Pedagogy

Growing up as a teenager, I was very curious and at the same time sensitive about matters related to sex and sexuality. A lot of sex talk was happening around me, in school, in the neighborhood and at the places I used to spend time with my peers, and this had a great influence on how I viewed and interpreted sex. From an early age, I knew boys were different from girls, getting this information from my peers like most people do. I was too timid or embarrassed to seek the truth about sex and sexuality from my parents and other older family members so I resulted to the mass media to learn as much as I could. Television, the internet and magazines came in handy in my pursuit of the truth.

 Looking back decades later, I can comfortably conclude that the media and peers are not the correct avenues where a maturing teenager should obtain information about sex and sexuality as the images painted are seldom reliable and are filled with misconceptions that could jeopardize a young life. I remember at one time I really liked one girl from the neighborhood and she liked me. I could spend hours in my room writing love letters and poems with the intention of passing them to her the next day at school but no matter how I tried, I could not give them to her, getting really anxious about how she would react.

Upon sharing my affliction with my friends, they advised me to face her courageously and have sexual intercourse with her. According to them, if she agreed then it would indicate that she also loved me and then we would become a couple. Interestingly, I thought this was a very good idea, as most teens would believe even today. Television, film and other forms of media portray sex as an expression of love and affection to the detriment of many youths. Sex is not the only way of showing love to someone. As a matter of fact, all teenagers are not prepared to carry the responsibilities and burdens that may arise from engaging in irresponsible sexual behavior. Getting misleading information and pressure from their peers usually influences some to engage in sex, exposing them to sexually transmitted infections and the risk of unwanted pregnancies.

Now that I have a better understanding of sex and sexuality, I believe that parents and guardians should hold sex talks with teenagers and provide them with the facts as they are concerning the sensitive issue. Young people should be taught that sex at their age is not a means of demonstrating love but destroying it. There are various other ways they can sufficiently relate to the opposite sex. Sharing time and ideas, exchanging gifts and other pleasantries are examples very effective ways which opposite-sex relationships can thrive at that tender, crucial age. Since most teens and other young people are likely to feel uncomfortable discussing matters to do with sexuality and their sex lives with their parents or guardians, parents should choose a family doctor or another trusted and mature person should be given the responsibility of providing guidance and education to them to avert the risk of them molding their perceptions straight from the rumor mill.

When I was growing up, there used to be a belief that everyone in my peer group was actually active sexually. One would be ridiculed and branded a looser if they do no have a girlfriend or a boyfriend, or if they were suspected of being a virgin. A teenager would get isolated if he or she it was even just thought that he or she was not engaging in sexual activities. When I got a little bit older, I realized that some of the self-declared masters of the sex game did not even have a clue of what sex involved they were virgin like the rest of us but made up steamy tales of their sexual encounters to deceive the nave. The pressure arising from peers misled many into making serious mistakes that compromised the quality of their future lives.

Sex is an issue requiring each individual to deal with it personally. Whether or not a person is going to become sexually active or to acquire a sexual partner is a personal issue and the decision should be made after careful thought and considering a lot of factors. The most important thing is to ensure that a person can effectively handle the repercussions of his or her decisions. It does not matter what everyone is doing, it is a matter of what is best for each individual. Now that I know, I feel pity for those that fell for those deceptions and had to drop out of school because of early motherhood resulting from teenage sex. My wish is that the young ones growing up at this time could only realize that and take charge of their own lives, engaging only in the activities that are going to be beneficial to them in the long run.

Besides contracting sexually transmitted infections like gonorrhea, syphilis and HIV, the other thing we feared most as teenagers was unwanted pregnancies. A lot of theories concerning the circumstances under which a girl could conceive were circulated. Some of them included the belief that a girl can not become pregnant if her sexual partner withdraws his penis just before ejaculation. After reading resource material from the internet, I discovered that as long as the female reproductive system is tuned for pregnancy, even the slightest exposure to a mans sperms led to a very high probability that the woman concerned could become pregnant.
Before the actual ejaculation, a mans penis is continuously secreting pre-ejaculatory fluid that in essence contains thousands of sperm cells. Therefore, the withdrawal method of birth control is not effective.

According to information from experts, it is deemed to fail in an average of 20 out of every 100 cases.
There was also a misconception that if a girl was experiencing her monthly menstrual periods, she could not get pregnant. It was argued that since the monthly periods are a time when the female egg is being shed, it cannot get fertilized. However, there are cases in which ovulation can occur at the time the periods are happening or shortly after. Research has pointed out that the sperm cell can stay alive inside the female reproductive system for as long as seven days. Therefore, the risk of an unwanted pregnancy is always there. Furthermore, the menstrual cycle is unique for every individual and unpredictable. I was shocked to discover such details about the nature of conception and reproduction and therefore would recommend that teenagers need to take extra caution and should think twice before choosing to engage in sex so that they may evade the risk of unwanted pregnancies and the burden of early parenthood.

My gravest concern while I was in the early teens was avoiding sexually transmitted infections. I had witnessed a close relative suffer under the scourge of HIVAIDS and the psychological trauma I went through made me develop images in my own imagination on how to avoid contracting the dreaded condition. Whenever I suspected someone had a questionable sex life, I could keep my distance from them. I could not shake their hands or hug them fearing I might get infected. After taking lessons on sexuality and STIs, I realized that the microorganisms that cause sexually transmitted infections pass from one person to the other through an intimate sexual encounter and that ordinary skin contact was not a problem. Only herpes can be transmitted through skin contact because the germs dwell on sores developing on the victims skin. I felt guilty of having discriminated against people who posed no threat at all to my safety in fact it is such people who need loving and care from the society so that they can deal better with their conditions and remain productive. I now have joined a welfare support group that offers education about sex to the youth and offers counseling to people who have been unfortunate to contract AIDS.