Critical Analysis of Youth Sexuality: Safe Sex Practices and Education

This essay critically analyzes two articles addressing unsafe sex practices and inadequate sex education among Singaporean youth. It highlights the impact of online pornography and peer influence on risky sexual behavior, compounded by a lack of parental guidance. The analysis underscores the necessity for comprehensive sex education programs that extend into the college transition, emphasizing the importance of shifting from value-based education to practical knowledge and skills. The essay recommends policy interventions, including media literacy programs and family interventions, to mitigate the negative influences of media and peers, promote positive family communication, and ultimately reduce problem behaviors among youth. Desklib provides access to similar essays and study tools for students.

Running head: SEXUALITY
Sexuality
Name of the student:
Name of the University:
Author’s note

1SEXUALITY
Introduction:
Adolescence is a critical developmental period where youths experience changes in their
body and several external factors like values and morality, parental influence, media influence
and peer influence affect their expression of sexuality (Kar, Choudhury and Singh 2015). Self-
awareness about good sexual behaviour is important to ensure that youths do not indulge in
unhealthy sexual behaviour and increase risk of sexual diseases. However, because of the
emergence of digital media and increase in online activity of youths, young people are more
likely to engage in poor sexual activity. Change in family dynamics and parent’s reluctance to
provide sex education to children is also the reason behind increase in incidence of STI (Toor
2016). This essay reviews the issues of unsafe sex practices and poor sex education for youth by
analysing two articles discussing on the topic. The paper critically analyses the two articles to
determine the strength of each paper and the possible way forward to address the issue.
The key points given in the article published in the Strait Times is that it has raised
concern over the risk of sexually transmitted infections (STI) among teenage boys in Singapore
who are visiting prostitutes in large numbers. The survey regarding the number of teens who had
paid for sex in Singapore revealed that every two in five teens pay for sex. The article
highlighted this as a major public concern because those visiting prostitutes do not use condoms
and they could increase the risk of STI. The article rationalized that easy access to pornography
and website advertising sexual services are the major cause behind increase in number of teens
visiting prostitutes (Tan 2016). Hence, by giving report on number of teens using prostitute, the
article indicated about the need for parents to discuss about sexuality issues with their children.
In addition, the second article suggested about the type of sexual education that young people
need to know to develop healthy relationship. By giving statistics on number of youths not using
contraceptives during sex, the article recommended implementation of comprehensive sex
education programmes to ensure that youths make better choices (Xiang and Smith 2013).
Tan (2016) raised an important point which was the negative impact of easy access to
website advertising related to sexual services and pornography on sexual behaviour of youths in
Singapore. The strength of this information is that it depicts how media has directly influences
youths today and engaged them in unsafe sexual practices. Considering the number of time
youths spend online today, it cannot be denied that online pornography has become a major

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driver for earlier progression to sexual activity. Collins et al. (2017) gives the evidence that
digital media today is full of sexual content and this results in major shift in sexual attitude,
behaviour and outcome of youths. Despite the presence of media resources on pornography,
healthy sex behaviour could be maintained. However, this has not occurred for Singapore youths
because of the reluctance of parents to speak about sexuality with their children. Parental
guidance and education would have enhanced knowledge of youths in related to sex practices
and factors increasing risk of STIs. However, the current reality is that current generation
deviates from parental influence and they are more likely to imitate their peers who are engaged
in unsafe sexual acts in large numbers. It is more difficult for parents to monitor their child’s
media exposure too. Research study by Widman et al. (2016) suggest that most youths are
susceptible to peer influence effects too as youths engagement in sexual risk behaviour is often
linked to the belief that their peers engage in similar behaviour too. This suggests the need to
take more developmentally sensitive approach towards sexual risk prevention.
The second article by Xiang and Smith (2013) mainly highlighted about the need to
develop a comprehensive sex education programme based on the ground that teens are involved
in sexual activity and current sexual education is value based. The author’s statement that there is
a need to shift from value based sex education is appropriate because adolescent and youths do
not sustain parental influence and sexual values during the transition from high school to college.
The significance of the message is that by pointing to flaws in sexual education in Singapore, the
articles provide idea for implementing sexual education during the transition to college. This
would help to address knowledge and behaviour related to sex and control the risk of STIs
(Vasilenko et al. 2018).
Conclusion:
To conclude, the analysis of two articles revealed the increase in incidence of unsafe
sexual practices among Singapore youths and the need to improve sexual education for children
and youths. As the critical analysis revealed lack of parental guidance as one major issue leading
to uncontrolled exposure to online pornography and sexual advertisement for youths, it is
recommended that policy makers in Singapore focus on developing tools that help parents to
identify negative influence of media on their child. There is also a need to implement media
literacy programs so that digital media can be used as a tool to educate youths about sexual

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health. This would require proper collaboration and partnership with media producers so that
problematic sexual portrayals are limited and healthy message on sex and sexuality is increased.
The critical analysis of the article content also indicates that youths today are highly
influence by their peers and their action also increase the risk of their engagement in unsafe
sexual behaviour. Lack of parental guidance has also been identified as one major weakness
which has increased poor sexual behaviour among youths. The finding suggest the need for
involving parents or families in sex education programs so that parents become aware about
appropriate parenting style and the approach they can use to engage in sex related conversation
with their child. Parent should try building positive relationship with their child so that they can
supervise their child’s behaviour and educate them too. Family interventions can also be
implemented so that family level predictors of youth’s problem behaviour can be identified and
parents can be educated about ways to communicate sexual values and expectation. This would
facilitate positive relation with family and reduction of problem behaviour in youths.

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References:
Collins, R.L., Strasburger, V.C., Brown, J.D., Donnerstein, E., Lenhart, A. and Ward, L.M.,
2017. Sexual media and childhood well-being and health. Pediatrics, 140(Supplement 2),
pp.S162-S166.
Kar, S.K., Choudhury, A. and Singh, A.P., 2015. Understanding normal development of
adolescent sexuality: A bumpy ride. Journal of human reproductive sciences, 8(2), p.70.
Tan, T., 2016. More teenage boys paying for sex: Study. Retrieved from:
https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/more-teenage-boys-paying-for-sex-study
Toor, K.K., 2016. A study of the attitude of teachers, parents and adolescents towards sex
education. MIER Journal of Educational Studies, Trends and Practices, 2(2).
Vasilenko, S. A., Linden‐Carmichael, A., Lanza, S. T., & Patrick, M. E. (2018). Sexual behavior
and heavy episodic drinking across the transition to adulthood: differences by college
attendance. Journal of research on adolescence, 28(2), 473-487.
Widman, L., Choukas-Bradley, S., Helms, S.W. and Prinstein, M.J., 2016. Adolescent
susceptibility to peer influence in sexual situations. Journal of Adolescent Health, 58(3), pp.323-
329.
Xiang, T., and Smith, C., 2013. Young minds and bodies: Is ignorance bliss? Retrieved from:
https://www.todayonline.com/voices/young-minds-and-bodies-ignorance-bliss