Japanese Teens Are Having Sex

[kyburg]

And they're getting VD, too. At a much higher rate than I would have assumed - one in 10, overall.

So where are the teen pregnancies? They're blaming the high incidence of chlamydia on inadequate sex education. Japan has an almost non-existent teen pregnancy problem compared to the US - but abortion on demand. But you never hear about it, either. As was once told to me, the Japanese deal with teen pregnancy in one of two ways - abortion or marriage. I'm still researching the adoption angle, but haven't had much luck. Fancy that.

Wonder where we fall on this scale - with education issues like this one. It's really hard to get good numbers here, BTW. We don't require reporting of many procedures to a central reporting agency (the closest thing we have are services insurance companies use to determine risk, based on claims made to them) - so you can say we do BAMF procedures per capita, but it's hard to corroborate. You know the drill. Just listen to how many abortions are done in this country in a year. From both sides. The disparity is enough to toss both of them out as either biased, inadequate or just plain wrong.

However, in Japan, medicine is socialized, and you can get pretty good empirical data - if the assumption that you report all procedures is true. You can get pretty good empirical data in Denmark for that reason - you pay enough for medical care, nobody really thinks it's worth the trouble to side-step the system. (That's subjective as hell, but it's what I've been told over the years.)

Food for thought -

Comments

[arafel.livejournal.com]

There's probably a cultural reason why there doesn't appear to be an adoption option, but I'm not an anthropologist and can't speculate. I do know that Japan's birthrate is phenomenally low, and abortion of an unwanted pregnancy has been the norm for hundreds of years. Take away social/religious pressure not to have an abortion, and the extreme shame associated with being pregnant out of wedlock, and you may have your answer.

[miwasatoshi.livejournal.com]

I can vouch for this from fairly reliable sources. One of my very good friends had a Japanese exchange student as a roommate, and walked in on her fellating guys on more than one occasion. (And not the same guy in each instance.)

Apparently this was fairly rampant in that particular group of exchange students at the time, and merely a continuation of high school behavior. I haven't noticed it in the current crop of exchange students, but I haven't been exactly looking for it either (and I'm far far too polite to *ask*).

[miwasatoshi.livejournal.com]

I have heard that adopted children get treated like absolute shit in Japan. It's an "invisible phenomenon" due to the obsession with blood relation and the emphasis on "saving face" in Japanese culture.

http://www.fww.org/famnews/0629a.html

Incidentally, there is also very little (to no) support for the mentally ill in Japan, which is part of the reason why they have as many suicides as the US annually (but with only half the population).

[miwasatoshi.livejournal.com]

Also ... the adoption system is often the only recourse for mixed-race children (there's that emphasis on "racial purity" again!) ...

http://www.being-a-broad.com/living/adoption.html

[stronae.livejournal.com]

Oh, Japanese teens are having sex *systematically* and in safety groups, no less. I mean, ten or twelve members per group? At least? And more can be brought in pretty much at another's say-so? It's amazing, and I have to admit that my younger self is partly envious of them. I'd still use protection though, even if I were reborn as a Japanese teen.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

So much for the "modest and chaste" Japanese schoolgirl myth, eh?