CATEGORIES: Abstinence Only Celebrity Current Affairs HIV/AIDS Sexuality Education Teen Pregnancy
December 21, 2007
Seriously, What’s Up With Unsafe Sex?
Not that pregnancy is a bad thing. When planned, it can be wonderful...nausea and months of dry heaving aside, of course. But why is this week in particular filled with not so positive stories of conception? Britney’s sister, Jamie Lynn Spears, is pregnant. (If you saw me on Good Morning America yesterday you know that I have some serious concerns about this.) My personal issue is not that a 16 year old was having sex. It’s because clearly we have a societal problem when someone who has financial access to information and services does NOT use protection. (Though because her home state of Louisiana is an abstinence-only state, the information part may have been more challenging.) Nonetheless, what happened to condoms? They sell Trojans everywhere! They are not that hard to find. And if for some reason they are locked behind a cabinet (which I admit is counterintuitive on many levels), a sexually responsible person would still walk right up to the counter and ask the cashier to unlock it. Second, what’s going on with using tabloid journalism to exploit a personal crisis for financial/PR gain? There is a narcissistic and juvenile element to all of this that I just cannot understand.
That being said, this has been a great week for comprehensive sexuality education and those of us who practice and support it. (Check out the recent findings from the CDC.)
But it is evident that we do have problems talking with our children about sexuality. Yesterday on Fox Business, I talked about how we have an obligation to speak honestly about sex and to challenge the messaging (albeit conflicting and confusing) that we get from our media. (Watch it here.) How can we live in a world where condom advertising is censored by some networks but extreme violence and exploitative sex is glorified? Where are our priorities? Is it any wonder why our youth are so confused about sex and protection?
As for role modelling, may I just propose something: Let us redefine what we mean by “role model”. I suggest that role models are not cute, wealthy, press worthy celebs, but people in our lives that are inspirational, give back to the community, and contribute to society in meaningful ways. These may be people from history; these may be family members. But just because someone is on tv doesn’t mean that we should emulate their lives.
What do you think? Comments: (1)
CATEGORIES: Abstinence Only Condoms Current Affairs HIV/AIDS Teen Pregnancy
December 11, 2007
Teens Birth and HIV Stats are Up…Ugh
For the first time since 1991, teen birth rates are up.
In a surprising development, America’s teen birth-rate rose in 2006, marking the first time since its all-time high in 1991 that the rate has increased. The rate rose 3 percent, to 41.9 births per 1,000 girls aged 15-19 (RHReality Check).
This shocking (or perhaps not so shocking) news that teen births are up is a huge slap in the face for abstinence-only advocates. There are 14 million teens in American receiving this information (14 million - can you imagine???). It’s very scary.What does that mean? In a nutshell, it means that we are not doing a good job education our youth about protection, prevention, and yes, abstinence.
Those of us who support comprehensive sexuality education are not anti-abstinence. But we are realistic and believe that in order to present a holistic picture of sexuality, we must teach about the many choices, skills, behaviors, and options that we have with respect to our sexual health.
In addition to teen births, the CDC has begun the process to amend their statistics on new HIV infections. While it had been thought that there were roughly 40,000 new infections each year, it turns out that that number might be closer to 60,000. Frightening and ridiculous numbers for a country where prevention is such an easy thing to achieve.
Why is there so much complacency about HIV? Yesterday I had lunch with my friend, Regan Hofmann, the beautiful and inspiring editor of POZ magazine. We talked about how Americans seem to have forgotten our own history with HIV - how many of us were affected personally by the disease. We saw the AIDS quilt, we remember the marches, we saw our friends and family waste away. Yet it is impossible to teach youth about the relevance of HIV/AIDS when it is perceived as a "manageable infection". The fact is, HIV is not something to be taken lightly. It is 100% preventable. Condoms work. Education works. Abstinence (when practiced correctly) can work. We need more advocates and activists. We can never forget. And we need to evolve.
What do you think? Comments: (0)
CATEGORIES: HIV/AIDS Science Sexuality Education
November 30, 2007
World AIDS Day
Tomorrow is World AIDS Day. Yes, another year has gone by and we still have such a long way to go. I don’t know what it was about the community that I was raised in, but in the early 1990s, when HIV was being recognized as an indiscriminate virus (one that didn’t care about your sexual orientation, race, or religion), parents became consumed by the thought of their children being affected (and infected) with HIV. Even if your parents never talked to you about sex, they did tell you one thing: "Use a condom". That was it. Condoms, condoms, condoms. To be perfectly honest, I have never considered not using one. It was just so ingrained in me. It still is.
So why is it fifteen years later and the epidemic hasn’t lessened its grasp on the world? Why is it that 6,000 children lose a parent to AIDS or an AIDS-related illness every day? Why are there 33.2 million people who are living with HIV globally? There were 2.5 million new infections of people 15 and older in 2007 and 2.1 million children and adults have died this year from AIDS. (21,000 from North America!)WHY WHY WHY?
HIV is preventable. We know what it takes. Use a condom. Be tested. Don’t share needles or blood related products. And most importantly, don’t be complacent. HIV is still as important an issue as it was twenty years ago.
For more information (and for additional HIV/AIDS resources), please check out POZ.com.
