Sex is not for children

Promiscuity among teenagers has no doubt increased alarmingly and with it sexually transmitted diseases (STD), the subject matter debated recently in Arena, the TV programme ably directed by Antonella Vassallo.

Back in the mid-1960s in the UK the number of girls having sex before 16 was about six in 100; in the 1990s the figures was one girl in three. A huge leap from that decade to the present one. In fact over the past 10 years the rise may have become even more relentless.

In a Southampton research among girls who had sex before the age of 16, 30 per cent said they regretted it. Half the teenagers said they were drunk when they lost their virginity and a third said the occasion was a one-night stand.

Two thirds of the girls, compared with four of 10 boys, thought you should be in love before having sex - a figure that contrasts sadly with the 30 per cent whose first experience was a one-night stand. Four of 10 teenagers who had not had sex said they had been under pressure to do so.

The research also suggested that teenagers were commonly engaged in behaviour that amounted to far more than sexual experimentation. A third reported having had sex a second time within a week of their first experience of intercourse.

The long term impact of the revolution in morality, which began in the 1960s, led to a world in which sex between young teenagers has become ever more common place than the statistics issued show. These statistics illustrate other key trends. Now the proportion of births outside marriage has risen, as has the number of unmarried mothers. The new generation has put off having a family until their late 30s or never at all. Statistics may also show a sharp rise in the number of unmarried women under the age of 50.

The figures on teenage sex throw fresh light on medical evidence that diseases associated with promiscuity, such as hard to detect chlamydia and gonorrhoea, are spreading among the young and could be the cause of infertility.

Statistics show a leap in teenage pregnancies. Unfortunately I feel there are girls who are woefully ignorant about such matters and are fully unaware of how to prevent an unwanted pregnancy. Family planning clinics specifically for the under 16s should be set up in each electoral district if there aren't any. There should be more enthusiasm for family planning organisations to spread information about and give access to contraception in order to prevent sexual activity among girls who have barely left childhood and who risk lifelong physical and psychological damage.

The study found that ignorance of sex and contraception was concentrated in districts with high rates of social and economic deprivation. Pregnant teenagers in these areas often went on to become single mothers while teenagers from middle class areas who become pregnant tended to have abortions.

I wonder whether these interesting findings apply to Malta as well! These teenagers are not really adults. They think they are but in reality they are missing adolescence. They are being propelled into adult sexual relationships for which they are not ready and which cause them long term harm.

This generation - in my opinion - knows more about sex than any other generation. Unfortunately the problem is a cultural one - that all the taboos that once used to protect people have gone.

We should at this stage concentrate our efforts on the damaging effect of early sex in terms of disease, ill-health, long tern psychological effect for young teenagers who are not ready to cope with adult pressures.

It is about time that we make a super human effort to explain to our children that sex is not for children.