by Meg Meeker
Other factors are the problems of breakage and leakage with condoms, the way kids use them, and when they use them. Studies show that the longer a teen has sex, the less likely he is to use a condom.20
I believe that there are two reasons for this. First, teens don’t think the way adults do. They really believe that bad things aren’t going to happen to them. So they think that if they have sex a few times and they “didn’t get” an infection, then they really aren’t going to get one at all, ever. And often kids don’t know that they’re infected. Anywhere from 70 to 80 percent of the time, an infected person doesn’t have symptoms. This percentage is true for herpes, chlamydia, and many other infections, the consequences of which turn up later. So the teen may really believe she’s fine until she delivers a baby whose brain is shot through with herpes.
Second, I personally see that something inside kids—boys as well as girls—changes after they’ve had sex for a while, with one partner or with many partners. They don’t seem to care about themselves in the same way. Many adopt a “why bother” attitude. I think they stop wearing condoms because they don’t think they’re at risk, and they don’t really care if they are anyway. That’s been my personal observation.
The bottom line for you, fathers, is that condoms alone aren’t good enough for your daughters. Not by a long shot. So you need to move in and help your daughters in a way that your parents didn’t have to help you when you were growing up. Life is different today—really different.
Depression as an STD
In my practice I spend a lot of time listening to and teaching teens. And I treat a lot of depression. It hits teen girls and teen boys, and the severity of depression covers a wide range. The link between teen sexual activity and depression is so strong that several years ago I started telling my patients that I couldn’t treat their depression unless they stopped having sex, at least for a while. So many kids have been sexually active for so long that they think it’s impossible to give it up for more than a few months. At first they balk and say they can’t or won’t. I tell them to try it for a week, and then come back and see me. They usually agree. At the next week’s visit, I tell them that “sex messes with their heads.” I have yet to hear any teen say that it doesn’t. And I let them know that it is impossible to treat their depression adequately unless they stop having sex.
Researchers have known for a long time that teenage sexual activity and depression are linked, but the question was which came first—the sex or the depression. Depressed kids are more likely to engage in high-risk behaviors, and sex is a high-risk behavior. Last year, however, an excellent study was published on teens, sex, and mood. The researchers found that “engaging in sex and drug behaviors places adolescents, and especially girls, at risk for future depression.” Also, they concluded that “because girls might have greater interpersonal sensitivity contributing to higher levels of interpersonal stress during adolescence, sexual activity likely contributes to experiencing stress.”21 The findings were so clear that the authors said that girls who are engaging in sexual activity should be screened for depression. The researchers’ findings confirm my own clinical experience.
Really, it’s common sense. Kids get depressed when they experience a loss for which they can’t express a healthy emotion. This is very common with sexual activity. When a girl has sex, she loses her virginity, and very often loses her self-respect with it. Her boyfriend might tell the whole school, or make her do something she doesn’t want to do or that leaves her feeling traumatized, or he might reject her in favor of another girl, or belittle her as no good at sex. You would be surprised at how many teenage girls have told me they have given up believing that sex can be enjoyable at all. Sex is sold to them as astonishingly wonderful. They are almost always disappointed at the reality, and rather than believe that everything the media has told them is wrong, they think something is wrong with them. So they try sex with different partners again and again. But the intimacy and romance they naturally expect with sex is never there. And all they do is become jaded and depressed. They lose self-confidence and self-esteem. And many feel they have lost a part of themselves that can never be retrieved.
These are girls who have grown up watching casual sex taken for granted on TV sitcoms. These are girls who read glossy magazines that are all about being sexy and having great sex. These are girls who watch music videos all about sex. When they actually experience it, and it fails to live up to their expectations, and they feel bad about it, they feel like they have failed as human beings. We adults have set them up for this.
Several months ago I was contacted by a pharmaceutical company that is working on the new HPV vaccine, which will be available soon and that doctors will recommend giving to girls before they hit puberty. Shortly after that call, I was contacted by a major news show that wanted me to comment on whether it was okay for girls to wear sexually suggestive clothing adorned with slogans like “I’m sexy” or “Want some?”
Can you imagine what would happen if cigarette companies marketed T-shirts to teens with slogans like “Wanna have a great time? Smoke!” or “Cigarettes rule!” How about if they did that while a pharmaceutical company prepared to launch a vaccine for young girls to prevent lung cancer, a vaccine that federal guidelines would ask us to give to every girl starting at age nine?
The fact is, popular culture is selling sex to our teens, resulting in skyrocketing rates of teenage sexually transmitted diseases and clinical depression. And don’t expect anyone to do anything about it. The only person who can protect your daughter from the pimp culture of modern marketing is you.
And the best news is: you are a far more effective protector of your daughter than any condom, any sex-ed teacher, any school nurse, and any doctor. That’s what kids tell us every day. They want to hear from their parents. They want their parents to tell them what’s right, what’s wrong, and what they should do. If you want your daughter to refrain from being sexually active as a teenager, you need to tell her why and how. You need to stay in the fight for her innocence and her mental and physical health. It’s a fight you can—and that you must—win.
You can’t rely on what they teach your daughter in school, as many parents do. For many years now—in the schools and in the media—we have been showing kids, begging kids, to use condoms, and all of this has coincided with rapidly rising rates of sexually transmitted diseases. The evidence is in: condoms are no solution.
The second option is to teach kids to postpone sexual activity until they are older. Some educators believe this is impossible, but the abstinence movement taken up by young people around the country is a hopeful sign. The popularity of these programs among teens shows that they are looking for help and encouragement to wait. I will never forget listening to a speaker at a medical conference a few years ago. She was onstage with a group of other teens discussing sex. One girl talked about being a teen mother. Another talked about why she had stopped having sex to become a “secondary virgin.” But this young girl, probably seventeen or eighteen, told us, a room full of doctors, “We’re confused. We hear all sorts of things from our friends and from teachers. It’s hard, you know, figuring things out. But here’s what really gets to me and a lot of my friends. We want some help but we don’t always get it. We have a real problem and you know what our problem is? YOU! You’re the problem. You people, you doctors, and other adults, you don’t think that we can do anything, do you? I’m sick and tired of hearing you talk about how out of control we are! So get this—we’re not!” Then she turned and walked off the stage.
However shrilly she made the point, she was right. We have failed our kids. We haven’t given them the rules. We’ve shrugged our shoulders at the epidemic of STDs among teens and said that there’s nothing we can do but hand out condoms and immunize nine-year-old girls against HPV. But while we adults have given up, guess what is happening to teen sexual activity across the nation? It’s beginning to decline. I see it in my own practice and in my kids’
friends. They talk openly about sex (not the details, of course). You should know that many of your daughter’s friends don’t want to be sexually active, some probably aren’t, and many others are looking for parental support not to be sexually active. They feel the peer pressure, they stay quiet to avoid it, and they’re desperate for fathers to stand strong to help them.
Kids really do listen to us—and they have grasped at abstinence instruction because they instinctively know that it’s right. If my own clinical experience is anything to go by, that explains why the incidence of teenage sexual activity has started to decline.
Summing Up
I don’t want to belabor sex education in schools, but you need to know that your daughter is probably being taught a mixed message that she should abstain from sex, but if she does have sex, she should make her boyfriend use a condom.
One seventh grade patient of mine told me that during sex-ed class her teacher encouraged them to abstain from sex until they were older, because it was dangerous and there were lots of diseases. But the teacher didn’t explain how to avoid sex.
Then, quite to this girl’s embarrassment, the teacher took a banana and showed the co-ed class how to use a condom. She passed the banana with the condoms around for all the students to practice.
“What do I do?” my patient asked me. “Should I wait or not? My boyfriend kinda wants to have sex. I guess everybody is, because my teacher told us all to be sure to use condoms. I’m confused.”
I see this all the time: teens getting mixed messages from their schools, churches, and civic groups.
Be assured that your daughter hears a lot more about sex, birth control, abortion, STDs, and oral sex than you ever did at age thirteen. Some of what she hears will be right, some will be wrong, but I guarantee you two things. First, you might be opposed to what’s being taught; and second, your daughter wants to know what you think about sex. Believe it or not, you have more influence than her teachers, Britney Spears, and Abercrombie & Fitch. You need to use that influence. If you think she should wait to have sex—even if she senses this from your behavior and beliefs rather than your saying it directly—she is more likely to wait. Studies show that kids who perceive that their parents don’t want them to be sexually active or to use birth control are less likely than other kids to have sex as teenagers.
I’m a strong advocate of helping girls postpone sex for many reasons. I’ve given out birth control devices, including condoms, and it doesn’t help kids get to a healthy place in their lives. Pregnancy might be avoided, but depression, infections, and low self-esteem all become bigger problems when we teach girls that birth control is the solution.
You need to decide what you want for your daughter and implement a plan to protect her. If you don’t, the testosterone-charged boys at her school will implement quite a different plan.
What to Do
Here’s a model plan, based on what I’ve seen—in research and experience—work for fathers.
1. Teach self-respect early. When she is three, begin telling her that her body is special. It is beautiful and she needs to keep it special. As she grows older, let her know that the places a bathing suit covers are very private and only a doctor, you, or her mom are to see those private places. Let your daughter know that if anyone touches her private parts to let you know about it. Don’t let her run around naked at home. Talk to her about clothes before she buys them. Even if you’re divorced and your ex-wife disagrees with you, stick with it for your daughter’s sake. I guarantee you that in the long run, teaching your daughter modesty will make her feel better about herself.
2. When she dates, sweep the garage. Every boy who dates your daughter needs to know he is accountable to you. It doesn’t matter if he’s just taking her for coffee or taking her to the movies. It doesn’t matter if he’s just a “friend.” Let him know you’ll be waiting. And when he brings her home, be sure he sees you.
Many parents make the mistake of trying to stay in the background. Parents fear being too controlling or overprotective. We don’t want to embarrass our daughters. But daughters tell me they feel loved when dad insists on shaking hands with their boyfriends, and when he circulates among her friends at a party.
If a boyfriend picks your daughter up at home, don’t let him wait in the car and honk the horn. Make him come in and see you. Before the two of them leave, ask your daughter what time she’ll be home. (Of course, you’ll know already, because you and she have discussed a curfew beforehand. You simply want to be sure that he knows when she is to be home.) Then tell her boyfriend you look forward to seeing him again at nine or ten or whatever time you set.
When my own daughters went on dates, my husband frequently worked on outside chores (even at night). He’d shovel snow or sweep the garage. Usually he’d start working on these chores fairly close to the time the girls were supposed to be home. He claims he didn’t do this consciously. I don’t believe him. Because of his nighttime chores, the driveway floodlight would always be lit. No hanky-panky in our driveway!
As a father, you may think this unnecessary. After all, you reason, your daughter is a good kid. That’s exactly my point. Nice girls can be too nice. Over and over again nice girls tell me how they date boys they don’t like and have sex with boys only because they don’t want to hurt their feelings.
That’s exactly why you need to protect your daughter from herself. Remind boys that you—not your daughter—will hold them accountable for their behavior.
3. Plan with her. Teach your daughter that sex is for later. Let her know that her body isn’t ready—and neither are her emotions. Some fathers encourage daughters to wait until after college or after high school. Some encourage waiting until marriage. From a medical standpoint, infection risk is all about numbers of partners. The fewer she has, the better. One is best. From a psychological standpoint, the same is true. Girls who avoid deep romantic attachments during their teen years have lower rates of emotional problems. Girls who avoid sexual activity in their teens have lower rates of depression. Let her know that the longer she waits, the better.
Many fathers give their daughters a necklace or a ring to remind them of their commitment to delay sex. I know cynics say that this doesn’t work, that girls will break the pledge and then feel like failures afterward. But they’re wrong. Giving your daughter a token of your esteem for her can have a powerful effect. It’s a reminder of what you expect from her and how highly you value her. It will build her sense of self-worth and strength. It is a tangible pledge. Even if a ring or necklace helps your daughter wait only a year or two longer, that’s a victory. The longer a girl waits, the fewer lifetime sexual partners she has. The fewer the partners, the less likely she is to get an infection.
Hattie came to my office several years ago for a physical. She was sixteen and life was pretty good, she said. I asked her if she had a boyfriend. She quickly and emphatically replied no. I wondered why a sixteen-year-old would be so adamant. So I asked.
“No, it’s not that I don’t like boys, it’s just that I’ve got a lot of stuff on my mind. And when I have a boyfriend, I start doing things I really don’t want to do.”
My curiosity rose.
“Like what?” I asked her.
She seemed startled at first and then said, “Well, see my ring?” She held out her right fourth finger. “My dad gave it to me three years ago before he and my mom got divorced. I don’t get to see him much since he’s in South Carolina. Anyway, I almost got into trouble once, and this really helped me.”
She continued, “Last year I was dating a really nice guy. He’s a year older than me. We went out for a few months and we talked about sex and stuff. He didn’t know what this ring was all about and I didn’t want to tell him ’cause it’s special between my dad and me. Well, one night we were out late and you know, we, um, started having sex. I really wanted to. So, we kept going. Then when I moved my hand up, I saw the ring. I felt weird. I felt guilty and confused. I wanted to keep going. Bu
t I thought of my dad when I saw the ring and I stopped. I really did.” Her tone was insistent.
“I believe you, Hattie.”
And as easily as she told me the story, she changed the subject and was off onto another.
Don’t let anyone tell you—or her—that it’s impossible to wait. It absolutely can be done. Make it something you expect of her. And if you want to, give her a ring or a necklace as a reminder.
4. Say something. Fathers squirm at the idea of discussing sex with their daughters. Make it easy on yourself by keeping it simple and starting such discussions in the fourth or fifth grade, when most public schools start their sex education programs. Just as you discuss the rest of her school day, talk about this and find out what they’re teaching her. If you disagree with what she’s being taught, correct it. Tell her to come to you for answers to her questions.
As she gets into junior high, ask her what her friends are doing. Ask what other kids, even the ones she doesn’t like, are doing. Are they drinking? Are they having sex? Let her know your views. Continue these conversations through high school. Watch her behavior, how she talks to kids on the phone, how she dresses, where she goes. If she’s acting seductive, there’s probably a good reason why. Say something.
Most important, let her know your dreams about her future—her safe, happy, healthy future. Talk to her in private, when you’re both relaxed. Car trips are great, even bedtime. Many high school girls tell me they love to have their dads come in and say good night. It makes them feel loved and safe. And the influence can be lifelong.
