"Being drunk and forgetting" is one of the top reasons British teens don't use contraception, according to the 'Talking Sex and Contraception: What Teenagers Around the World Told Us' survey in 2009. Concerned citizen and Youth Task Force member Stuart Heritage hits the streets of late night London to find out from his young countrymen and women: Would you ever be drunk enough to forget about contraception?
I cannot wait to start a family of my own and I want that more than anything right now at this point in my life. I feel as if I have learned so many things about this amazing world and I cannot wait to share these things with someone who will look to me for guidance. Yet I know that it is in my children’s best interest, as well as my own, to wait until the time is really right. I have learned so much in my 23 years, but there is so much more I can learn, both about myself and the world.
This year I am working on never saying anything negative unless it has a positive outcome. To cure my impatience and soothe the maternal instincts that drive me to want to have a family now, I have been making private video blogs for my children since I was 20. In the videos I tell my future unborn children about my life. I talk about what I think they might look like and what their personalities might be like. I talk about popular and unpopular culture, my friends, technology, philosophies, pretty much anything that comes to mind.
As one of the oldest members of the Youth Task Force - and easily the most fogeyish - I'll have to approach this 'relationships' blog a little differently.
I can't really talk about my previous dating experiences, because that would just end up reading like an encyclopedia of catastrophe - although while I'm on the subject I may as well apologise to the following: 1) The girl who I never called because she wrote her number on a banknote that I accidentally spent on booze. 2) The girl who I never called because she wrote her number on my arm and I forgot it was there until after I'd washed it off. 3) The girl who I spent weeks making up stupid nicknames for because I'd forgotten what her real name was and she never bothered to mention it again.
So instead I'll have to talk about the relationship I'm now. It's easily the most serious relationship I've ever been in, and that's excellent. We've been together for a few years, we live together and I don't think she's realised what an intolerable arsehole I am yet. Nobody tell her, please.
In the last few days I've been finding it difficult to understand the common mentality of people...
We're well into the 21st century, dominated by information. We have information at the tips of our fingers. We are surrounded by lethal illnesses and diseases like HIV and the famous H1N1, children dying of hunger, countries at war, border conflicts like those of my country with Venezuela and Ecuador, global warming, the extinction of species, threats from natural disasters, massacres, abuses of power, discrimination, intolerance... In short, innumerable world calamities that make me wonder if it's worth it for people to harbour such misconceptions and taboos with respect to sexuality.
They say that it's obscene to talk about contraception, they say that it's immoral to pose naked for a magazine, they say it's indecent to speak to teens about sex, and I ask myself, isn't war more obscene? Is it not more indecent to fight each other for a piece of land, for a barrel of oil or for our ideological differences, than to feel proud of our bodies? To feel proud of living sexually responsibly, and feel proud of planning our lives?
The other day I ran into an interesting blog post titled "Too young? Sex-ed for children in first grade" on a blog called "China Smack". Apparently someone saw a sex-ed book in a first grader's schoolbag on human sexuality and didn't think it was quite appropriate. The blog post sums it up: "The cartoon-like illustration coupled by the straightforwardness of its content brings to question the suitableness of sex education at such an early age." This someone then scanned a few cartoon illustrations of the book. You can see them if you follow the link.
The "straightforward" talk touches on how men's and women's bodies are built differently, proper names for human genitalia and how to identify and avoid a pedophile. The discussion on the blog then proceeds to question whether the info provided is too early for a seven year old. It makes a rewarding and amusing read. Some say it's too early for a 7-year-old to get such a close-up look at a vagina (probably because they haven't even seen one that close at the age of 34). Some say you can never give this kind of knowledge too early to a kid by referencing their experience exploring their own bodies at age seven. You should always know what you are playing with. Very reasonable argument. Point taken.
6) Does your boyfriend avoid talking about contraception? Force him. Next time you have sex with him, surprise him. Put a condom inside your underwear. Get a pen and write sentences like "do you want this baby?" on your belly.
7) A guy starts some foreplay with his girlfriend in a car. He doesn't have a condom. She's not taking the pill. She suggests: "Stop! Let's go shopping at a sex shop! Or at a pharmacy. How about that?" Clever girl, huh?
8) Too shy to talk about contraception? No problem. There are lots of websites (you're on one of them) and people you can trust. But if you want to share experiences and hear peoples' opinions and feel too shy to ask those questions directly, you can make a video. Put a bag on your face, say everything you want, ask all your dirty and weird questions about sex and put in on YouTube. People will definitely answer. I'm looking forward to see this video, by the way. Can't wait!
Soon I came across my notes from biology class, and after finding an unmotivated drawing of the cross-section of male genitalia, I remembered: ninth grade was the year of the great embarrassments in biology class. At that time, we were having sex education.
Our old conservative biology teacher would have loved to just delete this topic from the curriculum. But because she let a young, fresh trainee teacher take over a quarter of the school year (I think she did it because she loathed our class), we had several months of styrofoam dildos, educational films and contraception cases in front of us. The classes were very diverse, and apart from the usual theory, we also completed several practical assignments, with the primary goal of teaching us to lose our shame and talk about sex openly.
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