GRANADA HILLS : Training to Say No to Sex Given by Health Firm

Three girls and one boy at Kennedy High School in Granada Hills met in their study group Friday to look over the day’s lesson in health class.

The ditto sheet handed out to this group gave them this problem to ponder:

“You’ve been going out with someone for six months and care for this person very much. There’s going to be a small party at a good friend’s house and the two of you can be alone. Your partner asks you to get some protection before the party. You’re not ready to have sex.”

It was not a multiple choice test. This exercise was meant to teach effective ways to say “no” to sex.

“Our goals are to teach people to either abstain or refuse unprotected sex,” said Rebecca Sheng, director of the Information and Education department of the Northeast Valley Health Corp. “We address the pressures of a teen-ager.”

This assertiveness training was the last portion of a weeklong program at the school aimed at reducing teen-age pregnancies. The program also featured segments on sexually transmitted diseases and birth control methods.

This final day was devoted to teaching youngsters about how to refuse sex if they don’t feel they are ready for the responsibilities associated with the act.

Vanessa Felix and Adrian Gonzalez--who taught the program--started the lesson by performing a skit for the class where Gonzalez played a boy trying to convince his younger girlfriend to have sex with him.

Felix, as the reluctant girlfriend, flatly refused Gonzalez and then mollified him by suggesting that they take a massage class instead.

April Slevin, 16, who in another skit played a 12-year-old girl wanting to have sex with her boyfriend because she was afraid of losing him, later said she learned much from the sex education program.

“It isn’t the best thing (to have sex now) and you should wait until you are ready,” Slevin said.

Her classmate, Monica Pena-Thompson, 15, said she also thought the class offered important information.

“Sometimes, it really depends on the guy. Sometimes they try to force you,” Pena-Thompson said. In such a situation, she said she would “push him away and say, ‘Let’s do something else.’ ”