Month: January 2015

Should teens be allowed to access condoms?

Many different people talk about condoms and having sex often, in our current society. Condoms are used during sex to provide protection and to prevent people having sex, not to catch any infections or illnesses about sex. Most adults use condoms but others don’t, so why can’t, teenagers have the right to have condoms as if they do have sex and use them, they would be protected and also be safe while they do. Other questions may be that teenagers don’t have the right to be able to have sex yet, or are too young to be thinking about sex, but I disagree with this point, not all teenagers think about having sex or even the thought of having a condom at this age. There are many different reasons why people say why and why not teenagers should have access to condoms, my personal opinion is that I believe teenagers should be allowed to have access to condoms, or that the legal age limit of people to have condoms be lowered so that older teenagers can be able to get access of them.

First of all if condoms where made to be used when having sex, why can’t the migratory of people be allowed to use them, when I’m saying this I don’t mean to say that everybody can or should be using them like children or babies but, I mean to say why can’t teenagers have the right, to use condoms. On one side people could argue that us teens would have loads of sex or use them in the wrong way, but to be truthful this I not really the case. Most teenagers don’t think about sex or the use of condoms, at their age. Some talk about many different things or have other interests but this is not fair, on those teenagers who would like to have sex, or be able to have trust from older with the use of condoms. What adults don’t realize is that most things that adults do and due to people teenagers can’t be allowed to do, just makes them upset and feel that, just because we are younger we can’t have the trust or can’t have the responsibility, as adults.

One crucial point that I can point out, being a teenager myself is that when people say you can go to a clinic or a pharmacy and ask for condoms, we listen to it but, don’t do it. Not to say we should feel embarrassed about it but, it just doesn’t feel right. Most clinics where this is available adults can go there, which makes us feel discomforted. Clinics should be made so that only young people can attend to them, and other places where teenagers can go to get condoms and, sex advice. On the other hand I would understand why, adults wouldn’t like their children or teenagers to have condoms, at their current age. The reason of this is because they wouldn’t want them to be having sex at a young age or, be thinking about this now and should rather be thinking about school and their future. Another point can be that sometimes when having sex people can catch STI’s or STD’s and parents, wouldn’t want this to happen to their children as they would want them to be healthy and safe.

Having sex is a normal thing and happens in most people’s life, so I don’t know why adults are stopping teenagers from having sex, and not giving most of them condoms. In conclusion I believe that most adults should still be secured about teenagers or their children thinking about condoms and sex but, I strongly advise you to not take this out on all teenagers, as I don’t direct this at them. I know most teenagers wouldn’t be thinking about sex at a young age as this, but we shouldn’t stop others that don’t think in that way. I believe we should be more supportive and be there for them, as this would help them and not make them feel so scared or worry about what, could happen when having sex and having condoms.

Dear Ms Samantha Taylor,

I am writing this letter to strongly agree with what you say about teenagers in this article of yours. I have read through your article and would like to be on your side as this what they say about teenagers is not true, and is not the case, many points that you argued against were true to my belief as I am a teenager. I urge you to read my letter as explaining the points in the articles would make people view teenagers differently.

At the start of the article, you talk about the novelist Jonathan Franzen who talks strongly about teenagers being addicted to all the social media trends. This point that Jonathan makes is truly incorrect and you should agree with me as not all teenagers have links with social media or social sites via computer or mobile devices, also saying “teenagers” refers to the whole teenage community saying all teenagers are involved with social media and addicted to social network. All teenagers are different in their own way, but although they may do similar activities and have similar hobbies, they are all different and Mr Franzen is wrong to make this accusation about teenagers. Saying that teenagers have become “zombies” and “screen enslaved” is not the real truth, shouldn’t we also contrast adults that use the internet and social media every day?

And the many benefits social media provides students?

Another point Franzen made was that teenagers because of this social trend cannot communicate “face to face”, Decently we have improved the lifestyle of teenagers by developing local areas and building environmentally friendly places, to help both teenagers and the environment that are around them. For example, areas have been constructed like youth centres which offers teenagers an area to socialise with friends and other people and being able to play games and places to create and do. Facilities like this can take most teens off the streets to get out of unnecessary trouble and keep most of them entertained, and not to be bored at home. Parks also are a common place where teenagers can meet up and hang out in pairs, or in groups and communicate physically and not over social media.

As the article continues more and more accusations are being thrown at teenagers and most of them being linked with addictions to social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Vine and Snapchat. On the third paragraph where there have been inflictions made on teenagers becoming violent and aggressive due to recent games that have been released like Grand Theft Auto V, teenagers playing these type of games could cause them to be more aggressive, which would lead them to socialise differently between their friends and people they don’t know. On the other hand not all teenagers around the world or even here play video games, or even have violent games like Grand Theft Auto V as there are different types of video games that are not violent or bad.

Also, most teenagers have different interests and hobbies they do in their free time. Most teenagers I know have similar interests and liking which bonds teenagers together but at the same time, they might do things differently to other teenagers or have interests that don’t appetiser other teenagers. Most adults play more video games then actual teenagers. Carrying on the article near the end it talks about what us teenagers post on the internet and what we share with others, but are we not allowed to socialise in the ways that we favour. Teenagers are not too different to adults as some things adults post might shock us or surprise us, but we do not react or comment on that but they do on us.