The Weird and The Wacky Meet

Where YouBetIAm comes to write….

Trends in Sexuality

                 When hearing the different statistics about birth control and abortions, the thing that most stood out for me was how most countries found a way to stress either contraception or abortion.  Those that didn’t, like Kenya, ended up with disastrous results.  Kenya, which has no effective birth control, has an extreme AIDS crisis, with the average lifespan down to 40 years.  Even Iran, which outlaws abortion, has made up for this with family planning and free contraception.

                 Because of the need for birth control of some sort, abortions will be high without adequate contraception.  Japan has 300,000 to 400,000 abortions a year; China has close to 10 million abortions a year.  Both the Netherlands and Iran have largely eliminated the need for abortions by stressing prevention.  The Netherlands has the lowest abortion rate in Europe, and one of the lowest teen pregnancy rates, even though 51% of their young women have sex by 18.

                 Sex education prevents teen pregnancies.  Japan and the Netherlands both stress sex education, and have low teen pregnancy rates.  China has no sex education, but makes up for this with an extremely high abortion rate.  Great Britain came late to the world of sex education, and has suffered for it with a high rate of teen pregnancy.

                 I’m uncertain as to whether sex education leads to sex.  There don’t seem to be trends there.  Japanese teens don’t have sex, teens from the Netherlands do.  British teens lose their virginity at an early age, Chinese teens seem to avoid penile-vaginal sex until marriage.  I think this suggests that culture and acceptance of sex has more to do with when a person first has sex than sex education does.

                 Where pornography is illegal, such as Iran or China, the need for family planning seems to be increased.   This is speculation, but perhaps without pornography, there is no visual sexual outlet outside of sex acts.  Perhaps the increase in outlets for non-partnered sex diminishes the eagerness for risky partnered sex and the consequent pregnancies.  In this way, prudishness about pornography can increase the population crisis.

                 Finally, cultural ideas about condoms can lead to higher life expectancies.  A strong stress on protection from disease, like in the Netherlands, can lead to very high life expectancy.  AIDS and general STD prevention really do lead to a healthier society.  Contrast this with Kenya, where condoms are discouraged, sex education is non-existent and AIDS is extremely common.

 

Copyright 2004

by Amanda Evans

Date: 04/18/04