Public Libraries: Their Potential to Improve Sex Education, by Kristin Davis, Guest Writer

Public Libraries: Their Potential to Improve Sex Education

by

Kristin Davis
Teen and Women's Health Care Advocate

16 November 2010

Unfortunately, with public schools no longer a source of unbiased, true information regarding teen sexuality, it rests on other institutions to educate teens about the dangers of irresponsible sexuality.  As purveyors of unbiased information, the public library system should fulfill its obligation as an institution of public service and offer teens and young adults the opportunity to learn about the dangers of irresponsible sex.  Particularly for young women, the risks associated with these unhealthy decisions run high, making it particularly imperative libraries fulfill their role in the facilitation of learning.  Few other topics carry such substantial consequences, making the open discussion of reckless behavior particularly important.

This past March, President Obama renewed the $50 million per year funding for abstinence-focused education over the next five years.  Based on this legislation, programs receiving funding must "teach that abstinence from sexual activity is the only certain way to avoid out-of-wedlock pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and other associated health problems," according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

In addition to this incomplete curriculum, some critics feel this renewal of funding is unwarranted, pointing out that no conclusive results showing the education’s value have been found.  While abstinence is indeed the best method of avoiding unwanted sexual consequences, it remains unrealistic to believe all teens will choose to refrain from sex, especially with the brazen attitude regarding sexuality today and the hormonal surge that accompanies adolescence.  With the continued failure of schools to present this vital information, it then rests upon another public institution, libraries, to effectively educate teens with unbiased information.

Even if teens do find the unbiased information regarding responsible sexuality and contraceptive use, a serious lack of information about their effectiveness and safety remains.  In particular, oral contraceptives present a danger to young women.  While tempting to trust the heavy marketing manufacturers produce, these products often mislead young adults into believing they are safeguarded against sexually transmitted disease as well.  While pregnancy rates for unmarried young women in this country are seeing a welcome decline, sexually transmitted disease rates continue to grow.  Frighteningly, these drugs might actually be a contributing factor to this trend as teens protected from pregnancy are emboldened to have unprotected sex.

However, manufacturers of these contraceptives also fail to provide real information regarding their products.  Indeed, they actually contribute to the rampant misconceptions surrounding their products, regularly failing to point out important details regarding safety.  One oral contraceptive producer, Bayer HealthCare, was cited by the FDA for its misleading television advertisements.  Because Bayer HealthCare labeled its product a total quality-of-life aid, the FDA found it advertisements further misled teens with unproven claims.  Furthermore, Bayer was cited for substandard conditions in a plant in which its ingredients were manufactured.  However, the drug company's annual multi-million dollar advertising campaigns continue to overshadow these revelations and make its drugs the most popular form of contraception on the market for young women today.

Although Bayer HealthCare's lack of corporate integrity is disturbing, the severe physical consequence of these drugs is even more striking.  Oral contraceptives are hormone-altering pills and can actually lead to permanent side effects, like the possibility of infertility.  Originally introduced in the 1960's, evidence today links the growing use of these drugs with the rise of cancer seen in U.S. women.  Although easily dismissed by their harmless appearance, these drugs literally upset numerous significant aspects of women's physiology.

In fact, the growing number of complaints against oral contraceptives, exemplified by the common Yaz lawsuit seen in many courts today, indicates that the short-term safety of such birth control options is far from certain.  Users of this particular oral contraceptive have seen serious, and sometimes fatal, side effects including heart attack, stroke, blood clots, pulmonary embolisms and gallbladder disease.  However, because schools refuse to recognize anything but abstinence as a legitimate lifestyle and companies remain unwilling to risk their profits, these facts are rarely discussed with teens.

Because few establishments address these important issues, the public library system should embrace this opportunity to inform young adults of this danger.  Indeed, the American Library Association (ALA) already possesses a division dedicated to educating teens, called the Young Adult Library Services Association.  This group regularly supports events tailored to address specific concerns of young adults, including topics like social networking, cell phone use and podcasts.  Because this division within the ALA has an established history educating teens, including this vital topic of teen sexual health concerns can be accomplished easily and effectively.  Few issues today carry as much magnitude as teen sexuality, undeniably making this topic deserving of the ALA's attention.

With so many sources of inaccuracy and misinformation regarding safe sexuality and contraception, our country needs an institution not influenced by government dollars or profit to give them real facts regarding healthy sexuality.  Fortunately, the ALA's purpose is to facilitate learning, help young adults reach their full potential and better their respective communities, with which responsible sex education does indeed coincide.  The ALA's governing and policy manual even addresses sexual education for youths, stating that the organization possesses the right to present "comprehensive, sex-related education, materials, programs, and referral services of the highest quality."  With those policies already in place, the ALA needs to decide whether it will stand aside as these dangerous trends regarding reckless teen sexuality continue or utilize its role as a respected institution and work to influence this country in a positive way.

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NOTE FROM SAFELIBRARIES:

Libraries can be safe libraries when they provide access to information that will help keep people safe.  Access to sexual health education is an important public library service.  Therefore, SafeLibraries has presented the above excellent guest blog post by Kristin Davis.  She is an aspiring freelance writer and a Teen and Women's Health Care Advocate.  She is passionate about these issues and the need to spread the word to educate others.  SafeLibraries is happy to bring you this guest post by Kristin Davis who is solely responsible for the content therein.  All graphics were obtained and inserted by SafeLibraries.  All guest bloggers are welcome.  By the way, modern Internet filters allow sexual health information.

© 2010 Kristin Davis; published by SafeLibraries with permission.

KRISTIN DAVIS WILL BE HAPPY TO RESPOND TO YOUR QUESTIONS IN THE COMMENTS BELOW!!  Enjoy!

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Sex: Are Books Like TV? ALA Says Books Help A Child Learn From a Safe Distance While Studies Show Similar TV Lessons Lead To Double Teen Pregnancies

A new study shows "a compelling link between a high exposure to sexual content on television and teen pregnancies." See "Teens Who Watch Sex in the City More Likely to Get Pregnant," by Rosemary Bennett, Times Online, 3 November 2008. This comports with "The Report of the APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls," by Eileen L. Zurbriggen, PhD, et alia, Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls, 2007. (See "What Parents Can Do.")

The American Library Association [ALA] says this is not true. The ALA says sexual content such as oral sex in books is "a way for kids to experience something at a safe distance -- and a way for them to make up their minds about how they would respond in that kind of situation. .... Unless you read stuff that's perhaps not the most literary, you'll never understand what good works are.... Nobody complains about the adult women who read Harlequin romances." See "Racy Reading; Gossip Girl Series is Latest Installment in Provocative Teen Fiction, and It's As Popular As It Is Controversial," by Linda Shrieves, The Orlando Sentinel, 6 August 2005.

Similar to the ALA, some authors say nearly the same things. Author Lauren Myracle, for example, says, "As a Texas librarian said to me just today (when I was in the lovely state of Texas): 'The girls who read your books? They're the girls who *don't* make the mistakes that Zoe, Maddie, and Angela make. The girls who aren't reading the books are the ones you need to worry about.' To which I say: Amen." See "Is TTYL On Your School Library Book Shelves?," by Vicki Courtney, Virtue Alert, 29 October 2008, comment #24.

I have given you both sides. Even though books and TV are different media, they are similar in significant ways. Now you be the judge of what's best for your children:

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Times Online
November 3, 2008
Republished under US Copyright Fair Use

Teens Who Watch Sex in the City More Likely to Get Pregnant

Rosemary Bennett, Social Affairs Correspondent

Teenagers who watch Sex in the City, Friends and other TV shows featuring sex scenes and discussions of sex are far more likely to get pregnant or get someone else pregnant than their peers, a new study has found.

The study, which tracked more than 700 sexually active teenagers aged between 12 and 17 for three years, discovered that those who viewed the most sexual content were almost twice as likely to get pregnant or get their girlfriend pregnant as those who saw the least explicit TV.

The study was lead by Anita Chandra, a behavioural scientist at RAND, an independent research organisation. It is published in Pediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Dr Chandra said that sexual content on TV had doubled in recent years, coinciding with teenage pregnancy rates edging up after decades of decline.

“We were surprised to find this link. But teens spend a good amount of their time watching television — an average of three hours a day — and we don’t know a lot about its impact on their health decisions,” she said.

“Watching this kind of sexual content on television is a powerful factor in increasing the likelihood of a teen pregnancy. We found a strong association.”

Studies have found a link between watching television shows with sexual content and becoming sexually active earlier, and between sexually explicit music videos and an increased risk of sexually transmitted diseases.

But this is the first research to show an association between TV watching and teenage pregnancy.

Dr Chandra and her colleagues surveyed more than 2,000 adolescents aged between 12 and 17 from 2001 to 2004 to gather information about a variety of behavioural and demographic factors, including television viewing habits. They then analysed the sexual content of 23 shows in the 2000-2001 season, and calculated how often the teenagers saw characters kissing, touching, having sex, and discussing past or future sexual activity.

The shows included Sex in the City and Friends, dramas, comedies, reality shows and animated programmes on broadcast and cable networks. Sitcoms had the highest sexual content.

Among the 718 youths who reported being sexually active during the study, the likelihood of getting pregnant or getting someone else pregnant increased steadily with the amount of sexual content they watched, the researchers found.

About 25 per cent of those who watched the most were involved in a pregnancy, compared with about 12 per cent of those who watched the least. The researchers said that they took into account other factors such as being from a one-parent family, wanting to have a baby and engaging in other risky behaviours.

“We don’t think that [TV] is necessarily more significant than some of the family and neighbourhood factors that can lead to teen pregnancies. But even when we removed all the other factors, we still saw a compelling link between a high exposure to sexual content on television and teen pregnancies,” Dr Chandra said.