By Sam M. Lucero
Catholic Herald

Student warns youth about dangers of casual sex

Things changed for Jennifer after high school. (The name is a pseudonym. Jennifer's real identity remains anonymous because she has family and friends in the Superior diocese.) She entered college, and by her second year she was sexually active, drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana.

Two months ago, after missing three menstruation periods, Jennifer feared she was pregnant. She traveled to Ladysmith's Care Net Pregnancy Resource Center for a pregnancy test. Care Net is a nondenominational crisis pregnancy center which assists women and their families with unplanned pregnancies.

Sexually transmitted disease

Jennifer met with the center's director, Julie Schreiber, and underwent a simple pregnancy test, which came back negative. But the news she received from one of her partners crushed Jennifer -- he had a sexually transmitted disease and she should be tested.

A hospital visit later confirmed Jennifer's worst fear: she had chlamydia, the most common sexually transmitted disease, with 3 million new cases reported annually.

According to a fact sheet from The Medical Institute of Austin, Texas, 70 percent of people infected with chlamydia have no symptoms. This was the case with Jennifer. The only indication something was wrong was her missed periods.

Jennifer had been infected with the STD for nearly four months. She believes the serious physical risks of the disease that occur when untreated will not harm her. These risks include pelvic inflammatory disease, tubal pregnancy and infertility.

One in four has STD

A 10-day prescription of antibiotics helped rid Jennifer of chlamydia, but the anger and regret was only beginning. Jennifer returned to the pregnancy resource center in Ladysmith after testing positive for the disease and shared her emotions with Schreiber.

The center director helped Jennifer to understand that her situation is not unusual. One in four sexually active young adults has a sexually transmitted disease, Jennifer was told.

"Our kids are taught safe sex, safe sex, and there just plain isn't such a thing," said Helen Wettleson, the resource center's assistant director. "You don't have to have penetration to get some of these terrible diseases. All you have to have is skin contact, and I don't think the average teen-age kid has a clue."

Anger leads to action

The information Jennifer learned from the resource center staff convinced her that she needed to speak out. She has decided to team up with the center and talk at schools in the Rusk County area this year about the dangers of having sex before marriage.

Wettleson said Care Net's objective has always been to help pregnant women. "Julie and I realized we aren't seeing these kids until they're sexually active," she said. "They come into these doors for a free pregnancy test or they have the misconception that we'll maybe give free birth control."

With the approval of the center's board of directors, the directors have added public speaking to their mission. They hope to speak to schools this year in Ladysmith, Holcombe, Bruce, Weyerhaeuser.

"The really big message that we have to get to these kids is that you have to be afraid of these diseases," said Wettleson. "They think that (the face of) chlamydia is the street walkers in Minneapolis. They don't think here in Ladysmith, Wis., this could happen to me. That's where (Jennifer's) message is going to really make an impact; that yes it can happen. It can happen to good girls -- and it does."

The face of today's sexually active youth

Schreiber said that Jennifer is the face of today's sexually active youth and she can help sound the alarm about sexually transmitted diseases.

"To go from, like, going to be a nun at age 16 to where I am now ...," said Jennifer, her voice trailing. "If I at 16 would have met me at 21, I would never be friends with me."

Jennifer contends that, "I'm still a good person, but I deal with the fact that ... I still have to live with all this stuff. I have to know that my (future) husband isn't the only person who has been with me."

Jennifer's message to youth, especially teens going off to college, is that it is easy to fall into a pattern of dangerous behavior. "My first year in college I was a hermit," she said. The next year she got a new roommate who was "fond of marijuana. So I started doing that a lot."

Family crisis led to struggles

What put Jennifer over the edge was the death of a grandparent with whom she was very close. The death came over Christmas break, and a tearful Jennifer said her life seemed to fall apart.

"The first thing I'd do in the morning was smoke a joint," she said. "That was the way I would relieve my stress. I would go to class stoned. Basically I came to fool myself to act happy."

Jennifer said she was furious with God about her grandparent's death. "I stopped going to church. My mom got on my case and she kept pushing me, but I just couldn't go back there" to church, she said. "I'm still not there yet."

Since July Jennifer has given up smoking and drinking. She wants to get her life back in order and one way is by sharing her story with teens who may face a similar fate.

"People have to know" about the dangers of premarital sex, said Jennifer. "You can get the STDs when you're so young and you don't know. There are kids, 12, 13, just little kids having sex and if they get it when they're 12 their whole life is ruined and they don't even know it," said Jennifer. "They never will -- until they can't have kids or they get horrible symptoms. I just feel like we have to do more. I desperately have to tell my story because people have to know."

To learn more more about Care Net Pregnancy Center's outreach to schools or for information about sexually transmitted diseases contact the center at 105 East Miner Ave., Ladysmith, Wis., 54848, or call 1-800-657-4919.

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© Superior Catholic Herald, 2001