affect Us All
July 29, 2009 9:36:02
by Erin
Web Correspondent
Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota Action Fund
Recently, Sarah Stoesz, the President of PPMNS, wrote a piece on the increasing need for comprehensive sex education for young adults and teens in response to the CDC publishing their initiative to reduce the prevailing statistics of chlamydia, gonohrrea, and teen pregnancy. In it, she describes Planned Parenhood's own initiatives for providing education and health care to young people in Minnesota, which is an important and necessary step to changing the way we think, talk and deal with issues around sex as a nation.
After listening to a similar report on NPR about the CDC's report and interviewing a few people who work closely with teens on sex education, I came to a pretty startling realization. I don't know any teens, and I haven't had a conversation about sex or relationships with any teenagers since I myself was in high school. We are, of course, facing major hurdles like ending abstinence-only education and increasing access to family planning. We are also facing a veritable society of non-communication when it comes to talking about sex—a situation that is worsened by the lack of communication between generations and social spheres, which mitigates the sharing of our own experiences and mentoring of young people. Parents, Grandparents, teachers, and even pastors or religious figures are inimical to the conversation. But what about the young adults, such as myself, who are in between, who are right in the demographic that has competing rates of chlamydia and gonorrhea infections and probably needs the same, if not more, sex education than most teens? We are the product of years of closed mouths and it is perhaps more than ever our responsibility to get involved in ways that open up the communication between young people and confront the effects that sex and relationships have on our lives.
It is important that we start a dialogue between all generations and cultivate the futures of our younger generation. Sex education and teaching about healthy relationships is certainly part of this, but we need to help foster a sense of self-investment that helps people grow and take care of themselves and others.
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