A question that's always hard to answer whether it's posed by a parent, teacher, or even fellow students is:  Are teens having sex?

TV shows like Degrassi: The Next Generation, 90210, and Gossip Girl make it seem like teens are constantly hooking up and getting pregnant or getting STDs. But fact is--and this surprised even me--it's not happening as often as the shows say it is.

According to the National Youth Risk Behavior Survey, from 1991 to 2007, the teen sex rate dropped from 54.1 to 47.8 percent. And among teens who are sexually active, there is a reported increase in protected sex, from 46 percent in 1995 to 63 percent in 2005.

So that's all good news, relatively speaking, but here's the bad news: compared to other industrialized nations, the U.S. has double the number of teen pregnancies. And, in 2006, for the first time in more than a decade, the rate of births to teens aged 15-19 increased.

At first it may seem confusing: fewer teens are having sex, despite an upsurge in the amount of teen sex depicted on TV shows, but there are more teen pregnancies than they have been in a long while. Some say that the rise in teen pregnancy has to do more with changes in contraceptive use than it does with the number of teens having sex. That may be true, especially since the ultimate peak--way higher than today--in teen pregnancy rates was in the 1950s and 1960s when TV was pretty tame by today's standards. Just recall episodes of 'I Love Lucy,' which implied that even married couples slept in separate beds. That makes me wonder. People usually think media influences teens to act or think in a certain way. Usually adults assume that teens want to mimic the behaviors they see on TV. But what if the inverse were true--that media actually turns you off to stuff. 

Since media and society no longer see teen sex as taboo, maybe sex rates actually have dropped thanks to the ever-expanding knowledge about the myths and truths of sex. The more teens seem to know about sex the less mysterious it is, and the less want or need there is to actually take part in the act. Maybe knowledge is the best medicine!

That's why I think that the best way to lower the recent high levels teen pregnancy is by educating teens about what's involved in preventing it. The current administration certainly seems to agree. In contrast to President G.W. Bush, who advocated abstinence-only sex ed, President Barack Obama has already taken initiative by giving more money to sex education and remaining open to issues such as abortion, by stating that he wants to do what is best for the American people.

Teens have to know that there are options if they choose to have sex and that they should engage in safe behavior. It's better than giving them no knowledge and telling them to not have it at all. Teens should not be afraid about the concept of sex. It happens. And when it does, it is best to be ready. Because knowing is half the battle.