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Comment by mc32 | Hacker News Reader

I would tend to agree. More information about sex (the reproductive "risks" as well as contraception availability, shift in acceptance of oral sex (as alternative when contraception is not available) as well as the acceptance of same-sex sex experimentation by these teenagers as well as young adults.

It's astounding how before the wide availability of information, people believed in "folk" contraception.

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I'm 35, American, middle class, Northeast of the country. I remember people in my early TEENS who thought you could not become pregnant from your first sexual experience, among other "folk" tales. It is, as you say, astounding. What makes it so absurd though, is that for decades it's been a largely artificial state of ignorance enforced by people who forgot what it was like to be young.

I'm sorry but I want to point out you are not middle class. There is only one class: humans.

I want to believe in that model for human nature, but I think you would only have a minority of people actively avoiding their parent's mistakes. Too often, things like cycles of bad parenting (from lack of discipline and care, all the way along the spectrum to abuse and neglect) seem to repeat. It's not that people want to do these terrible things as they were done to them, but often we don't know any better or it's what feels familiar.

That, and poverty and bad education are big risk factors for teen pregnancy, and being born to poor, poorly educated people isn't likely to lead to you riches and a fine education.

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