Thank you Kimberly! I agree with you on the basis that a teenage girl is in nowhere near the position of psychologica power as an older man/teen. All you need to do is read up on female adolescence to understand how vulnerable girls are at this age, and how gettin pregnant can easily stunt a young womans social and economic growth for years to come. Females a this age can be highly vulnerable to any sort of attention they perceive as favorable. They are in a delicate stage developmentally, with their bodies changing in ways often not to their liking, and can be all too easily swayed by the heady flattery of an older person of the opposite sex. I still maintain that encouraging abstinance is NOT oppressive or unrealistic. If they are determined to have sex anyway, they will. But for alot of teen girls, having that strong message communicated gives them permission to say no, teaching them ways to say no gives them the tools, and I can't help but believe that there are alot of teen boys who would be secretly relieved to be free of that same pressure to perform. We need to allow our teens a space to develop healthy relationships, and by the adult community making a unified statement that discourages teen sex, we are providing that space. There is a difference between education and coercion, and I believe that by providing the education actually gives them more freedom.
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