When I was in high school, I used to look forward to the sex and drugs survey every year. We, perhaps even more than the adults administering the survey, were highly interested in what our group was up to. They broke it down by age, city and national numbers, and we all practiced brutal honesty in the hopes of finding out how our colleagues were behaving.
We pretty much saw ourselves reflected in the results - indications of things we needed to work on, of where we were heading. And our parents were always a little surprised at just how many of us were taking drugs, having sex and generally pushing the limits.
Well, that's unfortunately a large part of the teenage life story in the late 20th century - kids lying to parents about the scope of their activities, and parents restricting vital information from kids that would make their exploration of the world safer. In this year's survey, one number jumped out for me which received very little attention in the paper: the condom use figures.
While 44% of Anchorage teens are having sex (17.5% have had more than four partners), only 24% are using condoms. This may be good for the state officials who are using STD statistics to validate the results, but it truly bodes ill for a population (a) too young to die and (b) too young to get pregnant.
- While 44% of Anchorage teens are having sex (17.5% have had more than four partners), only 24% are using condoms.
Some of the problems highlighted in the survey will be hard to fix. Suicidal thoughts, drug use and kids carrying weapons to school for self-protection are thorny, complex problems. Getting kids to use condoms is merely a matter of education and availability. Contrary to popular belief, condoms don't encourage more sex, they encourage SAFER sex.
I understand most of us would like our children to wait longer before becoming sexually active. They won't. What we can do instead is provide them with the tools and information to make sound, mature decisions about their sexual relationships - and a lot of free condoms. Just as a cigarette tax reduces kids' consumption, the high price of condoms is a powerful deterrent to their use. Kids having a lot of sex with a lot of people need a lot of condoms - and pose the most significant sex-related health risks for the rest of us.
Let's resolve the thorny problems, but let's fix the condom problem this year by making them available for free in the high schools. If we made condoms freely available year-round and reminded our kids of their importance, we could achieve a much better usage rate among sexually active teens.
That way, if our children do decide to have sex, which we can't prevent them from doing, at least they'll have a lower risk of sex-related complications like pregnancy and disease. Kids who want to have sex will; those who see the value in waiting will do that. Giving our children the tools to better understand and manage their sex lives creates a safer and more comfortable environment for everyone.
Condoms may not be the most pleasurable way to have sex, but outside of a long-term monogamous relationship, they're the only safe solution. And you can make using them fun. Kids need to know that condoms are not only important, they're cool when used creatively.
It's about time we set aside our quirky morals and illogical thinking, and start thinking more seriously about public health in an era of still-increasing AIDS cases and teen pregnancy. This is one problem that's easy to fix with a truly minimal capital outlay. What are we waiting for?