My View and Opinion on Underage Sex Essay

Some 16 year old teens already, have an apartment and may already be married, and have children. Some are also legally emancipated from their parents. Some adolescents even drive. They have already started their lives as an adult.

While sexual education is mandatory in almost all secondary schools across Australia, the level of depth at which it is taught varies throughout every school. Many highly important areas of sex ed, such as learning about consent, contraceptive options and violence in relationships, are less commonly taught in high school, with puberty typically being the prime topic taught in PDHPE lessons instead. But when we look at the increase in things such as sexual assault, sexual violence, Sexually Transmitted Infections and teenage pregnancy among today’s youth, we must wonder why such imperative subjects to educate teenagers on are discussed so minimally.

As a result of high percentage of pregnancy and childbirth among teenagers; which often result in unfavorable health, social and economical issues, there are various types of laws regulating sex education in middle schools in different states. According to National Conference of State

Studies show that the national average for an adolescent’s first sexual intercourse encounter is seventeen years old. Despite this number being very close to the average age in other industrialized countries, the United States holds a higher percentage of teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease (STD) contraction than those countries (Harper et al, 2010, p. 125). It’s becoming evident that while a majority of the nation’s youth is sexually active, they are not doing so with the appropriate knowledge to keep themselves and others healthy.

Bill Hughley, Executive Director of the Rockdale Coalition for Children and Families, said “state wide statistics illustrate that high risk sexual behavior among teenagers is a growing problem as young teenagers begin to experiment with sex with people much older than them (Jones, par 4). Many of these teens are engaging in sex not realizing that if both partners are not within the same age bracket they could be committing a crime. There is an exception for teenagers convicted of statutory rape and child molestation included as part of so called “Romeo and Juliet Laws” teenagers as long as they are not more than four years apart-to be charged only with misdemeanors and they would not be requires to register as sex

Teens also feel that social media and texting is outside the law so they look past bullying, sexting, and other illegal acts as against the law. If they are allowed to consent to sex underage, many will not understand because they are considerably the

Martha Kempner, author of the article “What’s Wrong With Our Age of Consent Laws”, states “Age of consent laws is meant to protect young people from exploitation by adults, but in too many instances they send 18-year-old boys to jail for having consensual sex with their 15-year-old girlfriends. The boys then end up on sex offender registries for life along side rapists and pedophiles. Should we really be legislating teen sex?” There are also many inconsistencies amongst state to state regarding these laws, differing between ages 16 and 18 as the legal consent age, causes much confusion for couples in relationships, such as one Kempner stated, as well as the opportunity for the exploitation of 16 year olds by adults who live in states in which the laws have been lowered. Now the age of 25 for sexual consent laws, is likely too drastic, however we propose that there should be at least an equal age amongst all states, to eliminate any further unnecessary confusion, embarrassment, and

Until you are 16 even with consent, noone can touch you sexually, perform a sexual act or have sex with you.

They see the overwhelming importance given to sexual attractiveness in the media-one study estimated that the average teenager ahs witnessed nearly 14,000 sexual encounters on television- yet they also hear their parents and religious advisers telling them that sex is wrong. As a result, many young people begin having sex without really intending to and without taking precautions against pregnancy.

Our generation of teens has become too prone of sexual activity with less worry of the consequences it comes along with. Most teenagers, ages 15 through 19, are sexually active, approximately 30 percent being of the ages 15 and 16. Many young teens have not been exposed to all the repercussions, such as risk of pregnancy and STDs, that sex can result in. Our schools need to provide better sex education courses and require students to receive credit in them.

On top of that, laws regarding Statutory Rape are different from one state to the next. “30 states currently consider 16 to be the age of consent; the remaining 20 states set it either at 17 or 18.” (Schwiegershausen “What You Should Know About Statutory-Rape Laws”). Some states allow the use of mistaken age or a small age gap (Romeo and Juliet Laws) as a defense against charges of Statutory Rape, and some states do not. This causes a lot of confusion as to what the laws are, especially for those moving from state to state a lot. Many people (minors especially) do not think it is an issue because if it’s consensual, why should age matter? The median age difference in Statutory Rape cases is 6 years. There are plenty of people who are married and have kids who are 6 or less years apart in age. Often because of this belief they do not take the time to research and discover the laws, and then they end up in a legal mess because it never occurred to them that consensual sexual activities would send one, or both, of them to prison. Those who understand Statutory Rape laws state that if it were truly consensual it wouldn’t be prosecuted, but there is a huge flaw in this line of thinking. If the law states that it is illegal to have sex with a person under the age of consent, and the law assumes that if it’s consensual it will not be brought to the court; that

Sexual favours in return for money, just the thought of this has people cringing, although laws have deemed to move forward with the idea of prostitution it seems although socially there has not been much progress. The idea of prostitution still scares, or one could even go as far to say it disgusts people. The lack of knowledge and awareness of the details of sex work create this ongoing hate towards sex work, which continues to stigmatize sex workers. Regardless of changing laws, regardless of changing policies, why is it that sex workers are still afraid to proudly announce that their job is in fact the job of a sex worker? Unfortunately, it seems as though the idea of sex work that seems to be such a terrible one is not what bothers sex workers the most, it is the social misconception of what sex work is like that leads these individuals to feel highly stigmatized (Van der Meulen and Redwood, 2013). The primary harm for of prostitution seems to be the stigma against prostitution, women involved in prostitution are considered socially invisible as full human beings (Farley, 2004). Why is it that our changing and progressing laws are still unable to remove this stigma from the lives of sex workers? This paper will argue that prostitution laws continue to produce stigma around sex work. It will argue this through revisiting the historical laws, examining present laws and ongoing laws at this time.

Sex education has been an ongoing debate for decades. In the early 1970’s, twenty states voted restricting sex education from the school curriculum, leaving the District of Columbia and only three states (Maryland, Kentucky, New Jersey), requiring schools to teach sex education. By the mid 1980’s, a deadly disease permitted through sexual intercourse was recognized; the fear of catching a disease sex education quickly became accepted. In 1986, Surgeon General C. Everett Koop felt sex education should start as early as third grade stating, ‘“There is now no doubt … that we need sex education in schools and that it [should] include information on heterosexual and homosexual relationships. The lives of our young people depend on our

“Thirteen to 17 is too early to be engaging in sex and I think it is definitely too early to be learning that sex is nothing but a fun physical activity,” said Michelle, a college student in Boston who is saving sex for marriage.

First of all, the main reason children have sex prematurely is because they are curious. Students lack knowledge about sex because they haven’t been taught about it, however, when children know the consequences behind their actions and the risks they are taking they less likely to want to have sex. If we take the time to show kids what it is like to take care of a child as a teenager