The Teen Survival Guide to Dating & Relating: Real-World Advice on Guys, Girls, Growing Up, and Getting Along

96 The Teen Survival Guide to Dating and Relating

Pregnancy

If you engage in sexual activities, which may or may not include sexual intercourse,

and you and your partner aren’t using a condom or other form ofcontraception

(birth control), you expose yourself to the possibility of pregnancy. Whether

you’re a guy or girl, you’re at risk: as a girl, you can become pregnant; as a guy,

you have responsibilities if your partner gets pregnant.

Can you get pregnant if you’re not actually having sexual intercourse? Yes,

and if you’ve heard otherwise, you’ve heard wrong! Anytime a guy’s semen gets

near a girl’s vagina, there’s a chance that sperm can enter the vagina, fertilize

an egg, and cause a pregnancy. If you and your partner are using a condom,

there’s still a chance (one in eight) that the condom will break, slip, or other-

wise fail to protect against pregnancy. The only 100 percent safe and effective

method of protection against pregnancy is abstinence,which means not being

sexually active.

Bottom line: You and your boyfriend/girlfriend are most likely notready to

deal with a pregnancy. That’s why you need to think about the risks beforeyou

decide to have sex. One million American teen girls become pregnant each year,

and one million teen boys are faced with fatherhood.

Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs)

If you engage in sexual activities and you and your partner aren’t using a condom,

you may be exposing yourself to sexually transmitted diseases. STDs are carried

from person to person through sexual contact. Two very serious STDs are herpes

and HIV.

• Herpes: Caused by a virus called HSV (herpes simplex virus), herpes is trans-
  mitted by unprotected sexual contact (vaginal, oral, or anal) with someone who
  has herpes. The herpes virus causes painful blisters that break into open sores.
  These sores may go away in five to twenty-one days, but the virus stays with you
  forever (there’s no cure) and may be transmitted to other people. You may not
  know if someone has herpes because the sores aren’t there all the time. Don’t
  take chances.