More cautionary tales

Time for a perennial favourite topic: don't do it kids, something bad will happen.

[Hey, if a blogger who calls himself socially conservative can't try and point out that for humans, sex is, despite all its obvious fun aspects, actually a pretty serious thing with consequences, who can?] So here's the latest round up:

* Do I have to?

A "birds and the bees" talk with your kids isn't complete without a discussion of oral sex, according to a new study that found a connection between oral sex and old-fashioned intercourse. The three-year survey found that teens who had oral sex by the end of ninth grade were at the highest risk of having sexual intercourse during high school. These teens had a 25-percent chance of having intercourse by the end of ninth grade and a 50-percent chance by the end of 11th grade.

Well, I guess it's no great surprise that a teenager heavily into one form of foreplay is likely to soon try everything else, but still, explaining all varieties of sex (apart from the one that leads to babies) is a task that probably has only become a parental obligation in recent decades.

* Over-sharing again

I see that irritating writer-blogger Sam de Brito once again over-shared by telling us about how he caught genital herpes when he was in his 20's. (He's previously told us about catching crab lice from a backpacker in the same decade.)

The piece is all a bit of a two edged sword. On the one hand, you can take it as a cautionary tale for safe sex. On the other, he has a doctor talking about how people are rather hypocritical about this disease, with the aim of helping overcome the shame of having caught it.

The net effect: nothing in the article is likely to make people change behaviour, I reckon, which just reduces it to something else icky I wish de Brito hadn't shared with us. It does, however, have some interesting figures in it, regarding the percentage of people who have both forms of herpes.

* Oral not harmless, part 2

There's also been a fair bit of publicity lately about how another study (this one from Sweden - which is appropriate I guess given their libertine reputation) showing a correlation between high rises in oral cancers with increased rates of oral sex:

"This kind of cancer traditionally affects males who have been smoking and drinking all their life, and now in their mid-60s they are getting head and neck cancer," he said. "However, HPV cancer we are seeing in younger patients who have never smoked."

Strangely, though, this is noted:

Similarly high rates have also been seen in Europe, where a new Swedish study has shown a strong correlation between oral cancers and oral sex. Oddly, the rising rates have not been seen yet in the Southern Hemisphere in Australia and New Zealand.

The cause is thought to be the human papilloma virus, for which we now have the vaccine which I think few teenage Australia girls are not having.

This should improve things gradually for head and throat cancer too, I guess, but still if you're in your 20's or 30's and acting like Sam de Brito, you're not going to be getting the benefit of that.

* Start dating older women

If you're 13, probably best to avoid sex with your 10 year old girlfriend. (The article at the link notes that even this is not the youngest recorded age for pregnancy.) Ick.

* Now to contradict myself

Slate recently had an interesting slide show which contrasted the European approach to teenage sex education to that in America. It made some interesting claims:

Dr. Amy Schalet conducted in-depth interviews with teens and parents about adolescent sexual mores in both countries. She found that in the United States, teen sexuality is dramatized as an "overpowering force." Parents commonly talk about their kids' hormones "raging out of control." If teen sexuality is destined to be reckless and dangerous, then fear is the only hope of controlling it.

Europeans, such as the Dutch, by contrast:

...view teen sexuality as being "right." The Dutch use the phrase "being ready" to talk about how their teens will know they are prepared to have sex. They spend less time and effort trying to prevent young people from becoming sexually active, and more on educating them to be responsible when they do.

As I noted from another article some time ago, the Dutch teenagers generally start sex later, despite all the openness about how its done and precautions, etc. Yet, that earlier article noted that there are likely other cultural reasons going on to explain the low rate of teenage pregnancy, apart from the intense sex education.

It's interesting to contrast this with, say, alcohol use. It seems now that most experts here think the well meaning middle class parent who lets their 16 year old take some alcohol to a party on the basis that they should be allowed to do openly something they will do anyway, are in fact doing the wrong thing. Yet, the gradual introduction of alcohol with family dining in some European countries seems to work OK.

In the Australian context, I remain similarly skeptical of parents who allow (say) their 16 year old to have their girlfriend or boyfriend stay over for sex, on the basis that it's better that it's done there than in the back of a car or park.

Anyhow, the right balance in how to approach sex education seems as tricky as ever.