February 12, 2007

The main trends in sexual activity among teens according to Tisman and Schwartz’s article are according to a survey that the Center for Disease Control conducted, from 1991 to 1997 the percentage of teens that were having sex dropped 5.7 percent. Other studies that were conducted showed that the percentage of teen pregnancies had dropped 14 percent. Because of the decline in teens having sex, that also resulted in a decline of teens having sexually transmitted diseases. People believed that the reason for all the decline dealing with teen sex had to do with a greater success of education about abstinences, and sex, and greater fear of getting sexually transmitted diseases. People believed that the reason for all the decline dealing with teen sex had to do with a greater success of education about abstinences, and sex, and greater fear of getting sexually transmitted diseases. It seems as if nowadays, teens are practicing safe sex rather then abstaining from it all together. This all together is creating the decline in the percentages of teen pregnancies, abortions, and sexually transmitted diseases. According to the article, it seems as if girls are the one who are in a way controlling the sexual activity or the levels of it. They are the ones who are becoming more responsible about sex and taking more precautions than in the past. The way the authors explain these trends is by using statistics and percentages from surveys and studies and by using graphs. The authors also got their information through many interviews and observational research studies. Tisman and Schwartz believe that the reason for the changes in the teen sexuality trend might be from girls wanting relationships that are more romantic and the factor of the cultural norms for girls’ sexuality has altered.

According to Tisman and Schwartz’s article, females started to become tired of the big deal over sex and rather wanted to feel safer and have more dignity in relationships that were not sex orientated. Some studies have showed that there is a vast increase in the number of boys under the age of 18 who are remaining virgins. Sexual trends among white, black, and Hispanic boys tend to be the same. According to Youth Risk Behavior Surveys, teenage boys have been more sexually active than teenage girls. However, from 1991 to 1997 there has been a dramatic decrease from 57.4 % to 48.9% of teenage boys having sex. One thing that always bothered me and that is also brought up in this article are girls being labeled as “sluts” and guys just getting a tap on the shoulder or a high five. If a girl sleeps with a couple of girls she tends to get stigmatized as a slut, however if a guys sleeps with many girls he does not get that stigma. Instead, he is seen as an idol among his friends and nothing is seen bad about it.

I think that there is actually an increase in teen sex. The part where I feel there is an increase is with the younger teens, around the ages of 13 and 14 years old. I do not know if the reason why some of the current studies and surveys have reported that there is a decline in teen sexually activity has to do with the ages that they are looking at from 15-17 years of age. However, from what I have seen at my high school and heard from talking to friends at college about how kids are growing up so much faster than we did, it is definitely a scary thing. I know that back when I was in seventh and eight grade I still thought that boys had cuddies. I know this is not how everyone my age felt probably at that time back then, but I think that had to do with the way I was raised or just the school I was brought up in. I went to a small, private Catholic elementary school. When I was back in high school I would see the middle school girls that I knew from babysitting and see how much they had grown up so quickly and how much they had changed. Many of them were 14 years old and wearing lots of makeup, tight, little, short, revealing outfits, and were extremely boy crazy or very, very flirtatious. I remember feeling very shocked and scared at the same time to see what had come of them. There were other girls around that age that were pregnant and stories went around the school about all the young girls who were having sex. I just could not believe my ear of such a sad thing. I feel like people’s values have gone down the drain or that people that are raising these children just do not care enough to know what is going in their lives.

January 22, 2007

I think a debate is more convincing when there are actual facts to prove someone’s argument. However, it not always possible to obtain the facts straight forward. I agree with Popenoe on how he believes that the American family is at a decline from the past. I think that there were more people getting married and having kids back in the 60s than nowadays. I don’t know if marriage and having children was something that people just valued more or they felt that it was a necessity. But it seems like today it is harder for more and more families to stay together. I think that in the past divorce was looked down upon a lot more and was a rare thing. Where as today, getting divorced does not seem as such a big deal. Like Popenoe, I do not have actual facts to back up my argument. I just have things from personal experiences and living in today’s world. I don’t know if this little bit of information that I just found could be considered something to argue my point, but when I just googled 1960 family I came up with hundreds of pictures of large families and then when I google 2006 family, there were barely any pictures of families and the ones that were there, the families were very small.