A report by the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) last week on teenage sexuality shows some concerning numbers: While the number of junior-high school students (generally aged 12 to 15) who were sexually active rose from 2.3 percent to 5.7 percent over the past decade, birth control use dropped from 70 to 80 percent to 61 percent.
As society becomes more open and people are bombarded with sexualized content through the media and the Internet — be it movies, music videos, pornography, dating platforms or chat rooms — it is inevitable that more teens will be interested in sex at increasingly younger ages. As the Child Welfare League Foundation said last week, the time children spend on the Internet has doubled in the past six years, and is likely one of the causes.
Instead of pretending that junior-high school students are too young to learn about sex, or trying to shield them from it, parents and schools should put more effort into educating them properly so they can protect themselves — not just against pregnancies, but also diseases and sexual predators.
As the report states, pornography has become increasingly available, and any Internet-savvy youngster is likely to know how to access it if they choose to — even with parental controls. That is even more reason to discuss sex more openly, as pornography is not even close to representing real sex.
While young people’s attitude toward sex has become more liberal, many parents still see the topic as taboo.
“Such conversations should not be embarrassing,” the HPA said.
However, what is more alarming is that according to a different poll, adults are even less conscious about protecting themselves than teens.
A survey released by the Formosa Cancer Foundation last month showed that 67 percent of people aged 19 to 45 do not use condoms during sex. Yes, there are other forms of contraception, but most of them do not prevent sexually transmitted diseases, and that is a terrible example to be setting for the younger generation.
Using protection is the most basic tenet of sex education. There are far worse things that can happen if teens remain uninformed, as evidenced by numerous reports of adults being charged with statutory rape after meeting minors on dating apps or social media and luring them into a “romantic relationship.”
Ministry of Health and Welfare statistics showed that last year, 396 minors were allegedly sexually assaulted by someone they met online. Ministry of the Interior data also showed that from January to October last year, 40 percent of victims of offenses against sexual autonomy — including rape, sexual intercourse with a child and sexual obscenity — were females under 18.
And these are just the cases that were reported.
According to the Child Welfare League report, although more than 80 percent of parents and 90 percent of schools teach children about Internet safety, 41 percent of respondents (from grades five to nine) in the survey said that what they learned was not helpful to solving problems they encountered online.
These problems include being asked to meet alone in person (36 percent), forming a romantic relationship (46.5 percent), or sending nude or intimate photos and videos (25.1 percent).
It is happening much more than most parents might like to believe, which makes it even more important to openly discuss sex at age-appropriate levels. Embarrassment is not too much of a price to pay to keep one’s children safe.
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