Legality

Let’s face it – it’s not legal for people to have sex if they’re under the age of eighteen. You can’t buy porn or sex toys if you’re underage either. While tons of underage boys and girls still do have sex before they’re eighteen and never get caught, it’s important to know the basics of when it is actually legal for you to engage in sexual activity.

That said, if you and your partner are both underage, it becomes less of a criminal issue and more of an issue with your parents. However, if you are underage and your partner is over the age of eighteen, or vice versa, you can get into a LOT more trouble. The older person may be charged criminally if it is ever reported that you are having sex with them, and they will be required to register as a sex offender after any jail time, probation or community service that is issued.

Being registered as a sex offender will haunt them for the rest of their lives and make it difficult for them to buy a home, have a job, have children and visit their children’s schools, and even impact their ability to vote. It’s not something that goes away after a few years – it’s a lifetime of being on a list with pedophiles and rapists. Think twice about having sex you or your partner are underage!

What Are You Waiting For?

If teen sex isn’t something you want to be involved in, think about the “why.” Are you waiting for marriage? Are you waiting until the age of eighteen to do it so you or your partner don’t get into trouble? Whatever your reason for waiting is, it’s a good reason – and it’s important that you fully understand the reason why you’re waiting so you can stay strong and continue to abstain.

If you’re not “waiting” but you just haven’t had sex yet, think about some of the reasons you should wait. Are you in a serious, committed relationship? If not, perhaps you should wait until you’re in love. Think about possibly getting yourself or your partner in legal trouble, or going against your personal beliefs. There are lots of good reasons to abstain and there are many of them that will apply to you and you alone. Perhaps you don’t want to abstain until marriage, but you just want to abstain until you’re older, smarter, more confident and ready. Every reason is a good one!

Considering Consequences

No one likes to think about the consequences of teen sex, but it’s a must if you’re considering losing your virginity. Having sex is an adult activity, and if you feel like you’re adult enough to handle it, then you’re definitely adult enough to think about the possible consequences beforehand. A lot of teenagers are afraid that if they think about the consequences of teen sex before they have it, they might talk themselves out of it. That’s not necessarily a bad thing!

If you’re sure you want to do it and “being talked out of it” isn’t something you feel will happen, considering the consequences will help you effectively plan for anything that might happen as a result of your decision. Think about the possibility of getting an STD – and all the different ways that they can be transmitted – and think about what you can do to reduce your risk as well as what you’ll do in the event that it does happen. Unwanted pregnancy is similar – before you have sex, think about how you can prevent an unwanted pregnancy and how you might deal with one should it actually happen.

Staying Safe

If you’ve thought long and hard and have decided that now is the right time to have sex, take the time to look into all safety options that you have available to you – and there are a LOT! Think about going to your doctor and getting on birth control. If you’re too young to go to the doctor by yourself and can’t tell your parents that you’ve made the decision to have sex and want to get on birth control, you don’t need to be having sex.

Also, think about using condoms and spermicide. Get flavored condoms and dental dams for oral sex. Talk to your doctor about other ways you can practice safe sex. Sex isn’t fun if all you’re worried about is getting pregnant or an STD. It’s also not fun if you’re worried about your partner going to jail.

If you can’t get it on with a clear conscience, try waiting until you can!

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I want to say that up front because I’ve traveled around the southern part of America a few times and found myself admiring the beautiful lands, the great food, and the good people of the South. As a Northerner I always have this fear of being discovered for my dislike of grits at the breakfast table. But truthfully my fears are irrational, at best, when relating to the good people of the south.

However, when it comes to issues such as sexuality, birth control, and teen pregnancy you have to scratch your head how far behind this region of the United States is so far behind the rest of the world by one century.

I say this because the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in a recent report, finds the South is far ahead of the rest of the country in the amount of teen pregnancies.

What The CDC Finds In The South

• Nevada, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Kentucky lead the nations as the top 10 states showing increase in teenage birth rates.
• Mississippi leads the nation with 65.7% ; most of the teen birth rate increase are found with non-Latino blacks making up 89.5%.
• Non-Latino white teens in the South have the highest birth rates in the country in these states: Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, and West Virginia.

The one pattern that holds in this study shows those regions of the country that teach abstinence only sex education are found in (you guessed it) the South.

The states which show offer comprehensive sex education–both safe sex and abstinence education (Calif., Minnesota, Wisconsin, New York, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Connecticut, Massachusetts) have the lowest teen birth rates in the country.

Now it would seem to some I’m picking on the South; I got this agenda to make the South look stupid and backwards. On the contrary, I’m trying to make aware to my fellow Americans there is a huge crisis with our teens that needs to be addressed. Teen pregnancies run the risk of higher complications involving low weight and dying during infancy.

It pains me to drive through states like Kentucky or West Virginia where you can see billboards decrying abortion, but not one billboard showing the need to use a condom or stress to young women the risk you take when they choose to be sexually active. It pains me how you can’t buy a dildo in Alabama, but you get a “just say no” to sex sermon in youth groups across the state giving teens a false sense of what to do when faced with a chance of sexual activity. It pains me how a region (not the only region, but one of the leading regions in the United States) who will decry gay marriage, but the divorce rates in the South are some of the highest in the country.

Faith Vs. Safe Sex Education

As a person of faith, I know how important many Southerners take their faith in their life. But I think the churches and believers in the region who hold to the “no sex till you’re married” mantra must take a serious hard look at the facts and realize our traditions are not helping the situation by teaching abstinence only, but perpetuating the situation further by giving teens a battle axe with only one side to use (and the one side is rubber).

Some of the nations mega churches, ministries, and denominational homes (i.e. Southern Baptist) will make full scale warfare on anything that even shows a bare leg on television or in public. But these same men and women find themselves in compromising positions throwing to the fire their own teachings to their own.

Isn’t it time we faced facts that our traditional stance towards sexuality is a hopeless battle of wits where Southern Christian leaders look like halfwits in the room; that their belief system regarding sex and love are, at worst, a failed attempt to control the masses? I sometimes think the real agenda for some who decry sex education is they want to see their women barefoot, pregnant, with little chance at any background in education. Keep the women in the kitchen and keep them busy with a ton of kids. That a way you know you don’t have to have someone smarter than our men folk.

Ridiculous.

How The South Can Rise Again

If the South is going to rise again it will have to take some bold steps, as a region, to rid itself of their darkened past:

• Drop the Confederate flag! That’s so Jefferson Davis.
• Join the rest of the world to embrace fact, logic, and clarity on all issues.
• Admit the South has a sex problem and find a better, logical way to deal with it.

Right now the way Southern religious/non-religious leaders are handling sex education (not to mention the sexual well being of Southerners as a whole) shames the people and the rich history of the south.

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Good. I didn’t until hearing the terms passed around lately in the news and around young people.

According to the Urban Dictionary.com (a must for parents/adults alike), sexting is defined as “v: the act of text messaging someone in the hopes of having a sexual encounter with them later; initially casual, transitioning into highly suggestive and even sexually explicit.”

Your teen knows what it means

And yes, if you think your pre-teen or teenager is not up to this term, think again.

I think for all the sexual freedom talk, it’s hard to judge what is the right course of action to take when your pre-teen or teenager is acting out something which should be left in the bedroom. It’s even harder today when our kids are more astute with the latest technology than any of us were 10 or 20 years ago.

From cell phones to text messaging to YouTube and Facebook , kids and teens show an ability to master the latest gizmo available on the market. They take it, use it, and create it to be their own identity; they make their homepages and profiles incredibly savvy even for the novice user.

The danger for young people

The danger is many young people are knowledgeable about sexual terms and how to do them, but not have the knowledge to be responsible to themselves and others.

Meanwhile, parents are left in the dust.

Many adults with kids get their children these devices, or give them unlimited time on the computer unaware of how far down the rabbit hole they can go. Your kids can be in their room or at school for hours, with parents not knowing what is on their cell phone, their personal page, or God knows what else. So how do sexually hip parental units find a balance between allowing your kids freedom to grow?

Simple. Be parental. Mom, Dad…Engage!

Getting to know what your children are doing means you may need to get as technically savvy as your kids. It may be as simple as having a sit down chat with your kids. It may mean you will have to confiscate their cell phones or computer to check out what they have on them.

Be a parent; not a friend

This is the part where you become a parent and not a buddy.

You simply say to them that seeing they are the ones who put a roof over their head, food on the table, and gave you the gift of life you—being the person responsible for how they will turn out in life—have every right to know if what they are doing with their friends and online is okay or not. They may balk but your involvement shows how much you love them as a parent. The alternative is much worse than not engaging in their lives.

Communicate. Educate. Establish ground rules

I’m no Dr. Phil, but I think that giving children some boundaries is not a bad thing at all.

Here are a few more tips for monitored “freedoms”.

1. Talk to your kids about sexuality. This world is much more sexually charged than the one you may have grown in. Sexual terms are at anybody’s disposal in an instant; radio programs talk about it openly; magazines—male and female—are constantly pushing tips on how to be more “available”. Parents need to head them off at the pass.
2. Parents, YOU are the sex ed teachers! Teachers need to learn the material out there and all the technology available to kids, engaging in their life. Find out what is out there and what they are doing so you can be a few steps ahead of your teen.
3. Teens need rules. In fact, if most teens were honest, they want rules so they know where they stand and know what is expected of them. If you just hand them a phone or an account without any supervision they can walk all over you as parents and go as far as they want without any restraint or idea of how much this can hurt them. This is wrong. If you put a curfew on how late your teens can stay out or how late they can stay up then it’s time to put a limit on how long to let them on the computer or on their cell phones.
4. Before buying a cell phone, find out what parental tools are available to block or place limits on them. If its an on line account, than why not have a primary account, in which a parental block can be put on a child’s account. Most servers like Yahoo or MSN will have this function available.

If communicating about sexuality on a regular basis is not enough, or if putting every safe guard on such 21st century technology is not enough, then you may have to do something “so like last century”.

Don’t give them anything.

Their world won’t crumble if they don’t have these technological devices with them twenty-four hours a day,except for an emergency of some sort where you can hand them your phone. They may be better off not having those tools at all.

This may seem like too much censoring and restricting freedoms. But until parents feel comfortable their children are safe, responsible, and knowledgeable about sexuality and relationships (not to mention the technology available to make social life fun) censoring may not always a bad thing.

Poll question: How many electric devices does your teenager(s) own?

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