Irresponsible Attitudes Toward Intimacy and Contraception in Teens When it became clear that HIV/AIDS was beginning to seriously affect the heterosexual community, greater numbers of individuals began practicing safe sex or abstinence. In addition to self-reports, one indicator that this was true of teens as well as adults was declining teen pregnancy rates. Those rates, however, began rising again in the late 1980s after years of decline. Teens are typically greater risk takers than their adult counterparts and it is clear that many teens are again practicing irresponsible sexual behavior, having numerous consequences including teen pregnancy and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS. The consequences of both this behavior and the failure of adults to adequately address the situation continues to negatively impact society.Continuing Education ProblemStatistics clearly indicate that there continues to be a problem relative to educating teens and promoting responsible sexual behavior. In the U.S., one teen becomes infected with a sexually transmitted disease every ten seconds, two people under 20 become infected with HIV every hour and 3,000 teens become pregnant every day (Conniff, pg.12-14). One girl interviewed by Louise D. Palmer (par.5) indicated that she thought only sailors got syphilis and that if she and her boyfriend used a condom occasionally, she would be safe from disease and an unwanted pregnancy—before she became pregnant at 15. While today’s generation of teens has had abstinence and condom use drilled into their heads in schools, churches and through the media, the message has had no more success getting through than it did with past generations. “Sex. It can be confusing and complicated for a mature adult, but when you’re a teen living amid a world of mixed messages, it can be downright traumatic” (Carr, par.10,12-13).Premarital Sex/Statistics and Histo...
