'Cause You So ... Dang Easy? - Comments

I understand about them demeaning girls on shows like Secret Life, but on 16 and Pregnant/Teen Mom, I think the point they really try to get across is what happens if you DO get pregnant as a teenager and how difficult it is. I love those shows, and it basically shows that, well, if you do this, this can happen, and I don't really want that. So, documentary shows such as those two aren't really demeaning, but the others that you mentioned can be taken that way.

It is very wrong that they portray girls like that but tbh I think the only reason they do is because that's the maximum teen drama that you can get (a girl getting pregnant) and you can't have a show without drama, so they just do it for the entertainment and to keep the show interesting.

But i'm still against the idea too.

I totally agree with this but in my opinnion sme parent doesnt educated there kid that having sex in a young age and i mean like 16 is bad especially for the girl they can catch some desies getting preg and struggling to graduete from high school...I know some few teen that are parent with it suck couse they cant enjoy their life being a teenanger

Honestly, in this day and age, there should be no teenage girl in North America who hasn't heard of condoms or birth control methods. Schools are supposed to make students aware of these things and if they fail at that, there is always the internet, which teenagers spend COUNTLESS hours on.

Any girl who still doesn't understand the concept of birth control or protection is just plain stupid and they shouldn't have children to prevent more stupid people coming into this world.

I also never understood how people are "peer pressured" into having sex. "All my friends do it, so I should too," just doesn't seem like logical to me. Use your own mind and think about the decisions you're making.

I know I'm gunna get hate on this one but it really bothers me. Girls barely know what they're getting into when they have sex and then cry about it when they wind out pregnant. Use your head once in a while.

Culture nowadays, especially TV culture, is oversexualized. Like if you don't have sex or don't want to (premarital sex), you're strange. You're weird. You're not "hip" or you're a "freak".
I think this article makes a good point but it hasn't [i]made[/i] its point clear. I don't think it should be talking about how pregnancy and sex are portrayed on TV in comparison to real life, but about how those behaviors, glamorized and magnified, on TV help encourage stupid girls to go on, have sex and end up being pregnant with no awareness of the consequences of having a baby, taking responsibility and changing your whole life on a stupid undeveloped decision.
Safe sex should be practiced, sure. But do these girls (and boys) realize or bother to use protection? Safe sex, as taught in sex ed classes etc, is often mocked by the same TV culture that, supposedly, wants people to be enlightened.

Anyhow, my main point is, yeah, these stuff happen in real life so the writers of these shows have the right to write them down and discuss them; yet, the portrayal of these things on TV, sometimes misses the spot regarding actually raising awareness. Teenagers who practice abstinence, whether it's a religious or personal choice, are mocked and considered the outsiders just because they don't see eye-to-eye to what the TV culture (which infects the younger generation's culture) considers "normal". Women explicitly stating their sexual desires is considered part of so-called 'sexual liberation'. Yet, at the same time the conscious desire, by a woman from different culture or even the same culture, not to experience or abide by that idea of 'liberation' is also considered strange. That's why oversexualization of TV makes it hard for other cultures, for example mine (The Muslim culture in general), to interact and to understand each other. That's why it's so hard for the American public, as an example, to understand why a woman [i]consciously[/i] and [i]dileberately[/i] wants to cover herself, thus it's brand that as 'oppression', thanks to overzealous feminism that refuses to budge and give up their [i]own[/i] concept of 'sexual liberation', abiding by the trusty guidelines of American feminism, not [i]multicultural[/i] feminism.

I went a bit offtopic there, but I think my point went across.
Yet, the problem of teen pregnancy will only stop if the methods of raising awareness actually [i]work[/i] on burrowing their way into the skull of those who are stupid enough to go, "oh, if you put it in and pull out, I won't get pregnant. That white stuff isn't baby juice!" or, an actual excerpt from a House MD:
(Girl enters clinic; has infection in her hoohoo; says she's "on the jelly" as a birth-control method)
[i]Dr. Gregory House: You have an infection. I'm gonna to need a sample.
Hailey: I brought the jar.
Dr. Gregory House: No, I meant a sample of your...
Dr. Gregory House: [she holds up a jar of strawberry jelly. House is stunned] Okay, we have a neurological problem here.
Hailey: There's something wrong with my brain?
Dr. Gregory House: [trying not to laugh] Oh, yeah. [/i]
T_T
(quote from IMBD; the T_T is not)
I could go on all day making links and providing explinations and answers. Also, I'd like to point out that, as other commenters pointed out, it's TV. Pregnancy is used as an easy tool to give the plot a boost and 'shake up' a boring or dead-end storyline. So, in some cases, reality hardly has anything to do with it. >_>

Theres this double standard that girls cant act a certain way or say certain things like expressing their sensuality and being confident in there sexuality however this is completley different than sleeping around. Point blank people mainly girls because thats who you're aiming for can do whatever they want they will just learn the hard way I just feel like your article was full of your opinions not facts but it wasnt bad.

Even though you've made a good point, I also think that these t.v shows are also exposing the reality that's always been there. I don't necessarily think these shows are trying to just put girls to shame but also cause awareness like the show Teen Mom and 16 and pregnant that give actual footage of real events on the hardship of being a teenager while having the responsibility of a mother.

Just saying.

Besides a lot of shows are in tended to show the struggles that people go through so that someone might not make that mistake.

We're talking television here. Written by people, recorded in a studio and so on. Therefore, not real. Probably based off of situations, but not real. People will not watch TV if there is no drama, and a lot of drama comes from slut bags.

Besides there are a fair amount of sleezy hoes. Not all girls are but I went to a concert the other night and there are always seventeen year olds smoking and dressed slutty because there mom is a crack whore or something. This chick could have sneezed and her vagina would have fallen out of her shorts. She was flashing all these guys and her friend was wearing a transparant lace shirt.

Why the hell would girls do that?!

She also got the guy whom she flashed to flash himself as well.
T_T
They fail at life.

Everything is about sex. Because it's supposed to be special, and you're told not to. But when you're told not, you always want to. It's like the ulimate way of saying that you love someone or something. But it's abused because, like drugs, it feels good.

That's why it makes for a good drama, because "kids" aren't supposed to do it.

At the college I go to they have a place called the Answer Center, pretty self explanatory. But at every desk they have a small bowl of Durex condoms xD!

I agree with you though.

Talking about the TV shows, those shows are probably trying to show real life situations. The worst example you have is Degrassi--the entire show is intended to show situations that REAL teens go through, in the REAL world.
16 and Pregnant is supposed to show the struggles teen moms go through, probably to discourage young girls from having sex (or at least using protection when they do).

I know some people who probably never watch these shows, yet things like pregnancy scares (and actual pregnancies) happen to them. Sure, the OTHER shows seem to give a bad name to teenage girls... but honestly, it's the truth. Welcome to the real world, where pretty much the majority of American girls (and probably girls from other countries) are sluts.

I agree that getting pregnant shouldn't be the only thing shown in the shows. I currently watch the Secret Life and I think it's wrong that they are having Adrian being so happy she looks like shes about to skip down the Yellow Brick Road. I mean I'm not saying if your a teenager and your preg. you need to want to kill yourself and what not, I'm just saying being preg. at 15 16 and 17 isn't good either that yeah that thing inside of you will be yours but the fact that the rest of your life and education will be a struggle.
And when it comes to actual teens today it's all just ridiculous. I personally know someone who has managed to get a girl preg. and the girl is only 12. WHO HAS SEX AT 12?! This is just getting too out of hand and quite frankly I'm embarrassed that this is my generation that can't find anything better to do besides get drunk/high, have sex, catch diseases, and get preg. And it's not fair to people who are actually smart enough to hold off on sex because we know of the consequences. I know I've been I guess you can say made fun of more or less because I have chosen to be abstinent because I know of the consequences because my family is a cause of them and I refuse to allow that to run through me like it has the past 3 or 4 generations of my family. I think sex is a privilege not something you hand out for free. And people look at me strange when they ask how much I've done with a guy and I proudly say nothing. It kinda makes me feel like I'm the one off my rocker, not them.

The thing that makes me mad is when the teens do have " tv" sex, there is only one consequence... getting pregnant. On these shows, they don't show other possibilities like getting an STD or some other fatal disease. I mean, in the real world you are very likely to catch something if you are sleeping around. I have to agree with you that sex is really popular in school (sorry would make a new paragraph, but for some reason it is being stupid). I can honestly say I do not know one teen girl that has not been involved in a some type of sexual activity. It is sad really...

Teenagers having sex came way before there were TV shows about it.

It's sad about the rise of teen pregnancy, but I think I would rather have that than every woman needing to be a virgin until marriage, and sold as property. It sucks, but I think it's a price we must pay for the start of real sexual liberation.

New concepts always start off shakey. In the dream world all girls could have sex WITH orgasms without worrying about babies and diseases.

... I am very tired.

In the teenage world today that is what you find; sex. I can only name a few of my friends at school who haven't had sex or engaged in sexual activities. I think that the shows aren't as bad as some say because they do show the struggles of the girls who end up pregnant, thats the whole plot of the story! Sure not everyone is like that, but every character in a show isn't having sex either! The reason they have the most unlikely people having sex is because its the TRUTH.

Wow. Girls enjoying sex and TV showing the consequences of sex. Someone call the morality police.

Well, as sad as it is, that really IS what the world is coming to. It's hard to find a teenage girl who hasn't had sex, given a blowjob, showed her boobs for money, etc.
I agree that the shows are giving the wrong image by making it look like that's ALL teenage girls, but in Today's society we don't have to be taught that by TV...we can take a tour through a middle school.