The US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has posted a report that it says shows that teenage girls in the United States have the highest rate of teen pregnancy of all developed countries. Not surprisingly, many experts have jumped into the fray to try to explain to the rest of us why this is the case. The Los Angeles Times, for example spoke with noted sex columnist Dan Savage, who says that it’s because so many American teenagers live in an imaginary magical world where such things as pregnancy resulting from unprotected sex don’t apply to them. He says the reason is simple; It’s a combination of the fuzzy line between reality television and what is in fact reality, which is watched by so many kids in this country, and lousy sex education programs. He cites examples of kids calling into his show wanting to know if swallowing a little Clorox after sex will prevent pregnancy, or if taking a hot shower will do the trick. But worst of all he says, are callers who are afraid for their friends, rather than themselves. Friends that are having sex without any protection at all but who simply refuse to believe they could become pregnant, or contract a disease. It’s kids like these he says, who get pregnant and suffer for it, because the bubble they’ve lived in suddenly bursts, and it’s like all of a sudden, real life is too hard to take. Many, he says, simply kill themselves.
In the report by the CDC, some teens that had become pregnant were contacted and asked to fill out questionnaires. The answers given are, according to the authors, were sort of chilling. When asked how they had come to find themselves pregnant, over thirty percent had no good explanation, as they had assumed they were for some unexplained reason, incapable of getting pregnant. Incredibly, eight percent of those responding said they thought that they or their partner was sterile, though they had no real world reason for believing it to be true.
In speaking with Bill Albert, spokesman for the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, the Times learned that the group believes that misconceptions and simple magical thinking contribute to a significant number of teen pregnancies.
Clearlythere is a disconnect between the realities of teen sex and the what many teens believe to be true, and while there are no concrete studies to prove it, lack of education is at the bottom of it. And that likely won’t change unless parental views on sex education change to the point there most come to understand that it’s not the job of school officials to teach their children such basic facts, it’s theirs.