Programs for safe sex essay

Sex Programs for Teenagers should emphasize Safe Sex

Alexandra Moscoso
Priscila Pacheco
Tatiana Ortiz
Adriana Peralta

December 22, 2008

In Latin America, 2/3 of young people have already begun their sexual intercourse . In the USA 70% of nineteen- year- old teenagers have started their sexual activity. In Europe, the media of people who started having sexual relations is betweenfifteen to sixteen years old. Nowadays, the world is facing an unavoidable increase of youth having sex without knowing the risks that it brings in teenagers lives. Therefore, sex education programs for teenagers have become popular to fight against the spread of STDs and underage pregnancy. Even when abstinence and safe sex programs share the same objective, the paths followed are totally differentand not always effective. The last thirty years people have been witnesses of a real change in society thoughts about sex. It is true that Media has a lot to do in changing some precepts about sex, but it will be difficult to teach teenagers something they were not awarded of before. That is the reason why sex programs for teenagers should emphasize safe sex as the right way of STDs and underagepregnancy prevention.
People who promote abstinence programs for teenagers have major points to fight against STDs and underage pregnancy. Their strongest argument is that abstinence is a 100% reliable than any of sex prevention methods. In addition, they also have based their program in morality and religious precepts that ban them from having sex before marriage. As well, abstinence supportershave condoned the condoms distribution campaign made by safe sex supporters because they believe it will increase promiscuity in teenagers.
People promote abstinence programs as a 100% reliable way to prevent STDs and pregnancy. However, it can not be reliable because teenagers are not practicing abstinence. A Media indiscriminate diffusion of information about sex in the last thirty years is,with no doubt, one of the major causes of people beginning the intercourse earlier. According to a research of Pediatrics made on 2005, by the age of eighteen, 70 % of the U.S. females and 62% of the U.S. males have initiated vaginal sex. Consequently, an only abstinence program will work for a minority of teenagers who do not have sexual activity yet, and the ones who have already begun theintercourse will have lack of information about sex prevention methods. Although, ironically a research made by Johns Hopkins University showed that in communities in which pledgers of virginity are popular in young people, the rates of STDs are higher than communities with fewer pledgers. So, it is easy to realize that a considerable number of teenagers who have made pledgers, actually do notpractice abstinence. People can not deny that abstinence is unrealistic for most people around the world because they are living in a world that has changed its mind about sex intercourse.
People promote abstinence based on morality and religion, but the population has different points of view about morality and religion. It is hard to determine how many religions are in the world because they haveincreased through the years. Some of them have very strict rules about abstinence, but others do not. Also, the standards of morality are different in each person or society. Consequently, some people believe that it is immoral to have sex before marriage, but others considered it as normal. In fact, in some places, people who remain virgin are criticized for their partners, and they aremotivated to start sexual activity. Abstinence works just for a specific group of people, but those who do not agree with it have to look for other information sources that most of the times are improper and increase the risks for them.
One of the most important arguments that abstinence supporters have is about the distribution of condoms in high schools. They disagree with it because they believe it...