FOOLS RUSH IN: ADOLESCENCE SEXUAL BEHAVIOR

INTRODUCTION

By the time that an individual reach the adolescence stage they starts to experience a
lot of changes like physical, cognitive, social, emotional, and one of the major changes in
teenager’s life is sexual changes. Sexuality is the expression of interest, orientation, and
preference. Human sexuality is a broad concept that embodies interaction among hormones,
physiology, psychology, interpersonal relationship and sociocultural influences.

Sexuality in adolescents is a normal thing to talk about for it is the stage where a person’s
body are finally ready for sexual changes and one of the major effect of this changes is the
teenagers view in sexual activity. Sexual behaviors, and sexual relationships are an important
and necessary part of human development. But society sees sexuality in adolescent as a risk
for this is the time when person begins to be interested in more intimate relationships and
experimentation that can lead to undesirable outcome. For teenagers nowadays sex is more
visible, more acceptable, and more available, but what makes them think that? Why teenager
engage in sexual activity in this early age? They make themselves believes that sex is okay?

Teenagers face problems between the age 13-19 years old and by those time they were
expected to cope with hormonal changes and puberty and one of the problems that teenagers
are facing today is teenage having early and premarital sex. In the Philippines data from
Philippine Statistical Authority (PSA) 35.5 percent of teenager male Filipinos and 28.7 percent
of teenager females have engaged in early sexual intercourse. Even though in this past few
years there are studies that show that the numbers of teenagers involving in sexual activity
has decreased that doesn’t mean that it is not a relevant issue anymore. We all know that
early sexual intercourse initiation has been associated with having multiple lifetime sexual
partners, unprotected sex that may result to consequences that change forever.
HISTORY OF THE ISSUE

Teens today are more likely to be open-minded about sexuality and gender than
previous generations that results to adolescent sexual activity to increase globally. Adolescent
sexuality has changed over the past 50 years, with adolescents now reaching physical
maturity earlier and marrying later. In earlier years with more conservative view in life, people
see sex as a sacred and it shouldn’t be doing without married. what cause teenagers today to
change that view? Until 30 year ago in some countries, government doesn’t let poor, young,
and unmarried individual to have an access to contraceptives that they describe as obscene
and illegal, in this way people don’t have a choice but to not have sex at all. But now that we’re
living in the world where liberalism thing has change. They say that liberalism has something
to do with the rapid change of views toward sex. Where people starts to exercise their freedom
in every aspect of life including having an intimate relationship. When the contraceptives
become legal and available in mass people has easy access on contraceptives that made
people open in the possibility of having safe sexual activity. One other reason for the change
of teenager’s view about sexual activity is the media. With technology starts to evolve as well
as the knowledge of youth about sex, there are television shows containing nudity and sexual
scenes and some pornographic videos that can influence in the teenager’s sexuality. By just
looking at those fact makes it simple to understand on where this issue came from.

EXTENT OF THE PROBLEM BEING EXPLORED

With a lot of teenagers engaging into sexual activities in has become one of the major
problem that our society is facing today. Many teenagers rush into having sex because they
feel like everyone is doing it. There are always a few outspoken ones who talk about it or share
their experiences like a badge of honor. Sex for teenager nowadays has become something
you do just for fun and they tend to take it easily but this issue become a major problem for it
can result in some bigger problem.

Why do teenagers initiate sexual intercourse in this early age? Why do teenagers rush?
And are they ready to do this kind of things? There are different factors that can influence the
teenager’s judgement in terms of sexual activities, first there is a lack of parental monitoring,
this could be a result of a broken family where a teenager is not living with both parents and
felt disconnected with the family they seek to find connection with other people. Another
reason is peer pressure some teenagers decide to have sexual relationships because their
friends think sex is cool, and some feel pressured by the person they are dating, Social media
pressure like movies, TV shows, and other form of media that have sexual messages and fails
to give information about the consequences of sex have a great influence in teenagers sexual
urge, another reason is sexual attraction though it is a natural reaction it is also another reason
for early sexual relationship, and the last one is for love and the desire to be loved, most
teenagers tend to get involve in an intimate relationship because of their hope that their sexual
partner will give love in return. Other reasons are just petty like Boredom, many teenagers site
being "bored" and "have nothing better to do” as the reason and others have sex out of
curiosity. If there’s petty reasons there are some others that are major issues in society like
Alcohol and Drugs, the use of alcohol and drugs increase your drive for pleasure and increase
your willingness to take risks by decreasing your inhibitions and do sexual activities, other one
is the lack of knowledge a reason for this is not having a sexual education on school just
because our society sees sex and reproductive health issue as taboo, teens tend to do things
just because they are not properly informed about the consequences of their actions. There
are different kinds of reason that triggers adolescence sexual desires, those reason may be
shallow or important but what’s important is its impact on teenager’s life.

EFFECT OF THE PROBLEM BEING EXPLORE

We know that deciding when to have sex is one of life's big decisions. Some may say
that you are not ready until you are married and some says there’s a right age for sex. Sex
shouldn’t take easily for it has a lot of consequences. Early initiation of sexual activity and
higher numbers of non-marital sex partners are linked in turn to a wide variety of negative life
outcomes, including increased rates of infection with sexually transmitted diseases (STDs)
like Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) it is an infection that damages the immune system
and are infections that are passed from person to person through sexual contact. If untreated,
HIV infection will lead to a serious disease called Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome
(AIDS), and other forms of STD’s are chlamydia, genital herpes, genital warts, gonorrhea,
hepatitis, syphilis, and trichomonas’s. Aside from STD’s one of the consequences of early
sexual intercourse is a birth and pregnancy out of wedlock, unplanned pregnancy especially
in young people is one of the common problem that society is facing today according to
Commission on Population (POPCOM) 196,000 Filipinos between the ages of 15 and 19 years
old get pregnant each year. Just imagine giving birth to a baby without you being ready to
have one, you’re not just punishing yourself but as well as the baby. Some other
consequences of teenage premarital sex are the increasing number of maternal and child
poverty, missing out the educational experiences, teenager having depression because sex
is something that is too hard to forget and when adolescence regrets his action and can’t stop
thinking about it they start to question their self-worth and leads to depression and other
mental illness, and sometimes adolescent starts being unhappy because of the emotional
trauma that sexual intercourse can bring. With one mistake of making a wrong decision about
having sexual intercourse without being ready in this early age you are risking a lot of things,
your future, health, and happiness.

POTENTIAL SOLUTION

With all those probable negative outcomes of having early sexual intercourse teenagers
should know some alternative or solution for this issue. One certain thing that teenagers can
do to prevent those bad outcomes is sexual abstinence. Abstinence can mean different things
depending on who you ask. Many people say abstinence is not doing any kind of sexual activity
with another person, including vaginal, oral, and anal sex. Using abstinence people can wait
to find the right partner, enjoy their partner’s company without having to deal with a sexual
relationship, focus on school or hobbies, follow their personal, moral, or religious beliefs and
values, and most importantly avoid any kind of negative results of sexual intercourse. Aside
from sexual abstinence one other thing that can be a solution in this kind of issue is having.
Parental guidance can also help teenagers with the right amount of love coming from parent
and some advice that will guide them in the right path is a great way to prevent early sexual
intercourse. But unfortunately there are teenager who won’t be stop for doing what they want.
With all the reason not to have sex, why teenagers still want to? Maybe this is the reason.
When a teenager can’t prevent himself in doing sexual activities there’s always a contraceptive
that can be used like condoms or some birth control although it is not one hundred percent
effective to prevent people from having diseases or the get pregnant but it can be used to feel
safer. But what others considered as the main solution for this issue is having a right sexual
education. Sex education is the provision of information about bodily development, sex,
sexuality, and relationships, along with skills-building to help young people communicate
about and make informed decisions regarding sex and their sexual health. With the enough
knowledge about consequences on this issue people can make good judgement before doing
such thingsThose are some possible solution that can really help adolescent in these issue.
CONCLUSION

Everybody has their own opinion on underage or premarital sex some says that it is a
sin some may say it is okay as long as you are ready however teenagers are not encouraging
to get involve in early sexual activity. Adolescent may do something or think of doing
something that they will regret but instead of judging people should be more understanding.
This is the stage where teenagers can be vulnerable, carefree and impulsive that is why they
need a larger support group, people who can understand, discipline them, and give advice, it
could be their parents, friends, or family as long as those are the people they can trust and
relay on. With the help of those people teenagers are more likely to stay away from the things
that can be a reason for engaging in sexual activity.

Teenage pregnancy, sexually transmitted deceases, anxiety, and depression are the
common issue that adolescents are facing today but we never really ask why does problems
occur from the first place, which is the bigger issue we need to pay attention. People tends
prevent people on having STD’s, abortion, and suicides but why don’t we just seek for the
solution? Cut all the roots of where all this coming from which is the early sexual activities for
teenagers. Adolescent sexual intercourse may not be a new issue that society is facing but it
still needs attention and it needs solution. There are a lot of possible solutions in this issue
people just need a little effort and self-control to solve it. Even though in this past few years
the numbers of teenagers involving in sexual activity is decreasing that doesn’t mean that it is
not a relevant issue anymore this just means that there’s a hope for our society to be a free
from all the consequences that adolescents early sexual intercourse.
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