| From: |
Gabriel ADEYEMO [ profile ] |
| Subject: |
Romance in digital age: Casual sex is having unintended results formore young adults
|
| Sent: |
Feb 7th, 2012 - 03:56:52 |
|
| |
SOURCE:* South Florida Sun-Sentinel*
AUTHOR: Scott Travis
http://www.cdcnpin.org/scripts/display/NewsDisplay.asp?NewsNbr=59007
Fellow Colleague!
The number of college-age students getting STDs is rising, with about
36,000 Floridians in their early 20s having contracted chlamydia, gonorrhea
or syphilis in 2010. That amounted to about 3 percent of the age group. New
HIV case numbers also have risen over the past decade, though not as much
as STDs. Plenty of young couples are in steady, monogamous relationships,
college students interviewed said, but many acknowledged the prevalence of
casual sex among peers, with the Internet and social media increasing the
choice of partners.
"You often see hookups in media representations, but it's rare that you
hear the characters talk about safe sex," said Courtney Weaver, a
sexual-health educator at Florida Atlantic University.
In South Florida, clubbing is a large part of the culture, and alcohol use
and underage drinking have grown among college-age students in recent
years, studies show. Safe sex is even less likely when alcohol is involved,
educators noted. "We know when kids drink, their judgment goes out the
window," said Sande Gracia Jones, a professor in Florida International
University's (FIU) College of Nursing and Health Sciences.
Students hook up "to get what they need without being emotionally
involved," Weaver said. There is no shame about it in many cases, students
said, and hooking up can blur into dating relationships. "There's a lot of
serial monogamy," said Albert Garcia, an FIU senior who educates students
about sexual health. "They're monogamous every couple of months and end up
having four, five or six monogamous relationships in a year." Smartphone
applications such as Skout and Streetspark are popular among young adults
looking for casual sex. Through such apps, which use GPS technology to
locate people, people can exchange messages and photos and arrange to meet.
Thanks for reading through. Click on the link above for more stories
--
Many Thanks
Yours' in Prevention Science
Gabriel, ADEYEMO
Regional Focal Point - West Africa
Global Youth Coalition on HIV/AID (GYCA)
+234-80-6798-7317 | gabriel (at) gyca.org
www.gyca.org | www.tigweb.org
GYCA is a youth-led global network of over 6,000 young leaders and adult
allies working on youth and HIV/AIDS in 173 countries world-wide. GYCA's
mission is to empower young leaders with the skills, knowledge, resources
and opportunities they need to scale up HIV/AIDS interventions amongst
their peers.
Universal Access is possible; *
*Zero new HIV infections. **Zero discrimination and ***Zero AIDS-related
deaths.***
|
|
Message
back to messages
