The 6 Most Important Decisions You'll Ever Make: A Guide for Teens

by Sean Covey

  Syphilis: The Baby STD. Syphilis continues to spread and many teens who have it may not even know it. Babies can contract syphilis while in the uterus. If a mother is not treated, there is a 20 percent chance that the baby will be either stillborn or miscarried, a 25 percent chance that the baby will die shortly after birth, and a 33 percent chance that the baby will have permanent brain or body damage.

  Chains of Contagion

  In a recent study published in the American Journal of Sociology, researchers tried to document every sexual contact among high school students over an 18-month period. The purpose was to learn how STDs travel through teen populations. The survey was conducted at a high school (they called it “Jefferson High”) in a midwestern U.S. town with about 1,000 students. The result was a map that took the researchers by surprise. It showed that of the 832 kids surveyed, 288 of them were linked in a giant sexual network. Many others were linked in smaller networks. This is how STDs are spread.

  Chains of Contagion

  Each dot represents a boy or girl at Jefferson High. The lines that link them represent sexual relationships that occurred over an 18-month period.

  Bearman, Moody, and Stovel: Chains of Affection, AJS 2004

  Here are a few key facts from that study:

  • The more we pass ourselves around, the greater the likelihood of picking up something. If you were part of the chain of 288 students, you risked contracting an STD from everyone in the chain, even if you only had one partner. In other words, if you have sex with someone, you’re having sex with everyone else they’ve had sex with.

  • Several hundred students at Jefferson High had no sexual partners and were at no risk of catching an STD.

  • The long and complex chain could easily be snapped by a single person who opts out. Think how quickly STDs could be reduced or eliminated through smart choices.

  The Ever-Changing Tide

  What about the argument we often hear: “If I practice safe sex and use condoms I won’t get an STD.” Sorry to burst your bubble, but it’s not that easy.

  When I was young, it was no big deal to lie out in the sun all day and get burned, but now experts tell you that even a couple of really nasty burns can cause skin cancer years later. Likewise, during the 1990s, experts used to say that safe sex could be practiced by using condoms. Now, some of these experts are saying using a condom is not safe sex at all, but only less dangerous sex.

  Patricia Sulak, M.D., an established researcher and medical school professor, is one expert who changed her mind. “I used to think all we had to do was dump condoms in the schools and be done with it,” she said. “But after reviewing the data, I’ve had to do a 180 on kids and sex.”

  In the past few years, guess what they’ve discovered? There is no clear scientific evidence that using condoms provides significant protection from several STDs, including the incurable and most common one: HPV. Surprise! One reason for this is because some STDs like HPV are passed by skin to skin contact of the genital area, not just the part the condom is covering.

  Likewise, birth-control pills help to prevent pregnancy, but do nothing to protect against STDs.

  In addition, condoms often aren’t used properly, may slip or leak, and, even with the best of intentions, most couples don’t have the discipline to stick with them.

  So, the next obvious question you may be thinking is: What about oral sex? Is that safe? I’ll let Rhonda Katz, an expert on teens and sex, answer that question for me.

  Question: I’ve heard…that there’s a lot of oral sex happening among teens. The kids think it’s safe and not really sex…What are the risks of oral sex?

  Answer: “Oral sex carries the risk of contracting (and spreading) serious diseases—gonorrhea, syphilis, herpes, HIV, chlamydia, and others. STDs can easily infect your mouth and throat, and mouth herpes (cold sores) can infect genitals. Most girls don’t use condoms for oral sex, making the risk of STDs even greater…Having herpes sores on your mouth is not only embarrassing, but you run the risk of spreading it by oral sex or even kissing.”

  If you’ve been shocked and grossed out a little by all this stuff—good! Hopefully, you’ll do something about it. If you’ve been sexually active, perhaps you’ll want to turn over a new leaf.

  You may know someone with an STD, or maybe you suspect you’ve got one. If so, please see a doctor and get tested immediately. You may need help and the sooner you can get it, the more options you’ll have. See the Help Desk for more info.

  I don’t know about you, but that’s about all the STD talk I can take.

  Question 7 Answer: True

  You can pick up an STD from oral sex.

  UH-OH!

  Birth control can fail—it often does. That’s why millions of teens throughout the world get pregnant each year, unplanned. If you’re sexually active, chances are good that you’ll either get pregnant or get someone pregnant, even if you use protection.

  Question 8 Answer: 750,000

  The current number of teen pregnancies each year in the U.S. is 750,000

  It can also happen in just one encounter. I know of an Australian girl who found out she was pregnant on the same day she got accepted to study music at a premier university. As a result, she never went to college and her life took a totally different course.

  Girls: You and your partner are not both pregnant—just you are. It will change your life forever. Jerusha, who became a mother at 16, shared what it was like during a regular day at Young Mothers School:

  Question 9 Answer: True

  A girl can get pregnant the first time she has sex.

  All of the girls were at different stages. Some were newly pregnant, some were about to give birth, and some had one- and two-year-olds. At first, it was very distracting because you would sit in class with these girls and their babies. You would be in the middle of taking a test and sometimes four or five babies would be screaming right next to you.

  This is what a typical day was like for me and my baby, Kristin.

  6:30 A.M.:

  I’d wake up and get myself ready.

  7:00 A.M.:

  I’d get Kristin up, feed her, give her a bath, do her hair, get her dressed, pack us both a lunch, and pack the diaper bag.

  8:00 A.M.:

  I’d leave for school.

  8:15 A.M.:

  I’d try to get Kristin settled in the nursery—she’d often cry and not want me to go—I’d cry because it was so hard to leave her.

  8:30 A.M.:

  School starts. I’d try to do my homework, but wonder if Kristin was doing okay without me. Often, I’d get called out of class to change her diaper, then I’d have to leave her screaming again which killed me.

  12:00 NOON:

  At lunch I’d have to hurry and pick her up, feed her in a high chair, clean up the big mess she’d make, and if I’d get lucky, eat some lunch myself and get her back to the nursery all within 30 minutes. She’d get upset all over again when I’d have to leave.

  And this is just the first half of Jerusha’s day.

  Guys: If you get a girl pregnant and she has the baby, you’ve just fathered a child. Whether you marry the girl or not, that baby is yours! Whether you do the responsible thing and take care of the child or the irresponsible thing and abandon it, you’re obligated to that child for life. Are you ready to be a daddy to a living, breathing human being that needs love and attention?

  Read how an unplanned pregnancy impacted Dylan.

  Question 10 Answer: 20 percent

  20 percent of guys who get a girl pregnant wind up marrying the girl.

  I remember the day my girlfriend told me she was pregnant. One minute I had no worries, then the next I had a lifetimeful. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t give up my daughter for anything. But now, while my buddies hang out and have fun, I go to work, trying to make enough money to support my child. Having sex used to make me feel grown-up. But there’s a big difference between feeling grown-up and being grown-up. I’m just now
learning what it means to be responsible for the life of another person. One way or another, my future is always going to be tied to this girl because of my baby.

  Whole People

  So far, we’ve only talked about the physical risks of sex, like disease and pregnancy. There are also serious emotional risks, like heartbreak, regret, guilt, depression. Remember that we are made up of four parts: body, heart, mind, and soul, and all four parts are connected into one great whole. Like the four tires of a car, if one is out of balance, all four wear unevenly. Realize that having sex, a physical thing, also impacts your heart, mind, and soul, whether you want it to or not. Don’t ever think that you can get physical with someone and not have it affect how you feel about yourself. Having sex as a teen is like playing Russian roulette with your future. There’s risk every time.

  Question 11 Answer: C

  Abstinence as a teen is the only protection that is 100 percent safe from disease, pregnancy, and emotional scarring.

  After everything we’ve talked about, can you see why I can safely say there’s no such thing as safe sex?

  You’re not going to get married for another ten years or so, so what’s the harm in having a little fun, as long as you’re not hurting anyone and no one’s getting pregnant? Right?

  I can’t blame anyone for believing that sex is no biggie. After all, the media treats sex as a disposable form of entertainment that can be bought, sold, rented, or traded, and is available everywhere, 24/7, and in all forms, including live, virtual, mobile, audio, or print. During your teen years alone, you will see and hear about 98,000 sexual references and innuendoes on TV. Whoa! That’s a lot of smut.

  Of course, some will argue that what you see in the movies and on TV doesn’t really affect you. Then, these same people will turn around and pay millions for a 30-second commercial during the Super Bowl. If a 30-second commercial can get you to change your shampoo, surely 98,000 impressions can influence the way you think. As Alisia said,

  “If SEX is portrayed all day long on the TV, how do they expect people not to want to try it?”

  In the movies, everyone’s doing it, usually on the first date. When you see it enough times, you start to think that’s just the way things are and it’s okay. We forget that movies lie about the way things really are.

  For instance, when’s the last time you saw a show where a couple slept together, then felt guilt or regret, or one of them picked up an STD? Have you ever seen a romantic movie that shows the betrayal a woman feels when she finds out she’s pregnant and her boyfriend wants nothing to do with her? You never see it because it’s neither fun nor romantic. Let’s not be so quick to buy Hollywood’s line that sex is no big deal. It’s a lie.

  Intimacy and Commitment

  With roughly 37 trillion cells working in concert, your body is an extraordinary thing that should be respected, not a merry-go-round on which everyone gets a ride. It doesn’t make sense to share the most intimate parts of yourselves until you are fully committed to each other. Intimacy without commitment is like getting something for nothing; it goes against a basic principle. What is a committed relationship? A marriage is the best form I know. With a marriage, you get a legal document, a public celebration, a ring, a recognized union, and a deep promise to love each other through health and sickness.

  What about a high school relationship where you’re truly in love? Does that count as committed? Not really. Although there may be a very strong bond, there is no real commitment. There is no legal agreement, no celebration over your union, no shared rent payment. You aren’t doing the dishes, cleaning the laundry, or paying the bills together. You break up, move, go to college, start liking someone else, and so on.

  Some teens think that if you haven’t actually done it (sexual intercourse), then you haven’t had sex and can still be classified as a “technical virgin.” Hey, let’s be real. Sex is sex.

  I’m sorry for being so direct, but if you’re unzipping things, taking off clothes, reaching inside clothes, or handling each other’s “private parts” (as little kids like to call them), it’s intimate and it’s sex. Although some forms of sex may not be as risky physically, they’re every bit as risky emotionally.

  Everyone disagrees with what the terms hooking up or friends with benefits really mean, but basically they are nothing more than no-strings-attached sexual encounters of some type. In reality, it’s just a way to use each other’s bodies for pleasure without any expectations or commitment—fast, easy, and unfulfilling.

  Depression: The Emotional STD

  I was interested to see what a doctor had to say about the emotional impact of sex. After treating thousands of teens over two decades, Dr. Meeker is convinced that teenage sex causes severe emotional problems, even calling depression the emotional STD. She writes:

  “While many teenage boys claim sex is fun, in private, many admit that they lose respect for themselves after a sexual encounter. They may boast about their sexual exploits and appear to have gained more self-confidence, but privately they admit that something changed inside them after they started having sex. They have less self-respect, having given up their sexual intimacy to someone they didn’t care deeply about.

  “Girls have the potential to feel an even greater loss of self-respect. Society has encouraged her to expose every inch of her body she can get away with, and in doing so teaches that their bodies are not worth protecting. She may give herself sexually (which means a lot to her) to a guy she deeply cares about and he may not receive it with respect and she soon learns he’s not so interested in her, just in sex.

  “Protecting our virginity, like self-preservation, must be hard-wired into us because I have watched hundreds of teens grieve the loss of their virginity. Inwardly, we all sense and know down deep that virginity is something precious and private and when we surrender it and then experience disappointment or rejection we feel a great loss of something we can’t get back.”

  Question 12 Answer: False

  About half of teens who had sex wished they would have waited.

  Lucian, featured in a Newsweek article, shared the emotional impact on him and how he rebounded.

  Lucian had always planned to wait until marriage to have sex, but that was before a warm night provided him with an unexpected opportunity. “She was all for it,” says Lucian. “It was like, ‘Hey, let’s give this a try.’ ” But the big event was over really fast and lacked any feeling of love or intimacy. “In movies, if people have sex, it’s always romantic,” he says. “Physically, it did feel good, but emotionally, it felt really awkward. It was not what I expected it to be.”

  Lucian was plagued by guilt. “I was worried that I’d given myself to someone and our relationship was now a lot more serious than it was before. It was like, ‘Now, what is she going to expect from me?’ ” Lucian also worried about disease and pregnancy and promised himself never again.

  Lucian, now an engineering major at a university in Canada, considers himself a “renewed virgin.” His parents had always stressed abstinence, but it didn’t hit home until after he’d done it. “It’s a pretty special thing, and it’s also pretty serious,” he says. “Abstinence has to do with ‘Hey, are you going to respect this person?’ ” Now, when he dates, he restricts himself to kissing. “Not because I think everything else is bad. But the more you participate with someone, the harder it’s going to be to stop…I’m looking forward to an intimate relationship with my wife, who I’ll truly love and want to spend the rest of my life with,” says Lucian. “It’s kind of corny, but it’s for real.”

  Question 13 Answer: D

  After having sex, many teens have regrets, become depressed and suffer from low self-esteem, or feel disappointed, hurt, and betrayed.

  YES, SEX IS A VERY BIG DEAL.

  Love Waits

  Every summer I go water-skiing at a beautiful, but freezing, lake in the Rocky Mountains. I’ve learned how to ski starting on the dock instead of in the water. I stand on the do
ck holding the ski rope while the boat slowly pulls out. When most of the slack in the rope is out, I yell “hit it” and the boat floors it. Then, just as the slack tightens, I step off the dock onto the water and start skiing.

  This took dozens of tries to master. I learned that if you step off too soon and have too much slack, you sink into the glacial water and start hyperventilating. If you step off too late and have no slack, you get jerked off the dock and your arms practically get ripped out of their sockets. If you time it just right, you step smoothly onto the water and start skiing without getting wet. It’s the best feeling in the world.

  Sexual intimacy is kind of like that. If you do it at the wrong time, you either sink in the frigid water or get your arms ripped off. If you do it at the right time and with the right person, it’s the greatest feeling in the world. It’s all in the timing.

  I remember reading an interview with a 21-year-old guy who was attending college who said:

  “Chastity has been an enormous concern to me. I have failed at it because I couldn’t answer the question ‘Why wait to have sex?’ I gave in because I didn’t have a solid answer.”

  Good question. If you don’t have a solid answer to the question “Why wait?” consider these reasons.