Don’t Keep it on the Hush: Talk to Your Teen About Sex

Credit: ONOKY

I love seeing the First Lady on the cover of ESSENCE magazine’s October 2011 issue, but the cover conceals its best feature story: “Our Teens’ Secret Sex Lives” by Jeannine Amber. It’s my strong opinion that the complex emotions and consequences result from teen sex are not discussed enough–not among parents, in church, and not in mainstream society. I think Amber did an excellent job of covering various points of view in her article, and I’ll highlight a few things here.

Amber’s first statistic cites the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy: 1 in 2 Black girls will get pregnant before age 20. She also cites another study from the Centers for Disease Control–the same stats I describe in my book. But what I really like about this article is its call to parents to acknowledge teens sexual curiosity and behavior and talk to them openly and honestly about the facts and pressures they face.

Watch Your Mouth: Cancer Risk From Going Down

Many people mistakenly think there are no great risks to engaging in oral sex (especially for those who have multiple partners), because it cannot result in pregnancy. Oh how wrong they are–it’s riskier than they think.

According to ABC News, the popularity of oral sex among teens is causing the cases of HPV, along with cancers of the mouth, tonsils, and throat, to go up exponentially in teens and men! Since I recently discussed my story of when I  contracted HPV, I wanted to share this recent report with you.

http://abcnews.go.com/assets/player/walt2.6/flash/SFP_Walt_2_65.swf

I don’t have any other comments on the subject–the facts speak for themselves.