Media coverage today has focused on a new report from the Independent Advisory Group on Sexual Health and HIV which has found that alcohol and drugs are playing a large part in ‘fuelling a sexual health crisis’. This has been widely reported in the press as a study that’s found that 4/10 sexually active young people aged 13-14 were drunk or stoned when they had their first sexual experience, and 1/10 15-16 year olds had regretted sex they’d had after drinking. Predictably this has caused a huge media fuss, but it’s worth reading the full report (available from the Department of Health’s website where it becomes more obvious that rather than this being a piece of research the IAG’s report is based on a meeting of professionals with an interest in sexual health and a series of presentations made during that seminar. Although research data is drawn upon it isn’t always clear where it was sourced from and how it was selected for inclusion. In the media the report is presented as an independent study not a non-systematic review of other research data.
In many ways this isn’t telling us what we don’t already know. Many young people – particularly those who are more vulnerable – have had sexual experiences that were perhaps regretted or coercive after using alcohol or drugs. We know well that drink and drug use make it more likely that people will not use condoms correctly or will avoid them completely. We also know that where drug and alcohol is involved there’s an increase of sexual risk taking and sexual coercion.
It’s hardly surprising that this is the case, since for many young people in the UK sex education is patchy and not always well delivered. Support for teens in the forms of after school clubs, youth clubs and activity groups can be limited since adults are less bothered about being volunteers to help the young. Our culture is becoming ever sexualised and commercialised with a major focus on sexual performance. Young men’s media has become increasingly sexist, whilst magazines for young women present sex as something that’s less about your own pleasure and more about keeping your boyfriend happy. Sexual health
services are struggling to attract and retain staff and many have not been adequately funded with primary care trusts spending cash earmarked for sexual health services on other areas. And where sexual health clinics exist many are not open at times to suit young people, may not feel confidential to teens, or for those in rural areas may be hard to get to.
The report makes yet another call for compulsory sex education (which will doubtless be ignored as have all previous requests). It also importantly calls for the rules on condom advertising to be changed so condoms can be advertised before the 9pm watershed. However a lot of the report is based on telling us what we know rather than a direct call for action – which technically the group should have the power to do since it is linked with the Department of Health.
We do know there are problems facing young people, but we also need to be careful how we report any studies of this kind. Already we’ve seen the media claiming that 1/4 of teens are having drink or drug induced sex, which isn’t accurate. The IAG study is based on research from somewhere (not made clear where) which was based on young people who are sexually active – so they’re not representative of all teens – most of whom in the 13-14 age group won’t have had sex, and certainly won’t have done so whilst drunk or stoned. In order to prevent a panic amongst parents and teen blaming we need more careful understanding of data from journalists, which sadly wasn’t the case in a lot of today’s media coverage.
Often it is the most vulnerable young people who experiment with sex, drugs and alcohol. It is these young people who put sexual pressure on each other, or feel unable to resist pressure. In particular vulnerable girls are often coerced into sex, whilst lads, under pressure to be a ‘real man’ act in pressurising ways so they can fit in with their peers. We need to look beyond the basic use of drugs/alcohol to exactly what young people are engaging in what we may see as risky activity, how they differ from their peers who aren’t taking such risks, and what extra care or education those in the more vulnerable groups need to protect themselves and others.
Unfortunately this report represents yet another account of teens and sex this year, all of which seem to be contradicting each other. We’ve had the American Psychological Association highlighting problems affecting young girls – particularly from the effects of mainstream media. Then we had the completely confusing and toothless Ofsted report claiming that the media was helping young people. And now we’ve got the IAG’s report saying that popular culture – in particularly our celebrity focused media – is at the heart of our sexual health crisis. This is confusing since you’ve got at least two government organisations (Ofsted, Department of Health) spending money to produce to completely contradictory reports. There’s also the wider concern that the IAG’s report should be evidence-based to fit in with wider health guidance in the UK, and yet appears to have cherry picked certain forms of data and is not always clear where evidence underpinning the presentations in the IAG report comes from.
Whilst celebrity culture isn’t necessarily helping, it’s an oversimplification to blame risky sex, increased STIs and alcohol/drug misuse on our current celebrity obsession. Celebrities and celeb worship aren’t making young people rush out and have risky drug or drink fuelled sex. Having a mainstream media that is more sexualised, balanced with no compulsory high standard sex education or access to sexual health services is causing us problems. However, the media have latched onto the idea that it’s celebs to blame, and that makes for a better headline than problems within education or public health spending – after all you can’t put a picture of a celebrity by a news story if it’s only focusing on misuse of primary care funds. There were other factors put out within the IAG press release, but not all of those were picked up on. Whether this is a fault of the media or the IAG isn’t clear, but it seems predictable that if you mention popular culture that’ll be focused on by the media at the expense of other issues.
As ever, much of the mainstream media have misreported the IAG report and used it as yet another opportunity to join the teen blame parade. Coverage is about drink, drugs, alcohol and badly behaved youngsters, not about the very real causes of our sexual health crisis – or the shame that it is putting our youth at risk. And as usual we’ve got a typical media response that cries out against celebrity culture without taking any responsibility for the media’s role in creating this cultural climate. The media will not currently let teens win. It creates and reflects ever sexualised coverage, yet creates moral panics over young people seeking abortions or being given access to contraception. It does all it can to maintain a sexually charged climate where sexual activity and performance is key, but does nothing to campaign for proper sex education and well provided sexual health services.
We can’t just grumble about the media here though, it seems obvious most journalists haven’t bothered to read the IAG main report, but were they to do so they’d find it was based on a report from a seminar rather than a wholescale investigation into youth issues, which is interesting for professionals but perhaps not enough to generate this much media focus and may well not translate into any measurable outcomes in education or healthcare.
For one day only the IAG report’s allowed for a media flurry and moral panic, but when the dust settles we can be fairly sure that it’ll all be forgotten until the next report shows that the media (and celebrities) either do, or don’t contribute to our sexual health crisis. All the while teens will still get the blame for problems caused by adults, and we’ll still neglect the sex education and healthcare that could make teenagers safer, healthier, and happier.
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Sex, STIs, drugs and teens – a lot of media attention for a seminar report – not a study
Media coverage today has focused on a new report from the Independent Advisory Group on Sexual Health and HIV which has found that alcohol and drugs are playing a large part in ‘fuelling a sexual health crisis’. This has been widely reported in the press as a study that’s found that 4/10 sexually active young people aged 13-14 were drunk or stoned when they had their first sexual experience, and 1/10 15-16 year olds had regretted sex they’d had after drinking. Predictably this has caused a huge media fuss, but it’s worth reading the full report (available from the Department of Health’s website where it becomes more obvious that rather than this being a piece of research the IAG’s report is based on a meeting of professionals with an interest in sexual health and a series of presentations made during that seminar. Although research data is drawn upon it isn’t always clear where it was sourced from and how it was selected for inclusion. In the media the report is presented as an independent study not a non-systematic review of other research data.
In many ways this isn’t telling us what we don’t already know. Many young people – particularly those who are more vulnerable – have had sexual experiences that were perhaps regretted or coercive after using alcohol or drugs. We know well that drink and drug use make it more likely that people will not use condoms correctly or will avoid them completely. We also know that where drug and alcohol is involved there’s an increase of sexual risk taking and sexual coercion.
It’s hardly surprising that this is the case, since for many young people in the UK sex education is patchy and not always well delivered. Support for teens in the forms of after school clubs, youth clubs and activity groups can be limited since adults are less bothered about being volunteers to help the young. Our culture is becoming ever sexualised and commercialised with a major focus on sexual performance. Young men’s media has become increasingly sexist, whilst magazines for young women present sex as something that’s less about your own pleasure and more about keeping your boyfriend happy. Sexual health
services are struggling to attract and retain staff and many have not been adequately funded with primary care trusts spending cash earmarked for sexual health services on other areas. And where sexual health clinics exist many are not open at times to suit young people, may not feel confidential to teens, or for those in rural areas may be hard to get to.
The report makes yet another call for compulsory sex education (which will doubtless be ignored as have all previous requests). It also importantly calls for the rules on condom advertising to be changed so condoms can be advertised before the 9pm watershed. However a lot of the report is based on telling us what we know rather than a direct call for action – which technically the group should have the power to do since it is linked with the Department of Health.
We do know there are problems facing young people, but we also need to be careful how we report any studies of this kind. Already we’ve seen the media claiming that 1/4 of teens are having drink or drug induced sex, which isn’t accurate. The IAG study is based on research from somewhere (not made clear where) which was based on young people who are sexually active – so they’re not representative of all teens – most of whom in the 13-14 age group won’t have had sex, and certainly won’t have done so whilst drunk or stoned. In order to prevent a panic amongst parents and teen blaming we need more careful understanding of data from journalists, which sadly wasn’t the case in a lot of today’s media coverage.
Often it is the most vulnerable young people who experiment with sex, drugs and alcohol. It is these young people who put sexual pressure on each other, or feel unable to resist pressure. In particular vulnerable girls are often coerced into sex, whilst lads, under pressure to be a ‘real man’ act in pressurising ways so they can fit in with their peers. We need to look beyond the basic use of drugs/alcohol to exactly what young people are engaging in what we may see as risky activity, how they differ from their peers who aren’t taking such risks, and what extra care or education those in the more vulnerable groups need to protect themselves and others.
Unfortunately this report represents yet another account of teens and sex this year, all of which seem to be contradicting each other. We’ve had the American Psychological Association highlighting problems affecting young girls – particularly from the effects of mainstream media. Then we had the completely confusing and toothless Ofsted report claiming that the media was helping young people. And now we’ve got the IAG’s report saying that popular culture – in particularly our celebrity focused media – is at the heart of our sexual health crisis. This is confusing since you’ve got at least two government organisations (Ofsted, Department of Health) spending money to produce to completely contradictory reports. There’s also the wider concern that the IAG’s report should be evidence-based to fit in with wider health guidance in the UK, and yet appears to have cherry picked certain forms of data and is not always clear where evidence underpinning the presentations in the IAG report comes from.
Whilst celebrity culture isn’t necessarily helping, it’s an oversimplification to blame risky sex, increased STIs and alcohol/drug misuse on our current celebrity obsession. Celebrities and celeb worship aren’t making young people rush out and have risky drug or drink fuelled sex. Having a mainstream media that is more sexualised, balanced with no compulsory high standard sex education or access to sexual health services is causing us problems. However, the media have latched onto the idea that it’s celebs to blame, and that makes for a better headline than problems within education or public health spending – after all you can’t put a picture of a celebrity by a news story if it’s only focusing on misuse of primary care funds. There were other factors put out within the IAG press release, but not all of those were picked up on. Whether this is a fault of the media or the IAG isn’t clear, but it seems predictable that if you mention popular culture that’ll be focused on by the media at the expense of other issues.
As ever, much of the mainstream media have misreported the IAG report and used it as yet another opportunity to join the teen blame parade. Coverage is about drink, drugs, alcohol and badly behaved youngsters, not about the very real causes of our sexual health crisis – or the shame that it is putting our youth at risk. And as usual we’ve got a typical media response that cries out against celebrity culture without taking any responsibility for the media’s role in creating this cultural climate. The media will not currently let teens win. It creates and reflects ever sexualised coverage, yet creates moral panics over young people seeking abortions or being given access to contraception. It does all it can to maintain a sexually charged climate where sexual activity and performance is key, but does nothing to campaign for proper sex education and well provided sexual health services.
We can’t just grumble about the media here though, it seems obvious most journalists haven’t bothered to read the IAG main report, but were they to do so they’d find it was based on a report from a seminar rather than a wholescale investigation into youth issues, which is interesting for professionals but perhaps not enough to generate this much media focus and may well not translate into any measurable outcomes in education or healthcare.
For one day only the IAG report’s allowed for a media flurry and moral panic, but when the dust settles we can be fairly sure that it’ll all be forgotten until the next report shows that the media (and celebrities) either do, or don’t contribute to our sexual health crisis. All the while teens will still get the blame for problems caused by adults, and we’ll still neglect the sex education and healthcare that could make teenagers safer, healthier, and happier.
Sex, STIs, drugs and teens – a lot of media attention for a seminar report – not a study