Jim Liebelt's Youth Culture Watch

Truth About Sex: 60% of Young Men, Teen Boys Lie About It

Teenage boys and young men may talk a lot about sex, but often the only ones listening are their peers.

Now, an online survey of 1,200 guys ages 15 to 22 gives them a clear voice.

"Everybody thinks they just want to have sex — that it's all about getting it on," says Ann Shoket, editor in chief of Seventeen magazine, which commissioned the survey in partnership with the non-profit National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy for the magazine's March issue, out next week.

Although the magazine's focus was on sexual respect, the online survey by TRU, a Chicago-based youth market research company, asked 42 questions about sex and relationships, including attitudes and sexual history.

Among the findings:

•45% said they were virgins.

•60% said they had lied about something related to sex; 30% lied about how far they have gone; 24% lied about their number of sexual partners; and 23% claimed not to be a virgin when they were.

•57% of sexually active respondents said they had had unprotected sex.

•78% agreed there was "way too much pressure" from society to have sex.

Source: USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2010-01-26-boysandsex_ST_N.htm

Teen Pregnancy, Abortion Rates Rise

A new report demonstrates a slight increase in teen pregnancy, and abortions, as well as a modest increase in teen live births during 2006. What strikes me most in this report is that two-thirds of teen pregnancies were in ages 18-19. To me, it would seem responsible for parents and educators to place more focus on preventative efforts on this demographic -- where most teen pregnancies occur -- to the young college-age person.

The teen pregnancy rate in the USA rose 3% in 2006, the first increase in more than a decade, according to data out today. The data also show higher rates of births and abortions among girls 15-19.

The numbers, calculated by the Guttmacher Institute, a non-profit group that studies reproductive and sexual health, show a clear reversal from the downward trend that began in the 1990s.

About 7% of teen girls got pregnant in 2006, a rate of 71.5 pregnancies per 1,000 teens. That's up slightly from 69.5 in 2005, Guttmacher says. In 1990, when rates peaked, about 12% got pregnant.

Guttmacher and others suggest the increase is related to a focus on abstinence-only sex education programs under the Bush administration.

Funding for abstinence doubled from 2000 to 2003, to $120 million. By 2008, funding was at $176 million. Guttmacher is an outspoken opponent of abstinence-only education.

Those on the other side cry foul. "To me, it appears to be another opportunity to throw a barb at abstinence education," says Valerie Huber of the National Abstinence Education Association. She says that only a quarter of federal funding for teen sexuality programs went to abstinence in 2008.

In 2006, two-thirds of all teen pregnancies were to ages 18-19; data do not reflect marital status.

Guttmacher's analysis shows a 4% increase in the teen birth rate and a 1% rise in abortion rates, based on federal statistics and Guttmacher's abortion research. The National Center for Health Statistics will release its pregnancy rate data later this year.

Source: USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2010-01-26-1Ateenpregnancy26_ST_N.htm

Canadian Study Finds Correlation Between Teen Drug, Alcohol Use and Increased Sexual Activity

A new study from the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada (IMFC) revealed that teenagers who use drugs, alcohol and smoke were more likely to report engaging in sexual activity. Also, the study found that increased time with a boyfriend or girlfriend was connected with a greater likelihood of being sexually active. Regarding teens' emotional health, a correlation was found between attempting suicide and being sexually active in girls.

Source: Institute of Marriage and Family Canada
http://www.imfcanada.org/article_files/Rated_PG_Part_II.pdf

Teenage Girls Not Getting HPV Vaccine

University of Michigan research finds few teenage girls are getting vaccinated for a sexually transmitted disease linked to cervical cancer. Infection by the Human Papillomavirus is preventable with a vaccine that's been on the market for several years. The vaccine only works if administered before a girl becomes sexually active. U of M researcher Amanda Dempsey says overall vaccine use is low among adolescents, with only 15% of girls eligible completing the 3 dose regimen. "People are, in general, are becoming more and more hesitant about vaccinations," says Dempsey, "And because this is a relatively new vaccine, a lot of people are waiting for it to be out longer and for there to be more public experience with it before they give it to their own child."

Source: Michigan Radio
http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/michigan/news.newsmain/article/6/0/1592777/Science..and..Medicine/U.of.M.Study.Teenage.Girls.Not.Getting.HPV.Vaccine

Parents' Sex Talk with Kids: Too Little, Too Late

Another reminder that parents should make talking to their kids about sexuality a priority -- and an ongoing discussion -- rather than having "the talk." Jim Burns, President of HomeWord, has recently released the "Pure Foundations" series of resources to help parents address this need throughout their childrens' stages of development. Click here to check out these resources.

The sex talk is never easy. It's not comfortable for anyone involved — parents are afraid of it, children are mortified by it — which is probably why the talk so often comes after the fact. In the latest study on parent-child talks about sex and sexuality, researchers found that more than 40% of adolescents had had intercourse before talking to their parents about safe sex, birth control or sexually transmitted diseases.

That trend is troublesome, say experts, since teens who talk to their parents about sex are more likely to delay their first sexual encounter and to practice safe sex when they do become sexually active. And, ironically, despite their apparent dread, kids really want to learn about sex from their parents, according to study after study on the topic.

Source: Time
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1945759,00.html?xid=rss-topstories

Pornography: Are All Men Pigs?

Question: What happens when researchers attempt to study the views of men who have viewed pornography and compare them with the views of men who haven't?

Answer: Researchers can't make the comparison because they can't find any men who haven't seen pornography.

No joke.

I hope you won't automatically jump to the assumption that this proves all men are pigs. Today, there are many young men (boys, really) who first saw pornography unintentionally (mostly via the Internet.) And, there are many guys today who choose not to access pornography. Ever. (But, I'm sure there are many other ways for men to achieve oink-er status.)

What really is troubling from the research is the amount and frequency of pornography the average male watches.

For more information on teens and pornography, read Jim Burns' article, "The Stages of Pornography: Why Porn Might Bring Down This Culture" on HomeWord.com.

Researchers from the University of Montreal were conducting a study comparing the views of men in their 20s who had never been exposed to pornography with regular users.

But their project stumbled at the first hurdle when they failed to find a single man who had not been seen it.

“We started our research seeking men in their 20s who had never consumed pornography,” said Professor Simon Louis Lajeunesse. “We couldn't find any.”

Although hampered in its original aim, the study did examined the habits of those young men who used pornography – which would appear to be all of them.

Prof Lajeunesse interviewed 20 heterosexual male university students who consumed pornography, and found on average, they first watched pornography when they were 10 years old.

Around 90 per cent of consumption was on the internet, while 10 per cent of material came from video stores.

Single men watched pornography for an average of 40 minutes, three times a week, while those in relationships watched it 1.7 times a week for around 20 minutes.

Source: London Telegraph

Latest Study: 1 in 4 Teen Girls Have STDs

While this new study doesn't show an increase in the percentage of teen girls who have contracted an Sexually Transmitted Disease (see my post from March of 2008 here), there isn't any improvement either. What I found most interesting in this new study is that of the sexually experienced girls studied, 37.7% had developed an STD. And within a year of having a first sexual experience, it was shown that 1 in 5 girls will develop an STD (19.2%).

Putting the morals and values argument aside for a moment, it seems that these STD rates, in and of themselves, make a great case for teen abstinence.

As many as one in four U.S. teenage girls have had a sexually transmitted disease (STD), many infected soon after their first sexual encounter, a new government report shows.

"The high burden of STDs among teen girls reminds us that we can't ignore this," said study author Dr. Sami L. Gottlieb, from the division of sexually transmitted disease prevention at the U.S. Centers for Disease and Prevention.

"Sexual health is an important part of the overall health and well-being of teenagers," Gottlieb added. "For too long, we as a nation have been far too squeamish about sexual health issues for teens, but we owe it to our kids to get over it."

The report is published online Nov. 23 and in the December print issue of the journal Pediatrics.

For the study, Gottlieb's team collected data on 838 teen girls aged 14 to 19. Using samples provided by the teens, the researchers looked for Neisseria gonorrhoeae, Chlamydia trachomatis, Trichomonas vaginalis, herpes simplex virus type 2 and human papillomavirus (HPV).

The study authors found that 24.1 percent of the girls had one of these STDs and among girls who were sexually experienced, 37.7 percent had an STD. HPV was the most common infection (18.3 percent), followed by chlamydia (3.9 percent).

Moreover, in the year after having their first sexual experience and with only one sex partner, 19.2 percent of the teens developed an STD, Gottlieb's group found.

Source: U.S. News & World Report
http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/healthday/2009/11/23/one-in-four-teen-girls-have-stds.html

Teen STD Infections Spreading at High Rates

Latest statistics on chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis show the three highly treatable infections continue to spread in the United States.

"Chlamydia and gonorrhea are stable at unacceptably high levels and syphilis is resurgent after almost being eliminated," said John Douglas, director of the division of sexually transmitted diseases at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"We have among the highest rates of STDs of any developed country in the world," Douglas added in a telephone interview.

The CDC's latest study on STDs found:

* 1.2 million cases of chlamydia were reported in 2008, up from 1.1 million in 2007.

* Nearly 337,000 cases of gonorrhea were reported.

* Adolescent girls 15 to 19 years had the most chlamydia and gonorrhea cases of any age group at 409,531.

Syphilis, chlamydia and gonorrhea can all be treated with antibiotics but untreated can cause pelvic inflammatory disease, infertility, ectopic pregnancy and can infect newborns.

Source: Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE5AF14A20091116

Students Drink More Living in Coed Dorms

Found this interesting piece... something that parents with teens approaching the college years should keep in mind. For college students, rates of drinking and sexual activity are higher when they live in coed dorms.

In the past 30 years, coed college dormitories have gone from rare to routine, with nearly all students who live on campus now sharing housing with members of the opposite sex.

But a new study suggests that the shift may have had unintended results.

It finds that students in coed dorms are far more likely than those in single-sex dorms to drink alcohol regularly – and nearly 2½ times as likely to drink to excess on a weekly basis.

More than 90% of college dorms today house both sexes, generally separated by floors or building wings, say the study's authors – yet very little research has accompanied the change.

The new findings, they say, suggest that colleges searching for ways to reduce binge drinking and other entrenched behaviors may consider whether the social pressures of coed housing are making matters worse.

These students were more likely to say they'd had a sexual partner in the past year and more likely to think it's all right "for two people to get together for sex and not necessarily expect anything further," the study says.

They were also more likely to say they drink alcohol at least weekly and far more likely to say they drink excessively on a regular basis – 41.5% reported weekly binge drinking. Among students in single-sex housing, the figure was 17.6%.

Source: USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-11-17-coed17_ST_N.htm

UK Mandates Sex Ed for All 15-Year-Olds

Well, this is one way to handle the issue... Should be interesting to see how UK parents and faith groups respond.

Sex education is to be made compulsory for all pupils, prompting fury from faith groups which said that the move would contravene the right for children to be educated in accordance with their parents’ beliefs.

All 15-year-olds must receive at least one year of sex and relationship lessons, Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, said yesterday. Those whose religious or moral values prevent them from attending will be classed as truants and may be punished by the school. Until now parents could opt out of lessons about contraception, sexually transmitted diseases and homosexuality until their children were 19.

Roman Catholic and Muslim groups said they would strongly oppose the move. Shahid Akmal, chairman of the Muslim Council of Britain’s education board, said he would challenge the laws, which he called an imposition. “It is always better for the parents to talk to children about sex rather than the school over which the parents have no control,” he said.

The Catholic Education Service for England and Wales said it was “disappointed” that the “blanket right to withdrawal” had been removed.

The move is central to the Government’s attempts to lower the teenage pregnancy rate, which rose for the first time since 2002, according to the latest figures. There were 41.9 conceptions per 1,000 15 to 17-year-olds in 2007, up from 40.9 the year before. England has the highest rates of teenage mothers in Western Europe.

Source: TimesOnline
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article6905543.ece