TEENS, SEX: What They Don’t Know May Hurt : Teens and Sex Amid Mishmash of Myths, Facts

American teen-agers at present have inherited the worst of all possible worlds regarding their exposure to messages about sex.

--1985 report of the Alan Guttmacher Institute

A teen-age girl called UC Irvine Medical Center in a panic, saying she needed “prenatal care” immediately. When she arrived at the hospital later, it was learned she was in labor.

Another Orange County teen-ager, fearing she was pregnant, was asked why she hadn’t used birth control. Her boyfriend, she explained, didn’t want her to be “that kind of girl.” After the scare, would she start using birth control? No, she replied, she didn’t want to be that kind of a girl, either.

In Los Angeles, a teen-age boy wanting to buy condoms drove 50 miles to a place where he could be sure nobody he knew would see him. Another boy stole them because he was too embarrassed to buy them from a clerk.

Such stories illustrate the widespread misinformation and unhelpful attitudes about sex and pregnancy held by some youngsters despite their apparent sexual savvy, say counselors, clinicians and health educators who worry about the high pregnancy rate of U.S. teen-agers.

Since 1972, the number of teen-agers who are sexually active has risen by two-thirds; today, 49% of all 15- to 19-year-olds are sexually active, according to the Guttmacher Institute, the nonprofit research arm of Planned Parenthood and the generally accepted clearinghouse for information on adolescent pregnancy. National studies show the average teen-ager today starts sexual activity at age 16 and that half of teen pregnancies occur within six months thereafter.

Gaps in Knowledge

While more teens are using contraceptives than ever before, only a third always use a contraceptive method, and three-quarters wait nine months to a year before obtaining contraception from a clinic or a physician, according to the Coalition Concerned With Adolescent Pregnancy. Many are unsure how to obtain contraceptives or how the methods work. Some do not realize they can get them confidentially from private physicians as well as clinics. (In 1983, a federal appeals court called unlawful a Reagan Administration “squeal rule,” which would have required federally funded family planning clinics to notify parents when dispensing contraceptives to young women under 18.)

Based on the questions they’re asked, American teens commonly believe pregnancy cannot result from the first sexual intercourse, educators say. And they believe pregnancy cannot occur if sex occurs infrequently--or in a vertical position. Few understand the relationship between menstruation and pregnancy. Many believe birth control pills cause cancer, birth defects, sterility or tuberculosis. In fact, although certain health risks are associated with the Pill, the health risks associated with pregnancy, abortion or venereal disease are greater, said Nancy Kraus, a community health educator with the South Bay Free Clinic in Los Angeles.

(Taking the Pill can also be a complicated procedure for teens. Recently, Mary Lou Williams, director of a pregnant minor program in Montebello, said a teen-age girl had received a packet of pills in four colors, one for each week of the month. The greens for the fourth week were placebos, designed simply to keep her taking a pill a day. “She was taking them backwards,” Williams said. “You’re talking about kids reading at fourth- and fifth-grade levels. They can’t figure it out, and the doctors, public health centers and nurses are doing an inadequate job of explaining it to them.”)

But even among teens who are knowledgeable, young men tend to assume--incorrectly--that the majority of young women are taking birth control pills. And both sexes, educators say, talk about preferring to be swept away romantically rather than preparing for sex with contraceptives.

Young women are particularly uncomfortable admitting their sexuality to themselves, according to Bobbi Mitzenmacher, a health educator at Cal State Dominguez Hills. “Being swept away allows us to be sexual. What we can’t control, we can’t be blamed for. We can’t be labeled bad or promiscuous. That’s what makes women not use birth control.”

“They think it’s so romantic to just let it happen, to be spontaneous. I say it’s stupid. Have you ever heard of a spontaneous boy? He’s been planning and organizing this thing for years,” said Sol Gordon, professor of Child and Family Studies at Syracuse University and author of “Raising a Child Conservatively in a Sexually Permissive World.”

“We have less knowledge than ever before,” Gordon said in a telephone interview. “There’s all this sex in the media, but no sex information. It’s very sad. We’re not providing young people with knowledge, we’re providing them with stimulation, provocation and advertising.”

Researchers have found that teen-agers receive half their information on sex from their friends, 35% from the media and only 15% from their parents, according to Cynthia Sheinberg, executive director of the Santa Ana-based Coalition Concerned with Adolescent Pregnancy.

While no study has yet conclusively linked the media with teen sexual activity, both conservatives and liberals have attacked the broadcast media for pervasive ultra-romantic or violent portrayals of sex.

According to the Center for Population Options, a national nonprofit organization attempting to reduce unwanted teen pregnancies, an average television viewer sees 9,230 scenes of suggested sexual intercourse, sexual comment or innuendo in a year; yet references to birth control are rare, and major networks ban advertising of contraceptives on radio and television. In a 1978 study done for Cambridge, Mass., Population Education Inc., 50% of 1,400 parents interviewed at random cited television as the primary source of their children’s sexuality related information.

Promoting Realism

To promote healthy, realistic images about relationships and contraception, the center’s Media Projects Office in Studio City offers free consultants to writers of movies, television comedies, dramatic series and movies of the week. The center also presents a media award for the most accurate portrayal of human sexual values and responsible sexual behavior and sponsors public service announcements in which teen idols talk about sexual responsibility and contraceptives.

Rather than limiting viewing, parents should use movies and programs as a springboard for discussion, some educators suggest. “I tell parents to watch television or go to the movies with their kids and discuss them. You say, ‘Is this realistic? What are the consequences?’ ” Mitzenmacher said.

In the television movie, “Little Darlings,” she noted, two 15-year-old girls go to summer camp and set out to lose their virginity. “The girl who did regretted it, but all along the way to that conclusion, the message was how to seduce a camp counselor. I’m not sure the kids would even get the message without a discussion.”

“Parents feel generally that knowledge is harmful,” author Gordon said. “They also have this myth that they are supposed to wait until children ask. Most children never ask.” And, he said, parents--despite the sexual revolution of their generation--are still uncomfortable talking to their children about sex. “We should give the message to parents that they have to give this information whether they’re comfortable or not.”

A basic problem behind unwanted teen pregnancies in the United States is that the widespread romantic portrayal of sexuality is accompanied by an equally widespread and conflicting notion that “good girls should say no” and a lack of adequate information about sex and contraception, according to a recent Guttmacher Institute study.

The study compared teen-age sexual activity and fertility in the United States with five similarly industrialized countries (Sweden, France, the Netherlands, England and Wales and Canada). All five countries have lower teen-age birth and abortion rates than the United States. The report concluded that more acceptance of teen-age sexuality, more liberal sex education programs and easier access to contraceptives in those countries accounted for their lower rates.

Premarital Abstinence

Gordon and other sex educators recommend that parents start talking to their children about sex, using correct anatomical terms, as early as kindergarten age and introduce them to such books as “Where Did I Come From?” and “What’s Happening to Me?” by Peter Mayle.

With teen-agers, Gordon suggests parents use reverse psychology and tell their children not to read such books as his own “Teen-Age Survival Book.” However, he noted, responsible behavior won’t result from imparting details about sex only, without also promoting self-esteem and letting young people know they will not be rejected for making mistakes.

Some moral conservatives--who oppose sex education in the public schools--believe the answer lies in premarital abstinence. And even liberal health educators, noting the dangers of sexually transmitted diseases, offer girls assertive training in how to say “no.”

Educators say the universal line used by young men to seduce young women is still, “If you really loved me, you’d have sex with me.” A response Gordon suggests is, “I really love you, but do you have a condom?”

Educator Kraus remembers a time when a popular line young men used was, “It’s OK, I’m protected.” Since the advent of the Pill, she said, more young men are telling young women that condoms reduce feelings and complain that using a prophylactic is “like taking a shower with a raincoat on.” Her suggested response: “You suit up for the game or you play it yourself.”

One complication, educators say, is that whatever teen-agers are told is filtered through a normal adolescent mentality characterized by such attitudes as “tomorrow is forever” and “it won’t happen to me.”

According to researcher Douglas Kirby, it is extremely difficult to change teens’ sexual behavior through educational courses due to adolescents’ individual needs, our culture’s double standards, past years of subtle or explicit sexual messages and the large amount of misinformation they receive. The only programs that have been shown to reduce pregnancies are those that provide health services in an accessible and supportive environment, according to Kirby, director of the Center for Population Options.

However, state and federal administrations have cut back funding for such family planning services, said Tom Kring, executive director of the Los Angeles Regional Family Planning Council, which administers federal and state funds.

The result of such cuts in Los Angeles County, he said, has been “a decrease in the number of women we’re able to provide services to, including teen-agers . . . We have programs that have had to turn patients away for two months because of limited funding.

“My real concern is that at a time when the problem seems as huge as it is, the resources are as limited as they are.”