The Fifties The Teen Pregnancy Decade
Teenage pregnancy and motherhood peaked in the 1950s amid the postwar Baby Boom, when nearly 1 in 10 girls age 15 to 19 gave birth every year and nearly half of all new brides in the country were under age 20. That four-fifths of these were legitimized by often-short-lived marriages did not cover up the high rates of high schoolers' sex. Notions that the past was more moral what one sociologist historian called the myth of an abstinent past were belied by cold statistics of the time, which were...
The Sanctification Of Im Offended
In a few months, the celebrity names and teen-panics-du-jour will change in America's bizarro politician, institution, church, and media-figure sexca-pades. As celebrity basher Chelsea Handler declared after a particularly scandal-laden week in which more big icons bungeed off the infidelity cliff, The hits just keep on coming. Still, even toughened up by America's certifiable craziness about sex or maybe jealous that I am apparently having less fun than evangelicals exhibiting hot new versions...
Three Reasons Why Teen Pregnancy Does Not Exist
Here is teen pregnancy, the short take. Teen birth, unwed birth, abortion, total pregnancy, and sexually transmitted disease STD rates closely parallel those of adults of their community, class, and era.1 In fact, 6 in 10 men who impregnate teenagers are adults.2 The younger the pregnant teen, the bigger the partner age gap and the more likely she was to have suffered family chaos, including sexual abuse and other violence.3 In 2005, among females under age 20, 60 percent of all live births, 64...
Refighting Yesterdays War
By the 2000s, the standard 90-second volleying between dueling teen-sex foes in the news media had become a hollaback drill Sex education SENDS TEENS DOUBLE MESSAGES . Give me abstinence-only DENIES TEENS LIFESAVING FACTS . For all the sound and fury lamenting teens having sex and or babies, these issues get raised the way jousters raise lances. On the progressive shows and blogs such as RachelMaddow, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Huffington Post, and Salon, teen pregnancy's main utility...