by Ben Winsor

Created on: February 13, 2008

Kids these days are having sex younger and they're doing it more often. Who can blame us? It's fun, exciting and cheaper than a movie.

But while we're having more sex, it seems we're not doing it properly. Unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are spreading at a shocking rate and not much is being done to stop them.

Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are on the rise in, including the big one, HIV/AIDS. Most alarming is the rise in Chlamydia infections; the rate of infection in Australia has doubled in the last five years. If you've had, or plan on having sex anytime soon, and you think this isn't relevant to youthink again. In fact, if you're a woman there's and over 50% chance at some stage you will be infected with Chlamydia, and it's highly prevalent in men as well.

Chlamydia is not fun. It can destroy your reproductive system, cause premature arthritis, disfigure your genitals with warts and cause birth defects. If that wasn't bad enough, it can make pus leak out of your penis or vaginaand that's sooo not hot right now. But don't stress too much, it can be prevented with a condom and cured with a single pill if it's caught early enough.

In fact lots of harmful STIs can be treated and even cured if they are caught in the early stages of infection. However, some STIs have no cure. AIDS will kill you, but only after destroying your muscles, giving you painful infections, agonising chills, fevers, cancers and hallucinations.

Most of what I've written so far is something most of our youth don't know (I didn't). We don't know why we should get ourselves tested for STIs and we don't know how to. When you mix risk and sex it should mean doing it on a train, not without a condom.

That's why there have been calls for the federal government to set up a national sex education platform to teach us about the birds and the bees. Many people agree with the idea, everyone's arguing about what should be taught. Some of what should be taught is mentioned abovethe course should cover STIs, sexuality, pregnancy, condom use, risk and relationships. It can't be overly technical or boring, which shouldn't be too hard, because after all, sex is fun!

There are three main barriers to setting up a national program. Firstly, some people think it's solely the job of parents to talk to kids about sex. They need a reality check. Most parents don't want to talk to their kids about sexthey're not trained, they don't have the information and for some it's just plain

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>