Thanks for replying... I have/have had experience dealing with youngsters from other coutries and I really find a sharp contrast. I guess part of it might be explained by their family and social backgrounds. If the situation is generalized... I think it's very worrying. Hopefully the initial educational purpose of the program can help some young people out there.

As irresponsible as it was it was their resonsibility and they were adults....Not children it seems people think they were.....On a spur of the moment impulse they had sex...with age maybe we learn self control...but this is nothing to do with intelligence.....Jade had the nerve and courage to force her way onto the show, she wouldn't be too afraid to make her way down to the doctors like a frightened 13 year old to get the morning after pill....although the fact she has bad skin and isn't on the pill is a bit of a surprise.....

In fact...now I think about it.....When another well known reality TV contestant had unprotected sex with her bloke who she'd only just met, she totally forgot to go the morning after pill and got instantly pregnant.........For some reason instead of shock horror at her irresponsible behavior this person was hoisted up as an example of "emotional intelligence" and her "streetwise intelligence" was remarked on as being very advanced.....This irresposnible former contestant..surely no more than a 14 year old child in maturity was in fact held as up as a wonderous mother and her relationship would last for years so well was she matched to her partner, despite falling pregnant through irresponsible disease spreading unprotected sex...............

I recall at the time commenting on how it was a dreadful example to all her fans.....a bad day for education........

The name Jade does come up a lot in this thread doesn't it.....

I think that contraception should be the responsibility of both partners, not just the female.

This group wasn't chosen to be representative, just look at the mix. They were chosen to provide a circus - THAT'S what they are too young to realise.

They are all acting a part and posing for the camera. They even use words, phrases and behaviours learned from previous programmes.

Young Jade said all she wanted was to find someone who would love her. They can't be allowed to use what happened as a basis for discussion in schools year after year. That would be too cruel .

It is...it's a mutually responsible thing.....Both 18 year old adults were equally irresponsible........

Or equally irresponsible.

Which was exactly what I said wasn't it?

Oops, sorry, Mes. So you did. My mistake.

haha

I assume if the government think 18 years old are adult enough for joining the armed forces and kill people... they shoul be perfectly capable and prepared for taking responsibilities of their actions ... including their sexuality.

But it's also a responsibility of the goverment to offer proper sexual education in schools. High incidence of sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy among teenagers means they aren't getting the message... or are British teenagers particularly reckless in their Irresponsibility?

Tommy and Jade behaved irresponsibly (unprotected sex) in spite of knowing their actions weren't private... what can we expect from the rest?

At 18 they would be armed with all the facts Tamara. The only thing that let them down was themselves. In a strange enviroment they acted on a spur of the moment inpulse and irresponsibly let go of their common sense. Regretted immediately as we saw. You'll find British school kids are well aware of the facts and options available to them...it just so happens that this combination of young British adult in this combination of circumstances led to Tommy and Jade having a quick fumble on the bedroom flaw........But it isn't an educational fault....even the most naive 18 year old would have to be in a coma for 4 year not to know the dangers and options....the only people they had to blame was themselves......

Statistics for the whole country aren't brilliant either. If education isn't the problem .. then what other factors contribute to this?

Talking about sexuality in teenagers... I was reading an interesting article published in the Guardian... Victims or Villains .... "Horrified one minute, fascinated the next - teenage sexuality is our problem, not theirs".

Society? A culture in which satisfaction of personal needs exceeds any concious awareness of the danger......They wanted to have sex...they had sex...It's only the fact that a pair of young adults did it in a controlled enviroment of Big Brother that we're discussing it at all.....How much control can we have over people if they want to have sex? Tell them not to do it at all? Pretend sex doesn't exist? Show them pictures of diseased penises? The only way to do it is to change the way they think and behave....and that would mean changing the whole culture and awareness of the subject.....I think anyway....Nothing so sterile as "education"....Done wrongly "education" becomes patronising....And that's one thing the young adult hates.....

Well I agree with both you and Tamara,..I gett he feeling that you are speaking slightly at crossed purposes.

I don't think Tamara necessarily meant teenagers should be educated in a stuffy clasroom, schoolteacher scenario....Just be educated one way or another.

If you want to change the way people think and behave,.then don't you to some extent have to provide something to them that gives food for thought?
Even if it's just to make them aware of the pros and cons, present something to them which makes one course of action more appealing than another.
Not necessarily lecture them,..just provide alternative viewpoints that helps them make up their minds for themselves.

Seeing images in the media, like sex and violence is cool etc,..can unwittingly become a distorted kind of education, but it doesn't come from the classroom.

I've no answers, but I agree that society seems to have more of an educational effect on people. But there is a problem when there are so many mixed messages around.
Maybe there has to be a way to find out how to glamourize certain things that are traditionally uncool, but essential.
Oh I don't know,..society seems to be in such a mess,..go too far the other way, and we turn into a nanny state.

Maybe the answer lies in how other European countries manage.
Don't the Scandinavian countries deal with sex and teenage pregnancy better than the UK?
Maybe they have the answer.

The thing being is that I don't believe Tommy and Jade were uneducated...they weren't acting out of ignorance...they just went ahead anyway and had sex.....

i dont think the government and schools should take
all responsibilty for these teenagers and what there sexual habits entail ....what the heck ever happened to parental responsibilty ....."give me the child from 0 to 7 and i'll show you the man".... is an old saying but it is very true ... for me, its down to the parent to educate them on the facts of life and to show them a good example and good role model from day 1 of their life ....when the schools come in its to just finish off and educate them in the biology of it all .

i'm not expecting the school and government to do my job as a parent

should of added on there ... its teaching your kids total self respect and dignity of their body and mind which these 2 showed none

But they were taught it...and at 18 they would have been armed with all the facts....they let go of their self control and had sex on the spur of the moment......Blaming the parents isn't the way to go here......

i agree meso that they were taught all the facts ...but who teaches the emotion and consequences of it all .... the parents do play a major role in this

But they are the ones living it......It wasn't normal circumstances to begin with and morality certainly kicked in immediatly afterwards....Can you really teach emotion? Self control went right out the window in this case....

How do you know?

There's loads of teenagers who believe any old crap they hear from their mates,..that you're not likely to get pregnant if you don't orgasm, or if you pull out in time, or all sorts of things.

If teenage pregnancy is as rife as we're being told,..how many 18 year olds really are armed with the facts, and have been taught what's necessary?
How many teenage girls do you think want to be pregnant, but have no choice because they made a mistake?

They may know the mechanics of sex, but it doesn't mean they have the maturity to assess the real consequences.

Anyway,..they probably did know,..I'm not saying they didn't.
But teenBB wasn't supposed to be educating the housemates, it was supposedly conceived to educate the younger viewers.
On the Channel 4 show, I don't think they mentioned pregnancy, or showed Jade getting the morning after pill the day after.

Why don't you feel that the parents have no role in the subject?
You said yourself that British society itself contributes to some of the blame,..the parents must make up a large proprtion of society. We know that parents are usually crap about talking about sex to their kids..They just feel embarrassed doing it(talking).
If we live in a soicety where sex is just something we'd rather not talk about openly,...then it just gets reduced to embarrassed sniggers and giggles,..like on TV shows like Richard and Judy,..then the kids just end up teaching themselves,..pretty much how most of us probably did.

It's all very well somebody saying, ah but they do the education side of things when they repeat it in January,....well that's three months away,..maybe they will feature a lesson on abortion, a few months after the lesson in fu*king.

[quote]Originally posted by Alrightmate
How do you know?

Because I was one.

There's loads of teenagers who believe any old crap they hear from their mates,..that you're not likely to get pregnant if you don't orgasm, or if you pull out in time, or all sorts of things.

Because by 18 you well know all the myths....you aren't a naive 14 year old any more.

If teenage pregnancy is as rife as we're being told,..how many 18 year olds really are armed with the facts, and have been taught what's necessary?

Teenage preganancy.....you mean underage pregnancy or pregnancy in 18 year olds who have been able to legally have sex for two years and if they don't know the pitfalls and dangers they must have had their head in the ground for years.....
How many teenage girls do you think want to be pregnant, but have no choice because they made a mistake? Why do I get the impression that this discussion doesn't distiguish between teenage children and teenage adults.......It just seem patronising to me.

They may know the mechanics of sex, but it doesn't mean they have the maturity to assess the real consequences.

At 18 they should do........Didn't they do any psychological tests on these Teen Big Bro contestants at all??????

Anyway,..they probably did know,..I'm not saying they didn't.
But teenBB wasn't supposed to be educating the housemates, it was supposedly conceived to educate the younger viewers.
On the Channel 4 show, I don't think they mentioned pregnancy, or showed Jade getting the morning after pill the day after.

But the education planned must surely have been on a psychological, group relationships and dynamics....not sex education.....The Channel 4 show was at 10 P.M. well after the watershed.....the educational program we can well believe will have an entirely different edit.

Why don't you feel that the parents have no role in the subject?

Because in th econtext I said it I referred to the two 18 year olds who a responsible for their own behavior. They could have been married for 2 years by now.

You said yourself that British society itself contributes to some of the blame,..the parents must make up a large proprtion of society. We know that parents are usually crap about talking about sex to their kids..They just feel embarrassed doing it(talking).

Indeed..........But their mates also contibute to their behavior.....Parents have an input but the way society views them and how the subject is treated with such taboo secrecy is also responsible for some of the nonsense that goes on...I'd sooner total openess than nervous excuses.

If we live in a soicety where sex is just something we'd rather not talk about openly,...then it just gets reduced to embarrassed sniggers and giggles,..like on TV shows like Richard and Judy,..then the kids just end up teaching themselves,..pretty much how most of us probably did.

Such is the problem....Hence I don't join the condemnation of this show for showing the sex......It's important it's faced head on.

It's all very well somebody saying, ah but they do the education side of things when they repeat it in January,....well that's three months away,..maybe they will feature a lesson on abortion, a few months after the lesson in fu*king.

Are you saying that the show will teach kids to go out and have sex........i disagree......For one thing, having a shag is a sure fire way to loose a holiday it seems to me.

[quote]Originally posted by Mesostim
[b][quote]Originally posted by Alrightmate
How do you know?

Because I was one.

[b]I was asking how you knew that Jade and Tommy knew all the facts...I wasn't very clear.

There's loads of teenagers who believe any old crap they hear from their mates,..that you're not likely to get pregnant if you don't orgasm, or if you pull out in time, or all sorts of things.

Because by 18 you well know all the myths....you aren't a naive 14 year old any more.

There's loads of teenagers who will believe nonsense.
If they all knew then they wouldn't end up pregnant.

If teenage pregnancy is as rife as we're being told,..how many 18 year olds really are armed with the facts, and have been taught what's necessary?


you're just going through this post sequentially aren't you? If you won't read it as a whole, I can't be bothered. And if you're making out that I'm patronizing,..well what's the point of me carrying on?