Positive impacts of access to sexuality education, public information, and medical services are available to young people in Germany. In Germany, adolescent sexuality is regarded as a health issue, not a political or religious one. An overwhelmingly majority of the people and institutions in this country support sexual health. Teens are educated about safer sex and have access to both birth control pills and condoms if they have sexual intercourse.
German adolescents are valued, respected, and expected to act responsibly. The adults trust adolescents to make responsible choices because they see young people as assets, and not problems. Teen abortion rates are much lower in Germany than in the United States. For Germany, the abortion rate is 8.7 for women ages 15 to 49 (Kelly, MeGee 1998/1999). The reality of this is that teens in Germany have intercourse without as many negative consequences as teens in the United States. These teens get flooded with positive messages aimed at helping them to avoid unplanned pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease. The messages sent to German teens are not designed to ask them to refrain from sex until marriage, but educates them on the safety precautions involved with the act itself.
The movement to provide access to contraception, condoms, and comprehensive sexuality education is based on the desire to further reduce abortions and sexually transmitted diseases. In Germany, there is a national sexuality education policy, but individual states determine which curricula to use. They also have massive public education campaigns targeting safer sex behaviors and condom use.
Media are engaged in helping young people make healthy sexual choices and not simply titillating audiences with sexual content for the sake of advertisers’ money. These countries also appear to have little concern that sexually explicit media messages will encourage young people to have intercourse. The mass media sexuality education campaigns are supported and encouraged by a broad array of people with an equally broad array of beliefs and values, ranging from AIDS educators and parents to religious leaders and policy makers. We in the United States can learn from this non-adversarial relationship between religious communities and advocates for sexuality education, and as a result, should encourage all groups to make strides toward a place where young people and families are supported to be sexually healthy.
Religion and politics have little influence on policies related to adolescent sexuality in the European countries (Kelly & MeGee 1998/1999).
The documentary Let’s Talk About Sex, created by James Houston, attempts to facilitate a much needed discussion about sex in the American society. In moving to America Houston explains that he couldn’t help but begin to notice how much sex is a part of our culture, especially teenage culture in which sexuality is inescapable. As a photographer in New York creating sexual images is a substantial part of his job and where he has become aware of America’s differing attitude toward sex compared to other countries. In Australia where Houston grew up and in Europe where he lived for several years there was just as much sexuality depicted in the media, but according to him “there is a different atmosphere, everyone seems to be able to talk more openly
It has been almost thirty three years since the first federal funding was put to use in “. . . sex education programs that promote abstinence-only-until-marriage to the exclusion of all other approaches . . .” according to the article “Sex education” (2010) published by “Opposing Viewpoints in Context;” a website that specializes in covering social issues. Since then a muddy controversy has arisen over whether that is the best approach. On one hand is the traditional approach of abstinence (not having sex before marriage), and on the other is the idea that what is being done is not enough, and that there needs to be a more comprehensive approach. This entails not only warning against sex, but also teaching teens about how to have “Safe Sex” (“Sex Education,” 2010).
Teenagers who become mothers have harsh prospects for the future. Teenagers obtaining abortions are 20% and girls under 15 accounts for 1.2%. They are much more likely to leave of school; receive insufficient prenatal care; rely on public assistance to raise a child; develop health problems; or en...
The question regarding whether or not public schools must offer birth control methods to teenagers remains controversial. There are those who are for birth control being provided in public school and those who are against it. This paper will describe two issues that prove that contraception should indeed be provided within public schools. The first reason is that most Americans support the idea that public schools must provide birth control methods to students. This is according to results obtained from several opinion polls. The second reason for contraceptive being given to teenagers, will help them avoid many dangerous Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STD) associated with having unsafe sexual practices. Studies have shown an increase with unprotected sex with teenagers can result in a wide-range of social problem, such as STDs.
Today’s young Americans face strong peer pressure to be sexually active and engage themselves in risky behaviors (Merino 100-109). Anyone deciding to have sex must first think about all the risks involved. Kekla Magoon, author of Sex Education in Schools, says that “half of all teens aged 15 to 19 years old in the United States have had sex” (Magoon 64-65). It is currently not required by federal law for schools to teach Sex education and those few schools that do teach Sex education have the decision to determine how much information is allowed. Advocates from both sides of the Sex education debate agree that teens need positive influences in order to make practical decisions (Magoon 88-89). Opponents of Abstinence-only education believe it fails because it does not prepare teens for all the risks of sex (Magoon 64-65).
Teens don’t think thoroughly about their decisions when taking actions, which could end up as results of regret. Teenagers are not wise enough to understand how things work therefore they have their parents to help them out make appropriate choices. The choices that are made in early life can affect the teenager in their future. The parents should advice their teens about the dangerous and precautions in life and how to deal with problems the right way. Teenagers who get no advise from parents or any other adult sometimes tend to walk down the wrong path making wrong decisions. When it comes to have sexual intercourse teens should protect them selves to avoid getting themselves in sticky situations. Teen girls have the choice of protecting themselves in many ways but it should be discussed with a relative they could get advise from. Teens should not have access to emergency contraception without parental consent because teens are not mature enough to know the consequences of consuming emergency contraception, which they might regret later in life.
From a young age, children are bombarded by images of the rich and the famous engaging in torrid public affairs or publicly discussing their increasingly active sex lives. No longer is sex education left to teachers and parents to explain, it is constantly in our faces at the forefront of our society. Regardless of sex education curriculums and debates about possible changes, children and teenagers are still learning everything they think there is to know about sex from very early on in their young lives. However, without responsible adults instructing them on the facts about sex, there are more likely to treat sex in a cavalier and offhanded fashion. According to Anna Quindlen’s essay Sex Ed, the responsibility of to education children about sex is evenly distributed between teachers and parents.
Not unlike most debates, there are two major schools of thought when it comes to sex education in schools in the United States of America. One side believes that teaching abstinence to students helps them wait till marriage in a society that constantly pushes sexual imagery and language at them. Such people are supporters of what is known as abstinence based and abstinence-only education. The other side believes that students should receive comprehensive sexual education, where they are provided detailed information about intercourse, contraception, including abstinence, and STI transmission/treatment (Masland 2004). Sex education in the United States has consistently been a debate since the 1960 's. The controversy lies mainly in what schools should and should not be allowed to teach. The most common contention points are: birth control and contraception, Homosexuality (LGBTQ), abstinence-only, HIV awareness and education, and abortion. Objectively this
A study conducted on teens in Sweden and the Netherlands showed that teens in those countries were just as sexually active, but the teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease rate was much lower. Researchers say this is due to sex education that begins in elementary school and continues on(Bender p.13). Only ten percent of American school-age youth participate in a comprehensive program lasting at least forty hours(deMauro p.89). Teens in America also score low on questionnaires based on sexual knowledge(Gordon p.
Women in Germany were mainly expected to be child bearers. They mainly focused on women’s reproductive abilities. Laws were created to control their reproduction through abortions and marriages. In Germany, they had a patriarchal society, which is when men were said to be better than women. Men were considered the breadwinners and women were homemakers.
Research Questions and/or Hypotheses The research question and basis of the study can be summarized as whether or not the exposure to sexual concepts through the media have significant influences on the sexual practices of teenagers. Similarly, it is proposed that, if proven to be accurate, media can be used in similar formats to encourage safe sex and preventative sexual health practices. The use of focus groups, journal writings, room tours, and interviews allowed teens the opportunity to discuss sexuality which was operationalized as teen views on love, sex, and relationships. Steele, 1999, p. 334.
Sex before marriage has always been a major issue. Teen pregnancy seems to double yearly: with no sign of stopping. Some teens use contraceptives and birth control incorrectly. They think pregnancy just can’t happen to them. In a lot of cases their embarrassed to buy protection or just simply unsure of how to use them. Many unplanned pregnancies happen beca...
Martinez, Gladys, Joyce Abma, and Casey Copen. “Educating Teenagers About Sex In The United States”. CDC.GOV. Center of Disease Control and Prevention, 15 Sept. 2010. Web. 09 Feb.2014
The glamorous side of sex is everywhere; music, tv shows, movies and social media. To a mature adult, it is easy to ignore the sexual messages in those outlets. However, to a teenager, going through mental and physical changes and peer pressure, it is extremely easy to fall for what is shown to “cool.” Everyone has fallen for half truths to be cool in their teenage life. It just so happens that teen pregnancies and STDs are not one of those things that one can simply walk away from. Babies and STDs leave a lasting effect on everyone involved. The National Conference of State Legislatures states:
with Risky Sexual Behaviors Among Adolescents and Young Adults." Journal of Religion and Health. 49.4 (2010): 460-472. Print.