New York City tries slut shaming to stop teen pregnancy

[dpareja]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/07/nyregion/city-campaign-targeting-teenage-pregnancy-draws-criticism.html?ref=nyregion&_r=0

The curly-haired baby looks out from the poster with sad eyes and tears dripping down his tawny cheeks.

 “I’m twice as likely not to graduate high school because you had me as a teen,” the text next to his head reads.

In another poster, a dark-skinned little girl casts her eyes to the sky and says, “Honestly Mom ... chances are he won’t stay with you. What happens to me?”

These images, part of a public education campaign targeting teenage pregnancy that the city unveiled this week, are drawing mounting criticism from reproductive health advocates, women who had children as teenagers, and others who say they reinforce negative stereotypes about teenage mothers without offering any information to help girls prevent unplanned pregnancies.

Images can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nychra/8519745210/in/photostream/, http://www.flickr.com/photos/nychra/8519740696/in/photostream/, http://www.flickr.com/photos/nychra/8519735394/in/photostream/, http://www.flickr.com/photos/nychra/8519722512/in/photostream/, http://www.flickr.com/photos/nychra/8519693836/in/photostream/.

More stuff from NYC's government here: http://www.nyc.gov/html/hra/html/programs/teen_pregnancy.shtml. Press release here: http://www.nyc.gov/portal/site/nycgov/menuitem.c0935b9a57bb4ef3daf2f1c701c789a0/index.jsp?pageID=mayor_press_release&catID=1194&doc_name=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nyc.gov%2Fhtml%2Fom%2Fhtml%2F2013a%2Fpr082-13.html&cc=unused1978&rc=1194&ndi=1. Yet more here: http://www.nyc.gov/html/hra/downloads/pdf/internet_articles/2013/march_2013/Teen_Pregnancy_Prevention_Campaign2013.pdf.

The Mayor's address can be listened to here: https://soundcloud.com/mikebloomberg/nyc-launching-new-teen.

[Vypernight]

If the kid is born in this day and age, by the time he/she is old enough for high school, most of the people who make these stupid signs or campaigns will be either dead or unable to remember what the campaign was in the first place.

[syaoranvee]

As a society when it comes to sexual relations we should be pushing three things:

1. Birth Control and Condoms (This is given, every state that pushes this and has them freely distributed has lower rates of pregs compared to states that use the abstinence only policies)

2. Sexual Education (Abstinence programs are retarded and lead to thinking that things like the pull out method is a viable
form of birth control or std prevention)

3. Teen Pregnancy is not what you want.

Therefore, I have no problem with these signs, teen pregnancy is well known to cause problems, people drop out of high school or college because of it, alot of the time they don't have the funds to take care of it, and generally teenage dad is unlikely to be of much more help, oh and child support tends to fall on them too seeing how teenage relationships tend not to last more then a few years.


Edit: Added in the fact the number 1 should be the distribution of those for free, which is what I was aiming for.

[ThunderWulf]

Kind of on the fence about this one.  On one hand I agree with syaoranvee that trying to make teens realize that teen pregnancy is not glamorous is definitely a good thing.  The more aware teens are about how much work being pregnant and having a baby actually is, I believe more of them will realize they're probably not ready for such a commitment.  But that leads me to how I feel on the other hand, which is that they really don't give that much information.  They're basically just signs shouting "hey don't do that" without giving any actual advice.

[MadCatTLX]

I have a feeling these signs might be intended to discourage people like this-



Also, to show what sex ed is like here in Oklahoma, I give you a excerpt from my thread in F&B.

There are now two more girls that are pregnant. One actually refused to let her boyfriend use condoms. She actually said, "I won't get pregnant. I'll just make him pull out." So, how well did that work, hmmm? The real kicker to all this? Her name is Chastity.

Her boyfriend is interesting in and of himself. A couple years back the cops busted a "child sex ring" which was actually him and his friend screwing his aunt and her friend. They were supposedly. Bribed into it with booze and cigarettes, which I'm all but certain they could already have gotten ahold of anyway. I know the guy well enough to say I doubt he was "coerced" into it. Where is he now you ask? The word is he ran off and joined the army.

[Osama bin Bambi]

Telling kids about the consequences of sex does not work. Many of them are going to have sex anyway. It doesn't work for abstinence-only sex ed ("Stay pure until marriage or you will DIE A HORRIBLE LONELY DEATH OF AIDS YOU FILTHY WHORE"), and it won't work for discouraging teen pregnancy ("Don't become a teen mother or you will DOOM YOUR INNOCENT CHILD TO A MISERABLE EXISTENCE YOU SELFISH SLUT").

Schools should acknowledge that they are probably never going to prevent all cases through fear-mongering, and instead move towards the position that some teenage girls will have sex and some will get pregnant. However, they need to have 1) the means (birth control) so that this doesn't happen in the first place, 2) the knowledge to use it, and 3) safe, confidential, and caring resources for pregnant teens that don't involve shaming them for their actions or emotionally manipulating them into making a decision that they might regret.

Imagine you're a teenage girl. You've just found out that you're pregnant after you had unprotected sex with your boyfriend. You don't want to go to the school counselor/nurse/whatever because you're afraid that they'll chastise you for "not being more careful." You don't want to necessarily get an abortion because it's against your personal beliefs, but you are being surrounded by messages that you are a horrible person if you don't. This is a situation that no one should ever be put through, but NYC is just  making it worse.

I am pro-choice, but I strongly believe that emotionally manipulating someone into getting an abortion is just as bad as emotionally manipulating them into giving birth.

[Caitshidhe]

There's not really anything objectionable about trying to show kids, like TGRwulf said, that there's nothing cool or sexy or glamorous about being a teen parent. But any campaign with this in mind would be infinitely more effective if it offered comprehensive and confidential resources to educate said kids and prevent these pregnancies. Simply telling kids, "HEY, IF YOU DO THIS, YOU'RE PROBABLY GONNA HAVE A SHITTY TIME!" without giving them anything further isn't going to help them much. Speaking personally, those ads for the most part don't look like slut-shaming as much as bad-decisions-shaming.

Also, the first step to stopping kids from thinking that teen pregnancy is cool is axing every 'Teen Mom' and 'Sixteen and Pregnant' show currently on the air right now. No matter how much the teenagers in those shows (my housemate's wife watches them, and they are UNRELIEVEDLY stupid programs...) appear to be 'struggling' raising children while still scarcely out of childhood themselves, a lot of kids see those shows and only think, HEY I CAN GET ON TV THIS WAY!

[Distind]

Telling kids about the consequences of sex does not work.

That isn't true.

The stupid ones will have sex.

The smart ones, or the ones who have lived through the results of young broken families who are tipped off that fucking at a drop of the trow will cause the same thing to happen to their kids will probably keep it in their pants. Some even to the point of breaking up relationships over it, I know, I was friends with a number of these guys, few of the gals. It rather impressed me as the dateless wonder, but talking to them made their reasoning quite clear on the matter. Not a religious concern. Not a shame thing. Just straight on actual fucking planning. Working at walmart 10 hours a week doesn't cover diapers, until they had something that would, and in most cases would actually be able to support the kid as well as their parents had done, they didn't want one. Also, we all realized we had hands. Funny how that works.

The stupid ones, they have 1-3 kids now and are hardly able to care for them. The non-stupid ones are actually getting married at a rather astounding rate now that they're out of college and established(I've got like 10 people I'm still in contact with an there are 5 weddings planned this year).

And yeah, I'm calling you stupid if you fucked around as a teenager. Why? Because it was fucking stupid and you did it. Doesn't hurt that I got myself into a ball of retardation(and trust me, it is the correct fucking word here) that I still regret, no other consequences thankfully, but can we please stop this "Teenagers fuck like bunnies in heat on valentines day, why aren't you fucking yet?" business. It sends a worse message than these ever could. This isn't fear mongering, this isn't hateful, this is little more than stating the likely consequences. Ones my friends were often aware of and I managed to bungle my way past safely.

Slut shaming would be painting some teenager up on the bill board with a baby and the word WHORE written across the bottom. Posters that say "Fucking will eventaully produce children, and young parents are often unfit" is not slut shaming. It's reality. A reality these do a better job of explaining than most of the more academic attempts at it. I say this as someone who's father was 18 when I was born. It was nearly 20 years later before he was able to support children the way he wanted to, before he felt like he could offer anything even remotely close to a proper apology for having not been ready for a kid when I was born. That, that fucks people up a whole lot more than being told not to screw.

[Art Vandelay]

Really Distind? Abstinence only? You really think, based on a few anecdotes that are contradicted by actual statistics, that that'll actually work? The only way to bring teen pregnancy down (that's actually proven to get results) is objective (i.e. no "don't fuck, you dumb shits" agenda involved) education on sex, particularly on the subject of contraceptives. Naturally, such a program should most definitely cover the consequences of breeding at such a young age. However, just telling them that it's a Bad Thing and leaving it at that is proven to not work. Need I remind you of the fact that US States with sensible sex-ed programs have lower rates of teen pregnancy than those abstinence-only?

[Auggziliary]

Distind? What?
A teenager who has sex isn't always "stupid". If they're having safe sex then there shouldn't be anything wrong with it. The problem is teens don't know what safe sex is.

[Sleepy]

You're not stupid if you fucked around as a teenager. You're stupid if you fucked around without protection.

[ThunderWulf]

Like Auggie and Sleepy said, there's nothing wrong with teens having sex if they're making sure to have SAFE sex. That is the key.  It's when teens don't know how to use protection or don't think they need it is when I start to get worried.

[chitoryu12]

BRB, going and calling all of my close friends stupid over and over.

[Auggziliary]

Anyways, I think most teens realize that having a kid isn't a pile of giggles and joy. Also, it is certainly not impossible to have a kid in high school and have a good education, go to college, etc. This ad is making the same mistakes as pro-lifers do. Pro-lifers assure teens that having a baby is just so much fucking fun, and that adoption is just like having a permanent babysitter(since you can opt to visit the child), and that you can totally make it through school since you did it for love. These ads are telling teens that PREGNANCY = FAILURE ALL THE TIME SO DON'T BE STUPID. That mantra is going to become very old to teens who know other teens who got through school fine while pregnant. Same as the "Yeah you can totally have kids in high school but abortions will leave you emotionally and physically crippled for the rest of your life" gets pretty old, since most teens realize that children are harder than that.

Seriously, people should stop telling teens to look at motherhood's wonders/horrors, because it completely misses the point. Do they really think that most pregnant teens just thought one day "Oh I'd love to have a baby!" and that's why they had sex? That's just ridiculous. Teens get pregnant because they have sex, and they probably don't understand how it works. If a doctor isn't going to teach them, rumors will.

[Caitshidhe]

Some teenagers DO plan to get pregnant. Anecdote =/= data, obviously, but I did know girls in high school who deliberately got or tried to get pregnant. So, yeah, it DOES happen. They have a lot of different reasons for wanting to do this, all equally poorly-thought and ultimately bad ones--they think it'll cement their current relationship, they think it'll get a guy to stay with them, they think it'll be fun, they have issues at home and associate a baby with something that will love them forever. Or they just think they're all grown up and know how to handle things and think they're totally 100% ready for the all-consuming, generally-not-glamorous world of motherhood. Teenagers sometimes do think they know everything about the world and do dumb things and later find out that in fact they were not at all prepared for something, but having a baby is something they can never undo.

Maybe these ads are just an issue of perception. Maybe things have changed in schools and sex education since I was a teenager because people were less forthcoming about the hard facts of teen parenthood. All they stressed was that you could totally have a perfectly normal life and go to college and have friends and a job if you got pregnant at fifteen. Maybe you hear a lot more about the harsh realities than my schoolmates did. I don't see the ads as saying that having a baby as a teenager is ALL FAILURE ALL THE TIME. They're just pointing out that these are the harsh realities and being a teenage parent isn't going to be rainbows and sunshine.

Could just be a generation gap as well.