Too Scared to Be Safe : Teens Know They Need Condoms if They’re Going to Have Sex, but They’re Too Freaked Out to Buy Them

Thirteen-year-old Mary was overwhelmed. Would she cry, throw up or laugh?

“I feel so sick, so scared. I just gotta let it out before I do it,” she said, darting a helpless glance at her two friends. “What am I supposed to say, ‘I’ll have a Snickers and a condom?’ ”

So Mary giggled. And then said nothing. Fear seemed to paralyze the three eighth-graders as they lingered in a gas station mini-mart across the street from Stephen M. White Middle School in Carson.

They stared at each other and the condoms behind the counter. A thirty-something male cashier loomed as an impenetrable barrier between them and the contraceptive display.

Mary’s friend, Joyce, bailed out. “I’m not buying no condom,” she muttered to herself. “Don’t need to know anything about condoms.” She stopped a woman at the door. “I’m not with them. Really.”

Michelle stayed, offering Mary support and advice: “Just do it really fast. Really, really fast.”

Mary threw two candy bars and a pack of gum onto the counter. “Anything else?” the cashier asked. She told him to wait, cornered yet another friend who had just walked into the store and persuaded her to ask for the condom.

“And I thought buying Maxi Pads was bad,” said Mary. “Damn. That was embarrassing.”

Indeed.

Despite the bad news about teen-age pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases, the purchase of contraceptives continues to confound many teen-agers.

Yes, the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta reports that a majority of U.S. high school students have sex. But embarrassment, nervousness and fear deter an estimated one out of four sexually active teens from using an effective birth control method. Mary, Joyce and Michelle were so embarrassed--and scared--that they did not want their real names used.

“A lot of teens don’t bother with contraception,” said Robin Hatziyannis, a representative of the Center for Population Options in Washington, a group that studies adolescent behavior and attitudes about sex. “Some kids are getting the safe-sex message, but a lot aren’t.”

Every year, more than 1 million teen-age girls become pregnant in the United States; 2.5 million teen-agers contract a sexually transmitted disease, including HIV. A recent congressional study found a 62% increase in AIDS cases among Americans ages 13 to 24 during a two-year period, climbing from 5,524 in 1989 to 8,949 in 1991.

Although Mary has never been sexually active, she said fear of pregnancy and disease compelled her to buy a condom “just in case.” “I go to a lot of parties and, these days, boys just can’t be trusted. You can go to a party, not plan to have sex, but do it anyway. I know people that’s happened to.”

Many teen-age girls echo Mary’s worry that they will find themselves about to have sex without protection. And they frequently find that the responsibility for birth control is theirs.

“Historically, women have always worried more about birth control than men, since pregnancy is more of a burning issue for women,” Hatziyannis said. “Today, HIV has changed that somewhat, but women still tend to bear more of the responsibility.”

Seventeen-year-old Mitsy said she overcame embarrassment and bought condoms last February in case she and her then-boyfriend decided to have sex. “I wasn’t sure where our relationship was heading or whether we’d have sex, but I wanted to be prepared,” she said. “Buying a condom was a scary thing to do.”

The senior, who attends high school in West Los Angeles, said she drifted down the aisles of a drug store for 15 minutes wondering if the cashier would think she is “a slut who does it all the time” or, worse, tell her parents.

“Finally, I did it, and the lady behind the counter had to ask me what kind of condom I wanted,” Mitsy said. “I was too embarrassed to say, ‘Well, I’d like the lubricated kind.’ I just said ‘Trojan’ because that’s the only kind I knew about.”

Frequently, boys assume that their partners will take care of birth control. Sergio, 16, who has been sexually active for five years with six girls, said he certainly assumed it.

“I was young then, and I didn’t know much about sex, so how could I know about protection?” asked the senior at Jefferson High School in South-Central Los Angeles. “And I wasn’t the one who could get pregnant, either.

“I just thought I was being cool,” he said. “I also knew I wouldn’t see the girls half the time. I would meet them at a party or on the street, go out once and have sex and then that’s it.”

He started using condoms two years ago after his mother persuaded him to become involved on a Planned Parenthood teen advisory board. “Now I know the facts, and I know how to be responsible,” he said.

In fact, the risks of STDs and of impregnating his partner persuaded Sergio to refrain from sex for the last 11 months. “It’s just easier that way.

“Besides, I still get scared to go into a store to buy a condom. I don’t want them to look at me and laugh.”

Three school districts in Los Angeles County--Culver City Unified, Los Angeles Unified School and Santa Monica-Malibu--make condoms available to students on campus, according to Susan Lordi, consultant for school health programs for Los Angeles County Office of Education.

“Buying a condom in a drug store is not illegal for youngsters, but it is embarrassing and difficult,” said Shel Erlich, spokesman for the Los Angeles district, which requires parental consent for condoms. “The fact that (they) are available on campus makes it easier for students, and if it reduces the risk of HIV, STDs and pregnancy, it’s worth it.”

Although students who request condoms from schools also receive a message urging abstinence, schools need to do more to educate teens about reproductive issues, said Diana Juarez, project coordinator for Los Angeles High School’s health clinic, one of three school-based clinics in the Los Angeles district.

“Most schools don’t teach teens the skills to say no to sex or to practice safe sex by showing them how to use a condom,” Juarez said. “Students often learn the facts about pregnancy and STDs but not ways of preventing them.”

Said Eldyne Gray, director of community services for Planned Parenthood Los Angeles, “In all aspects of life, adolescents tend to think they’re indestructible. They think nothing will mess up their lives and nothing will happen the first time they have sex. They need to know how wrong that is.”

Gary, 17, said he used to believe his youth would shield him from contracting diseases.

“I didn’t know that I could catch things. Besides, that wasn’t what was on my mind at the time,” said the 12th-grader at Dorsey High School in Southwest Los Angeles. “I just thought nothing bad would ever happen to me. Nothing did, but it’s just because I was lucky, I guess.”

Two years ago, Gary also joined a Planned Parenthood teen advisory board and started using condoms. “Now, buying a pack of condoms is like buying a bag of potato chips,” he said. “And I feel better being educated about sex.”

Edna, 16, said she “thanks God” for Los Angeles High’s clinic. “Otherwise, I’d probably be pregnant right now.” When Edna and her boyfriend of 4 1/2 years decided to have sex for the first time last February, the 11th-grader knew that talking to her mom was out of the question.

“She would scream at me and kick me out of the house if she knew I was having sex,” she said. “My mom already told me that’s what she’d do.

“So I thank God for the clinic, because I don’t know where else to find out about birth control, and I’d be too scared and embarrassed to do anything about it.”