Maybe we take it too personally, but it’s kind of depressing that more young people—a lot more—are having unsafe sex, don’t know very much about contraception and don’t know how to ask.
Reuters reports that the numbers of young people having unsafe sex with a new partner in the last three years increased 111 percent (no, that’s not a typo) in France, 39 percent in the U.S. and 19 percent in Britain.
The survey was conducted by Bayer Pharmaceuticals in preparation for World Contraception Day (Sept. 26), spanned 26 countries and questioned 6,000 young people. Newser reports that the ages of those questioned was 15-24 years old but in Egypt that the respondents “were 22-30 and married.”
If you’re ready to decry the state of sex education in America, America isn’t alone: Half the European respondents said they didn’t get sex ed in school as opposed to three-quarters in the U.S., Latin America and Asia Pacific.
Jennifer Woodside of International Planned Parenthood said in the Reuters story that it shouldn’t be surprising that teens and 20-somethings aren’t being sexually safe if no one’s teaching them how. “How can young people make decisions that are right for them and protect them from unwanted pregnancy and STIs, if we do not empower them and enable them to acquire the skills they need to make those choices?” she asked.
Anybody?