The Sex Ed Broadcast
Talking to your parents about sex is never a pleasant experience, especially knowing that they, too, have engaged in the act. However, this conversation can serve an important role in changing a teen’s life. Due to budget cuts, many schools, including AHS, have been forced to not offer resources for educating teens about sex. For this reason, it is crucial for teenagers to gain an understand of their sexual health by searching for other outlets, such as having the “talk” with their parents. However, many teenagers have never heard this conversation from their parents, forcing them to seek knowledge in modern media as an alternative form of sexual education.
Because many students and parents are not willing to deal with the discomfort of speaking to each other about sex, many teenagers never learn how to protect their sexual health. Although the media has been credited with romanticizing sex as a fun activity, it has become a primary source of sexual education for teens. The media is responsible for producing shows like Teen Mom, The Secret Life of an American Teenager, Glee and 16 & Pregnant. These programs have two things in common: high ratings and a focus on the ugly aftermath of a lack of sexual education.
Teen Mom spotlights high school mothers who must simultaneously balance school and their children. Teen Mom reveals how early pregnancies can drastically affect a teen’s life. Glee highlights one character’s fall from grace as captain of the cheerleading squad and president of the celibacy club as a result of getting pregnant. While scripted and edited, these shows reveal a more realistic take on teen pregnancies. Many of the young girls’ pregnancies were a result of having sex without protection and a lack of sexual education.
Modern television is now a method used in the campaign against teenage pregnancy as a way to educate teens about the consequences of sex– unprotected or not. Teenagers need to be taught, and they need to learn from reliable sources, not a source whose main concern is to entertain and achieve high ratings.
By Staff Writer Katherine Ong