The Sexual Health of Black Girls: A Beginning Conversation

by Lisa Peyton-Caire

May 2008

On March 11, 2008, the Centers for Disease Control released an alarming study on the sexual health of teen girls. The study specifically highlights the high instance of sexually transmitted disease among young women ages 14-19.

Click here to read about the study.

According to the study which was reportedly drawn from data of a representative group of 838 girls, every 1 in 4 girls in the U.S. has a sexually transmitted disease. Even more alarming is the study’s assertion that nearly half (48%) of Black teen girls, or 1 in every 2, is infected with an STD. This essentially means that if you and I were walking down any given street in America at any given time and were approached by a group of 10 young black women, we could assume that 5 out of 10 of them were infected, most likely with HPV (human papiloma virus) or chlamydia, the two most common STD’s. Of course we know that not every young black woman is having sex, but with these rates, very many are, and one of them could be our daughter, our niece, our student, our neighbor.

Now, I know what many of you may be thinking. These statistics seem awfully high, and at a moment’s glance, inaccurate based on what we know about our own lives, our own daughters, nieces, granddaughters, and the strong values that characterize our families and community. At first glance, I too was baffled, and a host of questions overloaded my thoughts as I struggled to grapple with these astounding numbers.

Does this mean that Black girls are having sex more often than girls of other ethnicities? I highly doubt it.

Does this mean that Black girls are more promiscuous than other girls? Certainly not.

Is the pressure to have sex higher among Black girls than for girls of other ethnicities? I'm not sure.

Are Black girls less likely to take precautions to prevent their contraction of STD's? I don't know yet.

But what I am convinced it means is that:

• Our teen girls are definitely having sex (which means our teen boys are having sex too)!
• Our teen girls are in many cases having unprotected sex
• Our teen girls are not receiving adequate information, education and training on safe sexual practices and the risks associated with sex (and nor are our young men)
• Abstinence-only sexual campaigns are not working to deter pre-marital sex among teen girls
• Even the best efforts of many parents to deter their children’s early sexual activity are not working
• Peer and media pressure among our girls and boys to have sex is powerful...too powerful!
• Some parents are unaware of, unable to mitigate, or in some cases indifferent to the sexual lives of their teen

I also believe that Black girls, based on income and disparate access to medical care, are more likely than their counterparts to seek medical treatment at public health clinics, and therefore more likely to be included in reports like those the Centers for Disease Control publishes. Private physicians are not required to report such data.

What I am also hearing from others and have observed myself as a former counselor is that many of our teen girls are involved with older boyfriends and in some cases adult men who have multiple partners. This scenario gets more complicated when you add in the impact of sexual abuse that we have highlighted in SisterSpeak Online this month and the thousands of Black women (and men) who are coming out to expose this secret in our communities. Further, we cannot deny the impact of many of our girls' involvement with previously incarcerated men who may have been engaged, by force or by choice, in same-gender sex, leading to another major question currently in hot circulation: why is the occurrence of STD’s and the parallel infection rate of HIV/AIDS so disproportionately higher among girls and women of color? In other words, why are these infections spreading so rapidly in our communities?

There are certainly a number of tough and uncomfortable questions to be asked and answers to be found, and we intend to find them and share them with you in the coming weeks.

We want to hear what you have to say. What do you think about this issue and what should we be doing now to protect the sexual health of our girls?

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