By Joe Williams
aThEENs staff
The topic of sex remains in an awkward “gray area” for many Athens teenagers – a fitting conversation between pals in the back of the bus or at an overcrowded lunch table, but socially taboo with parents and school officials.
Unfortunately, many teens hold the perception that adequate protection from sexually transmitted infections (STI’s) and unwanted pregnancy can be found with the aid of a crinkly, two-year-old condom stuffed semi-neatly in a wallet next to a frequent buyer card from Little Caesars.
Teen Matters, across from Clarke Central
Jordan Shapiro, a 17-year-old from Dallas, Ga., learned how the true consequences of misinformed sex come at an unexpected cost.
“I remember before I got pregnant, I would see pregnant teenagers at my school and think, ‘How could they get pregnant? How stupid,’” Shapiro said. “But you don’t have to be stupid to get pregnant. I was an honor’s student, active in JROTC, had a part time job and was in [the] Student Government. I still go pregnant – life will find a way.”
Many teenagers see sex as a goal to reach, which once achieved guarantees immense popularity and respect amongst peers.
“All teenagers have a sense of invincibility,” Shapiro said. “Often times girls, and even guys, get involved in promiscuous circumstances and have the notion they’ll walk away unscathed.”
Unfortunately, the metaphorical trophy earned by tearing up a “V-card” outweighs any real possibility of bringing a screaming, kicking baby in to the world – a notion that is instantly forgotten once that first “time of the month” is missed.
Although pregnancy prevention methods are readily available to those in need, it’s the misconception of “it could never happen to me” that often leads many down a road they were not prepared for.
“We did not use a condom,” Shapiro said. “I had been in a relationship with the biological father for over a year – I trusted him. We had practiced other natural forms of birth control but he ‘slipped up.’”
According to a 2005 Clarke County survey of local teenagers, 65 percent admitted to having engaged in sexual activities – a number that might shock parents, but actually seems relatively low to students. In fact, the birth rate in Athens-Clarke County is eight times that of the country of France.
With so many teens admitting to being sexually active, the topic of teenage pregnancy is nearly impossible to tackle from any particular angle. Many professionals point to the notion of simply being misinformed as a potential cause of many teenage pregnancies.
“It’s a state law that anyone of reproductive age, whether or not they’re over the age of 18, can seek reproductive services and birth control without the need for parental consent,” said Sarah Peck, a public information officer for the North East Health District.
Teen Matters, an off-shoot of the public health department that has been around since the 1990s, offers teens the security of sensitive services at a price that any teenager can easily afford without sacrificing their daily trip to the vending machine.
“All the services at Teen Matters are free,” Peck said. “They offer pelvic exams, pap smears, testing for sexually transmitted infections – including HIV – and a variety of different types of birth control methods.”
Condoms are also available free of charge, as well as counseling if teens want to discuss any aspects of their lives.
“A lot of teens are unaware that the services are confidential,” Peck said. “They don’t understand exactly what confidentiality means, and that that’s a state law we’re observing.”
Although parental involvement is by no means required at Teen Matters, it is still encouraged and should begin in the home. At a time when kids and teens are being exposed to things of explicit nature in the media (“bags of sand” means more to students than their unsuspecting parents), the “birds and the bees” should not be left for R-Rated comedies to explain – it’s the responsibility of the parent.
“Parents are the first sex educators for all children,” said Katy Janousek, sexual health coordinator at the University Health Center. “The first line of education needs to come from the primary care giver, which in many cases is a single parent, a guardian, maybe a grandparent, so it’s not always just parents that are able to be there and have that type of discussion with their children.
According to Janousek, the barrier between safe sex and uninformed decisions often times begins when teens try to purchase contraceptives.
“I had noticed since I moved to Georgia from Virginia that many places that sell condoms actually lock them up,” Janousek said. “When I asked about it, they said it was because they were having problems with theft. So there again we’re seeing that just the stigma surrounding buying condoms is causing people to be too embarrassed to take them to the cash register, maybe even to go through self check-out. The alternative then is someone who’s too embarrassed to buy them now has to ask somebody else to open the case.
The obvious issue that arises when teens are unable to attain contraceptives is unplanned pregnancy, however, a new pill is helping to change that.
Plan B, a hot and controversial topic amongst health officials and the FDA, is sold at local pharmacies such as Kroger and Wal-Mart as an emergency contraceptive to be ingested immediately after unplanned pregnancy.
“Seventeen and older can get it without a prescription, though parental consent is required for those 16 and younger,” said Dr. Kerri Wenslow, a 2006 University of Georgia alumna and head pharmacist in Albany, Ga.
Taken with water in one and two pill doses, the active ingredient is 75 mg of a single active steroid, levonorgestrel, which is essentially a high dose of birth control and prevents the fertilized egg from attaching to the uterine wall.
If taken within three days, the pill can be highly effective, though sooner is always better. Once implantation has occurred, Plan B will no longer work.
“If you’re already pregnant, it won’t do anything,” Wenslow said. “Timing is very important.”
It may seem that erasing a mistake is as easy as popping a pill, but that is not the case. Plan B comes with risks.
“If you took too much Plan B, you could theoretically throw off your hormone balance,” Wenslow said. “It could be harder to get pregnant later on when you’re actually ready to have a family.”
Wenslow stressed teenagers who smoke should be extra cautious when using Plan B, since there is an increased risk of breast cancer, heart disease and stroke.
Ultimately, the decision to start having sex is up to the teenager and should be thought about far before an innocent night of ice cream and Redbox leads to missing graduation due to labor pains.
“I think it’s important for anybody, regardless of their age, to think about what they value and what they believe in,” Janousek said. “They need to ask themselves questions like, Am I ready to have sex? Do I want the same thing that my partner wants out of having sex? Is this a relationship or a one-time thing? Do I know how to prevent pregnancy? Do I know how to prevent STI’s? Am I comfortable getting ways to have protection such as buying condoms or having birth control?”
For Shapiro, the ultimate decision to engage in unprotected sex came with it a slew of bigger problems she had never considered.
“People seem to forget that in teen pregnancies, it’s not about the teen, it’s about the baby,” Shapiro said. “That baby is going to demand all of his or her basic essentials in life – food, shelter, clothing, a car seat, a Halloween costume, a surgery for a broken bone, lunch money, a car when they’re 16, and a college fund. Ask yourself if you’re ready to provide all of that and good parenting skills. If not, then just wait.”
Atheens Magazine 