Sex Education and Today's Youth

Sex Education and Today's Youth

Sex Education and today’s youth

Youth today have a completely different view of sex than the youth of the 1940’s and 1950’s. During that epoch, sex education was based around moral and religious standings, which was effective. People are no longer as deeply entrenched into religion as they once were; consequently people are more liberal and open-minded. In today’s society, effective sexuality education is essential if youths are to make responsible decisions about sex and relationships.

I recently read an article called “Secret life of teens: Boys meets Girls” by Sara Levine, Cindy Rich, and Caleb Hannan. They talked to youth from nearly 50 high schools to get more insight about teens’ perspective about dating, love and sex. Here are a few of the more alarming responses make by the teens:
What Happened to Dating?
“People don’t date so much as randomly hook up. It’s too late in our lives to really date. I think we all realize we’re not going to marry anyone from high school.”
—Erica, 17, Smith Jewish Day School, Rockville
“If you turn around at a party, half the time you’ll see two people making out with each other—two girls or a guy and a girl. It’s for attention. They’re not actually lesbians—they’ll just kiss each other with tongue.”
—Jennifer, 18, Springbrook, Silver Spring
Definition of Love!
“In our grade, ‘slutty’ would be defined as having sex.”
—Margaret, 15, Georgetown Visitation, DC
“A ‘man whore’ is a boy who messes with a lot of girls.”
—Kim, 17, Seneca Valley, Germantown
“People are like, ‘Are you guys hanging out? What’s your deal?’ You have to put a label on it. I’m told that gets better as you get older.”
—Amy, 16, Madeira, McLean
Who is having Sex?
“If you hook up with a guy and go out with him for a week, you will probably have oral sex with him. Way more people at my school have done that than all the way.
“Some girls in my grade hook up with guys in older grades. Ex-girlfriends get pissed off,...

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