November 29, 2010 – I hated English lessons. Not the teacher but the way things worked during our high school days. I was not alone. It was because of how we were treated.

Why, did we have to go through it? It all happened because of her. She always found mistakes in us, and made sure we pay for them. Worse still, she was the girlfriend of the school disciplinarian.

During her lesson, she would turn up with her short tight skirt, sit in front of the boys’ class, and caress her back side as she read the Shakespeare writings. Then we would discuss the poems, literature reviews etc. Discuss? Did you just say discuss? While you are seated in front of us? Like that? Torture!

Then the lesson would turn to the movie review of Romeo & Juliet. We would definitely pause at the kissing scene, touching scenes and savour the curves Juliet had…

What type of human are you?

All men are born as visual beings, women, auditory. Some would be kinaesthetic, meaning they have to feel stuff. You have to touch the guys or else, you are not a good doctor.

Men must see before they are aroused, gals just need to be told that they look nice, irrespective of how good they look. During our Movie review, this was when I’d retrospectively remember the visual beings we were.

We were even tortured by her sitting on the raised table to discuss Lexicographicide. No one was listening, just watching, that’s it. When you have to pin down a man, close his eyes or lock up the 1%. The surface area of your private part is about 1% of the body total, got it?

That was the moment for Generation Sexually Liberated Urban Teens (Generation S. L. U. T). These teens are just displaying their side of the argument. ‘”We are visual, we are auditory or we are Kinaesthetic”, they argue. It is this argument that has led to many teens edging up with the effects of poor visual, auditory or kinaesthetic action controls.

Studies on sex among teens

The American Guttmacher organization (www.guttmacher.org) reveals some worrying trends. Some studies done among teens revealed that by 18 years of age, 80 percent of teens are sexually active. Some other figures are as follows:
• Only 20% of non-virgins are in the 12 to 14-year-old group
• About 20% of teenagers have had sex without a condom while intoxicated
• About 25% of teenagers said that alcohol had influenced their decision to do something sexual at least once.
• A whooping 63 percent of teens aged 15 to 17 years believed “waiting to have sex was a nice idea but nobody really waited”

As much as these are US figures, there is little difference with our community. These are the same boys and girls, with the same feelings, and same exposure.

There is so much freedom to do stuff nowadays that nobody cares. Gone are the days when a neighbour would institute instant corporal punishment on a teenager noted doing something wrongs.

And his parents would ‘top up’, just to drive the message home. We never complained. After a half-century during which generations of young women were advised to never call a boy on the telephone, it is now teenage girls who not only do the calling, but who often initiate romantic and even sexual activity.

Whether they are influenced by the trickle-down effects of feminism, which has taught girls to be assertive in all areas of life, or have internalised the images of sexually powerful women in popular culture, is anyone’s guess.

“The teenage girl as sexual aggressor is a recurring character in music videos, almost macho in her pursuit of sex and advertising her pleasure in it.”- New York Times 2003.

A 13-yr-old was quoted saying: “It is like, when you go to a party and get drunk, you get horny. That is just what happens, and you hook up with people. Most people have sex…” “By the age of 14, more than half of all boys have touched a girl’s breasts, and a quarter have touched a girl’s vulva. One half of young people reported experiences with fellatio and cunnilingus.”

Where is the control?

AIDS is real. HIV is here and no one dares imagine that. Many times in my practice, worse during weekends and Mondays I see teens turning up with worried looks; “Manze doc nimeburn” is the complaint. And they want instant cure to the STD. That is the entry point to HIV!

While there is so much freedom, liberation, no self control, we must think of a way to stop HIV among our teens. This is the generation that would build our nation.