Family Planning believes the way young women have been portrayed in recent media commentary has both highlighted and promulgated the “women as slappers, men as studs” double standard. Young men and young women have always been and will always be sexually active. The key is to ensure that they’re making choices in a sober manner, have the knowledge and the capacity to keep themselves safe from Sexually Transmissible Infections and unplanned pregnancies and are not subject to coercion or violence.

 

Each year Family Planning clinicians see around 180,000 New Zealanders seeking advice and treatment. In addition our health promotion staff work with around 40,000 young people, their parents, community groups and others with an interest in understanding the mechanics and dynamics of sex and sexuality. This depth and breadth of contact with New Zealanders allows us to comment with authority on what we see happening in communities across New Zealand.

 

We would concur with our colleagues at the Alcohol Advisory Council on the impacts of New Zealand’s binge drinking culture. Our clinicians report increasing numbers of clients seeking treatment after drinking to excess. Our clinicians say often these people can’t remember if they’ve had sex, can’t remember who’ve they’ve had sex with or if they’ve used contraception, or have agreed to sexual activity they might have avoided if they’d been sober. Alcohol impaired decisions are not the sole prerogative of the young however.

 

Family Planning wants young people to delay becoming sexually active and for ALL sexual activity to be safe, planned and protected. We believe these issues are complicated and impacted by significant social change such as delayed marriage and childbearing, more reliable methods of contraception, relaxed attitudes to alcohol consumption, increasing levels of disposable income and people adjusting to living in a more affluent society with increasing leisure time.

 

These changes require a new level of maturity from us all – for parents and caregivers to model appropriate behaviour for their young people, for parents to discuss sex and sexuality with their children, for young people to have access to comprehensive sexuality education, for people to take care of their friends when out socialising.

 

Changing society is reflected in changing attitudes – what we need now is for people’s behaviour to reflect these changes by taking responsibility for their own sexual health and that of their sexual partners – in both casual and committed relationships.