Virginity rare, drug use common with US-adults

Hm. Well, it seems impossible for a school board to satisfy both Montana's preferences and mine. Perhaps optional courses, or courses outside of school like the ones JPB described, really are the way to go.

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Perhaps, but you can't count on parents to inform their children of protective measures by means of outside classes. Thus the public health threat, to me.

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martybarker wrote:

Thomas wrote:
Why is it so troubling about Americans having their first sex before they're 15? Humans reach sexual maturity at the age of 12. So they'll start wanting to sleep with one another when they're 12, period. Sure, grown-ups have to prepare their children for this by including decent sex education in their biology curriculum and by persuading them to use condoms. But why is the mere fact of early teenage sex so troubling?

I've done my darndest to teach my 13 year old son to take out the trash every Sunday night. You know I have to tell him every Sunday night to take out the trash. And Monday after school he walks right by the empty trashcans without bringing them back in.

Sooooooo, young people have different maturity levels. At a young age of 12- lets say 15, I don't think kids are able to make the correct choices of safe sex. You can teach things in a school setting but kids having sex too young is a very dangerous thing. I know for a fact that I was not emotionally ready to have sex younger than 16.

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martybarker wrote:

Sooooooo, young people have different maturity levels. At a young age of 12- lets say 15, I don't think kids are able to make the correct choices of safe sex. You can teach things in a school setting but kids having sex too young is a very dangerous thing. I know for a fact that I was not emotionally ready to have sex younger than 16.

Right. And that should be part of sex education.

I've done sex ed mainly in groups outside school .... since it was easier :wink:
(My colleague from the county's health department did it in schools - we made an arrangement to do the other's job at least for two weeks/year, so I was teaching in schools as well.)

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martybarker wrote:

Sooooooo, young people have different maturity levels.

And old people don't?

martybarker wrote:

At a young age of 12- lets say 15, I don't think kids are able to make the correct choices of safe sex. You can teach things in a school setting but kids having sex too young is a very dangerous thing. I know for a fact that I was not emotionally ready to have sex younger than 16.

Well, and I know for a fact that German teenage pregnancy rates -- and especially German teenage abortion rates -- are a fraction of what they are in America. An international comparison from the national Canadian statistics agency, although somewhat dated, makes the point forcefully.

http://www.statcan.ca/english/kits/preg/images/inter.gif

Source: Statistics Canada

One notable difference between our countries is that decent sex education is common in Germany's public schools, but appears to be scarce in America's. I'm not saying the statistical comparison above settles the case. After all, Germans and Americans differ in ways other than sex education, too, and some of these things may affect the safety of the sex they have. I'm just suggesting that maybe, just maybe, the USA has something to learn in this department from Germany, and Western Europe in general.

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ossobuco wrote:

Perhaps, but you can't count on parents to inform their children of protective measures by means of outside classes. Thus the public health threat, to me.

Yes, but if I understand JPB correctly, those parents make up the majority of the electorate. This means you can't count on school boards to inform children of protective measures through of inside classes either. This amplifies the public health thread, leaving outside classes as the only option for the minority of responsible parents.

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Thomas wrote:

One notable difference between our countries is that decent sex education is common in Germany's public schools, but appears to be scarce in America's.

As an anecdotical aside: when I got my (postgrad) university certificate in sexual education, I was graduated at the 'Institute of Sexual Pedagogics" at Dortmund University. Which was actually part of the department of special education.

(The reason, however, was quite simple: our prof had a chair in special education and thus got better resources handling it that way. :wink: .... [1990, that was.])

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I see your point, Thomas. I was thinking of it as a lot of those outside classes teaching abstinence only... leaving a lot of unprepared/ignorant early teenagers out there.

To address a potential assumption, sex education isn't promotion of early sex (see Walter's comment, and JPB's descriptions of some courses) - it is protective information.

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Quote:

Why is it so troubling about Americans having their first sex before they're 15?

The point I'm trying to raise is that it is troubling that American's are having sex before 15. It's because most kids, and I emphasize kids, are not emotionally mature enough to be having sex.
Now I'm not at all opposed to sex education in the school system and at home as well. My kids started sex education in school at the 5th grade level. The main thing I stressed upon my daughter when I recently had a long conversation about sex was that although I was trying to give her the tools that she needs to make a smart decision, I was not necessarily giving her my personal permission to go out and have sex. At 15, I know that she is going to make choices on her own and that it's important to know the consequences of those decisions.

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My oldest daughter turns 17 on Tuesday. Today she announced the she will become legal that day. Huh? Whatdoyamean? Legal for what? I thought she was talking about buying cigarettes, or voting, or some such. NO~ She's talking about no longer being jail bait! Ay, yi, yi!

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Is there something wrong with a kid of 12-15 years ending up pregnant and suddenly having the innocence of youth washed away?

Babies having babies is not the way for a culture to go.

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That's where condoms come in. Did they teach you about those in medical school?

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Leaky condoms

Eric Kvaalen Paris, France

Although the Catholic church may be facilitating the spread of HIV by giving people the impression that condoms don't work at all, it seems to me equally important that people understand that they only work 85 per cent of the time (11 October, p 8). This is a figure that I for one did not know, and many people base their behaviour on the idea that condoms provide "safe sex".

From issue 2420 of New Scientist magazine, 08 November 2003, page 32

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Until you're the parent of a 12-15 year old, I don't think you could honestly say that it's OK for them to have sex. This has nothing to do with condoms or safe sex. This has to do with the emotional maturity of someone making the decision to share a sexual experience with another consensual partner. Being the mother of a 13 and a 15 year old I take offense to anyone thinking that there is nothing wrong with them having sex.
And how far does this attitude go? Is it also OK for a 30 year old man to have sex with a 14 year old girl as long as both people say its OK??

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Miller, are you aware that the authority you're quoting is a letter to the editor of the New Scientist, not an article in it. Are you aware that this letter to the editor quotes no research to support itself at all?

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Thomas wrote:

Humans reach sexual maturity at the age of 12. So they'll start wanting to sleep with one another when they're 12, period.

And where does this information come from?

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martybarker wrote:

Is it also OK for a 30 year old man to have sex with a 14 year old girl as long as both people say its OK??

As far as I am concerned, yes. As far as German law is concerned, no -- she must be at least 16 or more. I don't know exactly where American law comes down on this, but I believe the age of consent varies from state to state, between 16 and 18.

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Remind me to never introduce you to my kids Crying or Very sad

This thread has become quite disturbing and I'm going to sign out.

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martybarker wrote:

Thomas wrote:
Humans reach sexual maturity at the age of 12. So they'll start wanting to sleep with one another when they're 12, period.

And where does this information come from?

I can tell you it's something they talked to us about in school - starting in Grade 4 - just about 40 years ago.

Teachers - in home ec as well as in health/phys ed - told us that they understood that many of us were interested in having sex - then talked to us about the pros and cons of having sex. At that time, the focus seemed to be on the emotional risks/dangers of sex at that age - most of us already knew 13- 15 year old girls who'd become pregnant, and knew something of the social consequences of the day. They emphasized that we shouldn't be upset or embarassed about acknowledging that we had sexual feelings, that it was natural once we were sexually mature.

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mb, I hear what you're saying, and I hear what Thomas is saying. There's instinct and then there's maturity and societal norms. I don't think you are that far apart in concept.

It's up to the parents to realize that 13-15 year olds have natural inclinations towards being sexual adults. As a society, we are no longer encouraging copulation, marriage, child birth, and parenting as normal for teenagers.

If I were to pick an age for when I think today's youth are ready to take on the responsibilities of parenthood I would say 28(ish). That doesn't mean that biology hasn't been filling their heads with desires and needs for many years already. If we, as parents, don't give them adequate information to prevent unwanted pregnancies then we don't give them proper tools to make smart decisions toward preventing unwanted pregnancies. Abstinence only curricula, IMHO, does a disservice to our youth toward that end.

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Virginity rare, drug use common with US-adults

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