Like I said earlier, I went to Catholic school and there was a se.x ed component of our religion class. I was in the fifth grade when the program started at our school, but when they implemented it at the school it was K-8. Up until about sixth or seventh grade it was all self-esteem building stuff. The home activities involved making collages about who you are and your parents/siblings/grandparents, etc. writing letters to you about why you are special. It was pretty neat.

I don't remember it being too religious at all. In junior high we learned about the anatomy and pregnancy, etc. Probably nothing about birth control, but I don't remember.

What goes on in other schools?

Our board of education started s.ex ed in grade 5. It continued throughout high school.

I found most of it very helpful. I grew up in a family that did not discuss sexuality at all and I learned a lot about it through these classes. Because of this I learned of all the planned parenthood clinics in my city and was able to get discounted prescriptions. A lot of other girls I knew were helped out immensely by this program, they too had parents who did not discuss sexualilty.

I agree with Nanon that a lot of it has to do with self esteem as well. I know many well informed and educated young women who are self destructive and have unprotected sex all the time, or pick out very abusive men to have relationships with.

Young women need to learn to have strong self esteem. This has so start in the home.

Just my 2 :twocents:

Interesting results of study that said virgin teens have the same STD rate as their non-virgin counterparts.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3546007.stm

That may be because -- apart from those who aren't really virgins -- many "virgins" see abstinence as anything goes except penis in vagina. Many see oral sex as notsex, for instance. See last Sunday's NYT.

amy

that is true. Is there a link to that NYT article?

A couple of months ago I met a 14 year old in the clinic with pain which she thought from excess stooping and bending from her afterhours job, but which was PID. She had a BC implant in her arm. Her mom was with her, and was real proud of how she had gotten her on the implant the moment she turned 13. I sat down and talked to the kid about abstinence, protection, the greater susceptibility of the teen cervix to STDs, and the failure rate of condoms, and neither the mother nor the kid had ever even thought about these subjects, let alone the the high percentage of times in which condoms fail. (During a year of typical condom use, 14 out of 100 women will become pregnant. During a year of perfect condom use, that number drops to 3 out of 100 women becoming pregnant.) NOBODY had talked to the kid about sexually transmitted disease, and it had merely been assumed that of COURSE she would be sexually active.

Oral sex is now exceedingly common in middle schools, and is quite effective at transmitting most STDs (although not HIV). I have told my child that YES, it is sex, and YES, it is an offense against chastity. I attach a few links to articles.

http://www.etr.org/recapp/research/journal200008.htm

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/features/students070899.htm

http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/publications/transitions/transitions1203_10.htm

As a mother of 2 girls myself I am really enjoying this discussion.

I am very frank when it comes to sex with my kids.

I have been doing some reading online, and I am trying to look at all the info out there. But if the schools are not educating teens about it who should (and certainly parents are not either). I was looking at the statistics of abstenance only programs and comprehensive sex ed programs in school....neither of them work. The first age of intercourse has stayed the same, STD rate has stayed the same, I think it also said teen pregnancy rates have stayed the same. I got alot of info from the AIDS research foundation, etc places I figure would know what they were talking about and be less biased.

I do 100% belive that it needs to start in the home, but its not. I dont see what the schools have been doing to have any positive effect either. I am not against sex ed in school at all either, I personally thing it is better to get educated somewhere...ANYWHERE, than to get HIV, pregnant, STD, whatever. But if its not working, its just not working ya know?

Maybe it is something that will never be solved, I guess there are way to many factors in it (self esteem, no fathers in the home, molestation, etc) and we need to take the responsibility to start with ourselves and our own children.

I really don't know what the answer is and its really sad. I just know soooo many teenage girls who are mothers and yes a lot of *their* mothers were teen moms themselves. I think it shows a problem with our nation truthfully.

It just really makes me sad and I want my girls to be protected and be able to make smart choices for themselves.

Marilyn

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Abstinence only programs seem to delay the age of first intercourse, but also seems to increase the likelihood of not using a condom once coitus is initiated. Comprehensive sex ed programs seem to increase the likelihood of intercourse, but also the likelihood of using a condom. I think a focus on abstinence, and the risks of sexual exploration but with explanation of how
to prevent pregnancy and STD is probably the best way to go.

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All else being equal, adolescents whose parents engage in risky behaviors, are most likely to be sexually active and to have had sex before age 15. (National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health)

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Actually all of the above increased dramatically from 1970 to the end of the 1980s. I attach the full text of the MMWR article (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports), a publication of the U.S. Centers of Disease Control, which is the public health agency responsible for tracking STDs etc., plus the abstract of the update of the Kinsey report. Am I the only person who looks at the MEDICAL literature on this website?

Current Trends Premarital Sexual Experience Among Adolescent Women -- United States, 1970-1988

The initiation of sexual intercourse early in life is associated with an increased number of sex partners and a greater risk for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). This report describes trends in age at first premarital sexual intercourse for adolescent women (15-19 years of age) in the United States during 1970-1988 and indicates an accelerated increase in the proportion having had premarital sex from 1986 to 1988.
Data for this analysis were obtained from interviews with 8450 women* 15-44 years of age who participated in the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) conducted by CDC's National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) in 1988. The women were part of a subsample from a nationally representative sample of households interviewed in the National Health Interview Survey of 1986 (NCHS, unpublished data). The NSFG provided specific information on age and marital status of participants at first sexual intercourse, as well as detailed information on other factors, such as childbearing experiences, use of family-planning services, and knowledge of and experience with STDs.
Proportions were calculated for adolescent women in each year of age from 15 through 19 who reported having had premarital sexual intercourse by March 1 in 1970, 1975, 1980, 1985, and 1988.** For all ages combined for each of these periods, the proportion of adolescent women who reported having had premarital sexual intercourse increased steadily (from 28.6% in 1970 to 51.5% in 1988 (Table 1)). For each 5-year period from 1970 to 1985, the amount of increase declined (i.e., during 1970-1975, 7.8 percentage points; during 1976-1980, 5.6; and during 1981-1985, 2.1). However, from 1985 through 1988, the proportion increased 7.4 points, or approximately one third of the increase in premarital sexual experience among adolescent women for the entire period 1970-1988. This trend persisted even after adjustment for the influence of changing age composition by comparing age-adjusted proportions.
For each year of age during 1970-1988, the proportion of adolescent women who reported having had premarital sexual intercourse increased at least 55% (Table 1). The largest relative increase occurred among those 15 years of age (from 4.6% in 1970 to 25.6% in 1988). The cumulative absolute effect of these changes was greatest among women 18 and 19 years of age.
Although the proportion of black adolescents who reported having had premarital sexual intercourse was consistently higher than the proportion of white adolescents who reported having had premarital intercourse, the difference narrowed substantially over time because of a greater relative increase among white adolescents (24 percentage points among whites compared with 13 percentage points among blacks) (Figure 1). For white adolescents, this represents an increase in the number of sexually experienced females from 2.2 million in 1970 to 3.7 million in 1988, and for black adolescents, from 0.6 million to 0.8 million.
In 1988, adolescents who had had sexual intercourse earlier in life reported greater numbers of sex partners. Among 15- to 24-year-olds who initiated sexual intercourse before age 18, 75% reported having had two or more partners, and 45% reported having had four or more partners; among those who became sexually active after age 19, 20% reported having had more than one partner, and 1%, four or more partners. Among women aged 15-24 years who had been sexually active for the same length of time ( less than 24 months), 45% of 15- to 17-year-olds reported having had two or more partners, compared with 40% of 18- to 19-year-olds and 26% of those greater than or equal to 20 years of age. Reported by: Family Growth Survey Br, Div of Vital Statistics, National Center for Health Statistics; Div of STD/HIV Prevention, Center for Prevention Svcs, CDC.
Editorial Note
Editorial Note: The NSFG data show that the proportion of adolescent women who reported having had premarital sexual intercourse increased through the 1970s and 1980s, and first sexual experiences occurred at younger ages. Among the 9 million adolescent women in 1988, almost 4.9 million (52%) may have had premarital sexual intercourse.
Information on the premarital sexual experience of adolescent women in the United States was first provided in a series of National Surveys of Young Women (NSYW) conducted in 1971, 1976, and 1979 (1). Based on these studies, the proportion of adolescent women in metropolitan settings experiencing premarital sexual intercourse increased from 30% in 1971 to 50% by 1979. This trend was confirmed by the 1982 NSFG, although the increase was less pronounced (1). The NSFG estimates for 1976 and 1979 were lower than those from the NSYW studies, but the differences were not statistically significant.
Increased sexual activity among adolescents has several health consequences. For several reasons, adolescents are at higher risk for sexually transmitted infection than are persons in other age groups (2). Compared with older age groups, adolescents have higher rates of gonorrheal and chlamydial infections (3) (Chlamydia trachomatis causes more lower genital tract infections among teenagers than does gonorrhea (4)). In addition, by their late teens, about 4% of whites and 17% of blacks have been infected with herpes virus type 2 (5). The consequences of these infections are most severe later in life. If untreated, gonorrheal and chlamydial infections of the cervix may progress to pelvic inflammatory disease (PID); acute PID increases risk for recurrent PID, infertility, and ectopic pregnancy. Each year, greater than 1 million U.S. women experience an episode of PID, with 16%-20% of cases occurring among teenagers (3,5,6). Age-specific rates of PID are highest for adolescent females (based on appropriate adjustments for sexual activity) (7). In a prospective evaluation of the risk for cervical cancer after cytologic evidence of human papillomavirus (HPV) infection, women less than 25 years of age had increased risk of progression (8).
The association between early age of sexual intercourse and greater numbers of both recent and lifetime sex partners represents a behavioral link to higher levels of STDs. Females and males who have multiple sex partners over a specified period (e.g., several months) are at increased risk for gonorrhea, syphilis, chlamydia, and chancroid (9). Increased numbers of sex partners over a lifetime is associated with a greater cumulative risk for acquiring viral infections such as hepatitis B, genital herpes, HPV, and human immunodeficiency virus (9). Efforts to prevent the adverse health outcomes of sexual activity in adolescents should include 1) innovations for early detection and treatment of STDs among teenagers, 2) specialized training for clinicians providing health services for adolescents, 3) school education coupled with accessible clinical services, and 4) behavioral interventions to prevent exposure to and acquisition of sexually transmitted infections.
References
Hofferth SL, Kahn JR, Baldwin W. Premarital sexual activity among U.S. teenage women over the past three decades. Fam Plann Perspect 1987;19:46-53.
Cates W Jr. The epidemiology and control of sexually transmitted diseases in adolescents. In: Schydlower M, Shafer M-A, eds. AIDS and the other sexually transmitted diseases: adolescent medicine--state of the art reviews. Philadelphia: Hanley and Belfus, 1990;1(3):409-27.
Shafer M-A, Sweet RL. Pelvic inflammatory disease in adolescent females: epidemiology, pathogenesis, diagnosis, treatment, and sequelae. Pediatr Clin North Am 1989;36:513-32.
Batteiger BE, Jones RB. Chlamydial infections. Infect Dis Clin North Am 1987;1:55-81.
Johnson RE, Nahmias A, Magder LS, et al. A seroepidemiologic survey of the prevalence of herpes simplex virus type 2 infection in the United States. N Engl J Med 1989;321:7-12.
Washington AE, Sweet RL, Shafer M-AB. Pelvic inflammatory disease and its sequelae in adolescents. J Adolesc Health Care 1985;6:298-310.
Bell TA, Holmes KK. Age-specific risks of syphilis, gonorrhea, and hospitalized pelvic inflammatory disease in sexually experienced U.S. women. Sex Transm Dis 1984;11:291-5.
Mitchell H, Drake M, Medley G. Prospective evaluation of the risk of cervical cancer after cytological evidence of human papillomavirus infection. Lancet 1986;1:573-5.
Aral SO, Holmes KK. Epidemiology of sexual behavior and sexually transmitted diseases. In: Holmes KK, Mardh PA, Sparling FP, et al., eds. Sexually transmitted diseases. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1990.
Sufficient data were available to provide stable estimates only for blacks and whites.
** Because some women in each age group will have premarital sexual intercourse for the first time after March 1 but before reaching their next birthday, the proportions do not represent true age-specific rates. However, time comparisons are valid because the proportions are similarly computed for each comparison year.

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Arch Sex Behav. 1988 Jun;17(3):201-39.
Kinsey revisited, Part I: Comparisons of the sexual socialization and sexual behavior of white women over 33 years.
Wyatt GE, Peters SD, Guthrie D.
Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, 90024.
This research compared data from two studies of women's sexual behavior--one conducted in the 1940s, the other in the 1980s. The first sample included 3952 white women, ages 18 to 36, drawn from the larger sample of women who participated in the original Kinsey study. The second comprised 122 white women, in the same age range, who had taken part in a recent study of sexual socialization and experiences among women in Los Angeles County, CA. Log-linear analyses were used to control for differences between the samples on age, education, and marital status. Comparisons were conducted in the areas of childhood family characteristics; sexual socialization and education; sexual behavior in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood; contraceptive practices; and child sexual abuse. Results tended to reflect changes that have taken place in society and in patterns of sexual behavior. Differences in sexual socialization pointed to the increased role of the media and the schools and to more relaxed attitudes about nudity in the home. Shifts in sexual behavior were particularly dramatic. As compared to women in the Kinsey sample, the newer subjects began intercourse earlier, were less likely to have a fiance or husband as their first partner, reported a higher number of sexual partners, and participated in a broader range of sexual behaviors. Contraceptive practices differed considerably, especially among never-married women. Women in the new study were also more likely to report instances of child sexual abuse. Methodological and social factors contributing to the findings are discussed.

PIP: A comparison of data from 2 studies of female sexual behavior--the 1st conducted in the 1940s as part of the research of the Kinsey Institute and the 2nd carried out in the 1980s among women in Los Angeles--suggests that major societal changes have occurred in patterns of sexual behavior in recent decades. The 1st sample involved 3952 white women 18-36 years of age; the 2nd included 122 white women in the same age group. Women in the 1980s received information about sex from a broader range of sources than their counterparts in the Kinsey study and reported higher frequencies of sexual play in childhood. There was a significant difference between samples in age at 1st intercourse. Over 75% of the Los Angeles women had experienced coitus by the age of 18 years compared with only about 25% of women in the Kinsey sample. Particularly striking was the increase in women beginning sexual activity at 15 years of age or younger from 4% in the 1940s to 23% in the recent sample. Another significant difference between samples involved the total number of male sexual partners: 67% of the Los Angeles women reported 6 or more partners compared with only 17% of women in the earlier study. Also noted were changes in sexual preferences. The proportion of women who engaged in cunnilingus rose from 51% in the Kinsey sample to 87% in the new sample, while the proportion who had practiced fellatio rose from 48% to 93%. The proportion of women reporting an extramarital affair rose from 15% in the Kinsey sample to 37% in the Los Angeles study. 88% of the women in the recent study had used the pill at some point and 45% had used an IUD--methods that were not available to women in the 1940s. However, ever-use of contraception was similar in both studies (95% in the 1940s and 97% in the more recent study. Finally, an alarming trend was the increase in incidents of child sexual abuse by an adult perpetrator, from 25% in the Kinsey study to 45% in the new sample.

An interesting consideration--the need for se.x ed information to be separate and gender specific

Authors
Aarons SJ. Jenkins RR. Raine TR. El-Khorazaty MN. Woodward KM. Williams RL. Clark MC. Wingrove BK.

Institution
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Howard University College of Medicine, Washington, DC 20060, USA.

Title
Postponing sexual intercourse among urban junior high school students-a randomized controlled evaluation.

Source
Journal of Adolescent Health. 27(4):236-47, 2000 Oct.

Abstract
PURPOSE: To describe a randomized, controlled evaluation of a school-based intervention to delay sexual intercourse among urban junior high school students. METHODS: Six Washington, D.C., junior high schools were randomly assigned to the intervention or nonintervention control condition for an educational program. During the first school year, seventh graders (n = 582) from the six schools obtained written parental consent to participate. Three health professionals (one per intervention school) implemented the program, which consisted of reproductive health classes, the Postponing Sexual Involvement Curriculum, health risk screening, and "booster" educational activities during the following (eighth grade) school year. Cross-sectional surveys were administered at baseline, the end of the seventh grade, and the beginning and end of the eighth grade. Intervention and control group differences in virginity, attitudes toward delayed sex and childbearing, and sexual knowledge and behavior were assessed at all four time points. RESULTS: At baseline, 44% of the seventh grade males and 81% of the seventh grade females reported being virgins. At the end of the seventh grade (first follow-up), after controlling for baseline study group differences, intervention-group females were more likely to report virginity, self-efficacy to refuse sex with a boyfriend, and the intention to avoid sexual involvement during the following 6 months. At the end of the eighth grade, significantly more intervention- than control-group females reported virginity, birth control use at last intercourse (for nonvirgins), and knowledge of adolescent reproductive health and confidentiality rights. No changes in virginity, self-efficacy to refuse sex, or sexual intent for the next 6 months were observed among male participants at any time during the study. However, on all three follow-up surveys, intervention-group males scored significantly higher than their control-group counterparts in knowledge of birth control method efficacy. No change in attitudes toward abstinence was observed for either gender at any follow-up point. CONCLUSIONS: Gender differences in baseline sexual activity rates and in various study outcomes suggest a possible need for separate, gender-specific intervention activities that can adequately address the social and cognitive needs of both sexes.