Comic for 8/2/12

[d murphy]

I tend to enjoy Star/Mary comics.

[razmoudah]

Actually I'm not that surprised about sex-ed not having a noticeable impact on teen pregnancies for two reasons.

First, years ago when I was in 7th grade (I'm in my late 20's now, so this was well back in the '90's) one of my classmates had a younger sister who was pregnant, it was a few months later that school year that we had our sex-ed classes. Sex-ed isn't going to make a difference if they're experimenting with sex before they even have the classes.

Second, it doesn't matter if you know what a condom is, and have a rough idea of how to use it, if you don't have access to condoms. The same goes for other types of contraceptives. Which brings up an interesting point, Japan has the lowest teen pregnancy rate relative to population and population density, it also has the greatest ease of access to various contraceptives for minors. I guess until rather recently the US had one of the highest (the highest for any first-world nation) rates of teen pregnancy relative to population and population density, with the lowest ease of access to various contraceptives for minors. I can't say that every nation follows this pattern, but there are few that strongly deviate from it.

[d murphy]

interesting to hear that about japan. i would have assumed western europe as to my knowledge it has the lowest abortion rate, though that's not the same as lowest teen pregnancy.

i agree strongly with your assessment. i got a little sex ed in 5th grade that was basically just the "you're hitting puberty" segment. i got a little more in 7th or 8th grade, but was more related to what happens during pregnancy rather than what causes pregnancy. i didn't get full sex ed until sophomore year which was definitely too late for many people in my class and its tricky to assess when such education would be relevant as there's a very wide range in terms of preparedness for the information among children at such ages, though i tend to lean towards the belief that earlier is generally better.

[razmoudah]

My parents gave me a fairly direct and to the point talk about sex, and that was well before I had a sex-ed class (actually before I learned I had a class mate whose younger sister had experimented with sex even). The biggest problem is that most parents are to 'embarrassed' to talk with there kids about sex until it's far to late, they just need to 'adult up' and make sure it's taken care of before their kids are fully into puberty.

[d murphy]

yeah, that's very true. but studies have shown that as embarrassed as parents may be, kids are way more embarrassed to approach their parents about sex than parents are about approaching their children.

[razmoudah]

Which is why most kids don't ever say anything to their parents about it and nothing is said until it is far, far too late.