Underage sex, unwanted pregnancy, sexually transmitted disease: education and enlightened attitudes are the only answer to these problems
After watching an evening TV soap opera with her family, a teenage girl tweeted, "It was quite awkward watching that scene with Mum and Grandma."
"That scene", in which a male character was apparently masturbating, was a rare one in Thai soap operas, but few eyebrows were raised.
What was shown on TV and the girl's reaction only confirm what we already know - that the world has drastically changed since the days when her mother was the same age. There is probably nothing we can do about this, apart from helping our youngsters go best with the flow.
Nowadays, parents cannot effectively prevent their children from being exposed to sexual content in the all-pervasive media. A few decades ago even "naughty" boys had to wait their turn to get their hands on the only Playboy magazine circulating around the classroom. Today, if you censor your kids' access to the home computer, they will switch to their smart-phone or tablet. If you censor their smart-phone or tablet, they will turn to their friends' gadgets. In the past, pornography was smuggled into homes or schools like drugs. Today it lies waiting in a mobile phone, just a metre away from a teacher in class, or on the dinner table at home.
This week many parents gaped at health officials who said they want to encourage female teens to carry condoms. It's another daring proposal for conservative Thai society, and the reaction is understandable. The thought of girls who have just stopped playing with dolls being advised to carry condoms in their pockets is simply too much for a lot of fathers and mothers. They think, as most parents do, that their children are well behaved, and that "bad things" only happen to someone else's daughters.
Promoting condom use among young people in Thailand has always been controversial. Many parents remain confident that good upbringing can prevent premature sexual relations. The truth is that teaching safe sex is the safest bet, no matter how well behaved one's son or daughter appears to be.
Just as you didn't smoke in front of your parents when you were young, today's kids don't kiss their boyfriends or girlfriends in front of you either. Like it or not, condoms are the equivalent of the automobile safety belt. You'd better fasten your belt, no matter how fast your car goes.
But why focus on girls and not boys? To the advocates of the idea, the answer is simple: even if eight out of ten boys are carrying condoms, unlucky girls will end up in bed with the ones who don't have them. Advising girls to carry condoms is the same concept as educating them about contraceptive pills. Aside from preventing unwanted pregnancy, condom users will have better protection against sexually transmitted diseases.
The idea of teenage girls carrying condoms, though, still flies in the face of the fact that only a small percentage of adult women regularly carry condoms in their pockets or purses. On one hand, one can argue that female adults are more sexually discreet. On the other hand, conservative Thais can't get over the thought that girls who carry condoms are "bad girls".
The dilemma is underlined by various posts on the Internet, like the one entitled "Will I be safe or just a slut?"
Conservatives deplore this "slippery slope". Teaching girls at an early age to use contraceptive pills is hard enough for them to accept, but encouraging them to carry condoms is pushing things too far.
At the end of the day, it should be about individual choice. Like seatbelts, condoms can prevent something "bad" from happening. Also like seatbelts, condoms might tempt those who have them to go a little farther and faster. But unlike seatbelts, condoms do not give young users a total sense of security - because much of society still frowns upon the idea. Perhaps it's time we did give younger people that sense of security.
The condom proposal, however, confirms that Thailand is at a social crossroads, whether we like it or not.
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Source: http://www.news.thethailandlinks.com/2012/11/17/condom-proposal-shows-were-at-a-social-crossroad/
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