Teens Pay Price for 'Free Sex'
by AFA Journal
October 6, 2005
(AgapePress) - Free sex. That's what the sexual revolution promised adults in the 1960s. Over the last 40 years, even teenagers have been promised the same. But nothing is free, as the old saying goes, especially sex -- and teens are having to learn that the hard way. The free sex ideology certainly infects Hollywood, which continues to promote to teens a sex-is-great message.
"I'm not against teenagers exploring their sexuality," said 17-year-old actress Evan Rachel Wood, whose character in the recent film Pretty Persuasion is "a sexually manipulative Beverly Hills teen," according to a Plugged In review. "They should be able to find how to use it in the right way and be responsible about it .... [Ignoring sex and covering it up] just sends wrong messages and makes kids more crazy about it. If the media and adults would just deal with it, kids would realize it could be a beautiful thing."
But the repercussions for teens who follow such advice can be staggering, especially when it comes to sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). According to the Medical Institute for Sexual Health (MISH), approximately 50 percent of sexually-active teens are already infected with Humanpapilloma Virus (HPV) -- an STD that is the cause of 99 percent of cervical cancer.
"This cancer is causing about as many deaths among women as AIDS," said a recent MISH press release.
Moreover, the group said, approximately 10 percent of sexually active adolescents are infected with chlamydia, a major cause of infertility, while approximately 20 percent are infected with genital herpes, "a life-long and disabling problem."
In addressing the sex education approach most favored by the medical and mental health community -- using condoms -- MISH raised the alarm. "For the infections that are most common to adolescents (such as chlamydia, gonorrhea, herpes) condoms, even when used 100 percent of the time, only reduce the risk of infection by approximately 50 percent," the group said. "For HPV, which is the most common [STD] for adolescents, condoms provide no risk reduction for infection."
This article, reprinted with permission, appeared in the October 2005 issue of AFA Journal, a monthly publication of the American Family Association.
