Teaching Safe Sex

Jocelynn Tyler

Teaching Safe Sex

Health class is a required course in high school. Sex education is taught to ever student in every school. It preaches abstinence to these students. And, every year, many high school students get pregnant. Also, the number of teen pregnancies do not reflect the number of students who are sexually active, or even the number of students who aren’t having sex safely or responsibly.
Students are often ignorant of the realities of sex. Teens contract STDs, become pregnant, and become parents well before they are physically, emotionally, or financially ready. Regular health classes do not stop these teens from having sex.
I believe there is a simple solution. Granted, it will not completely stop teen parenthood and pregnancies, but it would greatly help. High school health classes, instead of just teaching abstinence, should teach safe sex practices while still advocating abstinence. They should show students how to use condoms and femidoms (female condoms), as well as teaching female students how to take birth control, its side effects, and the realities of it’s effectiveness. This will enable students who plan on having sex anyways to be safer, and less likely to have an unwanted pregnancy or an STD.
While some parents may not want their students learning about safe sex in school, the reality is that many students do not learn this from their parents, because many parents do not want to believe that their child is ‘irresponsible’ or ‘immoral’ enough to be having sex as a teen, or before marriage. However, teens are not thinking about morality or responsibility when they are having sexual thoughts, and most do not even consider the possible consequences due to raging hormones and blinded opinions of love and relationships.
Also, students should be alerted that though they will have to spend some money to have safe sex, it is a lot cheaper than paying for a child, or even an abortion (which I am highly against).
I strongly believe that students should be taught the realities and consequences of sex before they become victims of ignorance and their hormones.