The special cellphone, set on vibrate, begins to whir. Throughout North Carolina, anonymous teenagers are texting questions to it about sex.
“If you take a shower before you have sex, are you less likely to get pregnant?” asks one.
Another: “Does a normal penis have wrinkles?”
A young girl types: “If my BF doesn’t like me to be loud during sex but I can’t help it, what am I supposed to do?”
Within 24 hours, each will receive a cautious, nonjudgmental reply, texted directly to their cellphones, from a nameless, faceless adult at the Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Campaign of North Carolina, based in Durham.
There goes the phone again.
“Why do guys think it’s cool to sleep with a girl and tell their friends?”
James Martin, the staff member who has text-line duty this week, is 31, married and the father of a toddling son. He hesitates. How to offer comfort, clarity and hope in just a few sentences? He texts back. “Mostly it’s because they believe that having sex makes them cool,” he types, adding, “Most guys outgrow that phase.”
The Birds and Bees Text Line, which the center started on Feb. 1, directing its MySpace ads and fliers at North Carolinians ages 14 to 19, is among the latest efforts by health educators to reach teenagers through technology — sex ed on their turf.
Sex education in the classroom, say many epidemiologists and public health experts, is often ineffective or just insufficient. In many areas of the country, rates of teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases remain constant or are even rising. North Carolina — where schools must teach an abstinence-only curriculum — has the country’s ninth-highest teenage pregnancy rate. Since 2003, when the state’s pregnancy rate declined to a low of 61 per 1,000 girls ages 15 to 19, the rates have slowly been climbing. In 2007, that rate rose to 63 per 1,000 girls — 19,615 pregnancies.
Here are some questions and answers from the Birds and Bees Text Line.
Q. I have swores in my mouth if I go to the school nurse and have sifalce [syphilis] if I ask she cant tell my mom right
A. The Family Educational Right to Privacy Act gives parents the right to examine their child’s health records from a school nurse. You’re better off asking about confidentiality before you get tested. Or head to your doctor or local Planned Parenthood office. Be sure to ask how confidential your records are.
Q. Does a machine respond to these txts?
A. This is a person. An actual person :).
Q. If you take a shower before you have sex, are you less likely to get pregnant?
A. Nope, doesn’t make a difference.
Q. Can you get rid of a baby under a week old without anybody asking for your name?
A. You can under the NC Safe Surrender law. Visit safesurrender.net for more information.
Q. I don’t believe in having sex does that make me gay?
A. Being gay is a matter of being sexually attracted to a member of the same sex. Unless you’re attracted to members of the same sex, you’re probably not gay.
Q. How can I stop myself to giving into sexual temptations?
A. The best way to avoid temptation is to avoid being in situations where you’re tempted. If you do find yourself tempted, then you need to remember why you’re abstaining and focus on that as a means to help you stay abstinent.
SOURCE: NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE
In the last 15 years, school officials and politicians in many states rancorously debated whether sex-ed curriculums should mention contraception. Meanwhile, public health officials became alarmed about the fallout of risky adolescent sexual behavior and grappled with how to educate teenagers beyond the classroom.
A few universities and hospitals set up blunt Web sites for young people, like Atlantic Health’s TeenHealthFX.com and Columbia’s Go Ask Alice!, allowing them to post questions online. More recently, researchers have explored how to reach teenagers through social networking sites like MySpace and YouTube.
Now, health experts say, intimate, private and crucial information can be delivered to teenagers on the device that holds millions captive: their cellphones.
Programs in Washington DC, Chicago, Toronto and San Francisco allow young people to text a number, select from a menu of frequently asked questions (“What 2 do if the condom broke”) and receive automated replies, with addresses of free clinics. Last month, California started HookUp 365247, a statewide text-messaging service. The texter can type a ZIP code and get a local clinic referral, as well as weekly health tips.
“Technology reduces the shame and embarrassment,” said Deb Levine, executive director of ISIS, a nonprofit organization that began many technology-based reproductive health programs. “It’s the perceived privacy that people have when they’re typing into a computer or a cellphone. And it’s culturally appropriate for young people: they don’t learn about this from adults lecturing them.”
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