photo: Ayesha Walker - Youth Radio/ BY-NC-SA

By Erica Granados-De La Rosa

While the debate over sex education and how young people learn about sex is a popular topic for policymakers and educators, the real experts are young people themselves. Erica Granados-De La Rosa, a student and sex educator at the Latin American Youth Center in Washington, D.C., reports about teen sexual activity and how young people are getting their information. 

S. E. X. We watch it on T.V, hear on the radio, see in the magazines. And for all my fellow teens, you can’t deny that we talk about it all the time.

What do you think is the right age to have sex?

Pool Girl: "Sixteen, seventeen, most of my friends have, yeah."

Erica: "So you think that’s the right age you should be having sex?"

Pool Girl: "I mean, I feel like you should wait ‘til marriage, but that’s not really what’s happening nowadays."

Virign: "Sex should be really shared between two people, not like you and your boyfriend this week, you and your next boyfriend, you and the boyfriend after that … But I’m not gonna like put it in someone’s face like what you’re doing is wrong. Like, if you want to go, go ahead. And if you think it’s your time, go ahead."

See what adults don’t understand is that it’s embedded in our daily dialogue. We talk about sex probably as many times as we talk about food-and that’s a lot.

Trey: "Because your friends ain’t teach you how to use a condom."

Trey: "They tell you to have sex, but they don’t tell you to use a condom."

Trey: "Or the consequences of having sex."

Erica: "Right, exactly."

Trey: "You got a lot of pressure on you."

Trey: "My name is Travis … but everybody call me Trey.I didn’t wear a condom when I had sex with her. And I got, what was it … gonnorhea. I knew my cousin, he had gonnorhea for six years, and he just didn’t want to tell nobody. So like the next week I went to go get checked. They told me I had gonnorhea. I was peeing … it was burning and they got that up out of me, man. They stuck that q-tip … that’s … no joke. But now … it was sweet after that. I had use condoms every day of my life, cause I do not want to catch AIDS."

Erica: "Lesson learned."

Trey: "Lesson learned. That’s why I say it’s not a bad thing, well, it is a bad thing that I learned at a young age, like, you need a mistake to learn from."

You know what? he’s right. Why? Why are we raised by our mistakes? Why do I have to raise myself! … why do we have to grow up?

So, about you, personally … your first time. Did it just happen? Were you like, "Nah, I'm ready. I want to do it with this girl"?

Demar: "Well, I was 10. and she was 13. She was like my next door neighbor. So, I went up to her, and I talked to her or whatever. I didn't even know she was 13. I thought she was my age, cause she looked young. But she had all of the cleavage and all that."

(Chuckles) Cleavage and all that?! I met Demar at His high school. I recruited him for a sex-ed program that I work with in Washington, DC, at the Latin American Youth Center."

Demar: "So um … After that, she asked me 'was I a virgin.' I said, 'what's that?!' And she was like, 'it's when you don't have sex.' I said, 'uuugh[yuck], sex.' And she was like 'yeah. She say, 'So you ain't never seen nothin like that?' I was like 'No.'"

Erica: "You were like 10! I mean did you know … did you know anything about sex?"

Demar: "I didn't know anything. I didn't know nothing about sex! I just seen it on the videos. They just be dancin … and I thought there was some moves … so, I didn't really know."

Yes, Demar had sex. And yes he was 10.

Maaan, i remember playin double dutch with my friends out on the street … eating ice cream on the porch on a hot summer day… What happened to those times? … seems like I traded double dutch for sex.

Maaan, I didn’t want that! I liked playin double dutch!!

Demar: "I think my momma shoulda told me about the birds and the bees before, but she didn’t. she was waiting until the right time or whatever."

Erica: "I don’t think she expected her 10-year-old."

Demar: "Well, she don’t even know, well, she know I’m doing it now cause I told her."

Erica: "So what did your mom, or what does your mom tell you about sex?"

Demar: "Well, she asks me, “am I having sex?” I tell her, “Naaah,” or … she says, “there’s a lot of diseases out there.” I say, “I know, that’s why I go to this program. And I knew it before.” She was like, “Okay, well just stay safe” and all that good stuff."

ERICA
Wait til you’re married …
It should be with someone you love …
You’ll know when you’re ready …

We’re trying to figure out if any of this really makes sense. Half the time, we contradict ourselves, what we’re thinking or saying, because we’re learning to think for ourselves. The reality is that we deal with so much, it’s amazing that we’re not worse off.

Seems like my generation is raised by luck—by what happens to happen.

Trey: "My grandmother was an abusive drunk, treat her kids like … whoop ‘em and all that. And all her kids act the same way, except for my aunt. She said, “I’m not gon’ be like that,” you know. So I said, I’m going to make the same decision. I’m not going to be like my mother, and just let my kids just roam the street any time of night, spend the night without calling, passing … not giving a curfew to me, not giving me no consequences for nothing."

Erica: "What are you gonna tell your daughter about sex?"

Trey: "Aw, that’s the hardest part of fatherhood, I’m telling you. I don’t know. I can’t tell her nothing about the girl part of sex. Well, all I can tell her is the safe part of sex. Make sure he use a condom. If he don’t, do not have sex with him. But in this generation, who listens to their parents?"

Erica: "Exactly."

And if we as a generation are going to see sex as something more than just something to do … something that everyone does … We spend our time figuring out how to give more attention to the needs that no one sees. 

Online Resources:

·Adolescent Health Working Group
· Teen Source
·The Washington Post

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· Changing the Course of Sex Education
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