For this question, we got mostly a feeling of comfort when talking about sex. Six of the girls felt very comfortable talking about sex, while one felt somewhat comfortable and one was not very comfortable. I accredited the difference to lifestyle, background, and religion.
Question 2. DO you all understand the different types of relationships discussed in the survey? If not have you ever been informed of those terms An overwhelming number of girls in the group did not understand the different types of relationships. This proves that sex education is not as prevalent in the school systems and at home as it should be. Once we explained to them what the different types were and what they meant they were easily able to explain the types of relationships they participated in, but the problem was that most of them did not know the different types from the start.
Question 3. What above relationship are you in at this time?
Once they understood the different relationships were moved forward. Three of the participants were mainly in homogenous relationships, while five were in serial or other relationships. This shows that many college students are participating in potentially unhealthy relationships.
Question 4. Do you guys use protection? Do you always make your man where protection?
Upon asking this question to the group about 6 out of the 8 girls said that they always make there man where protection where the other two said they sometimes let there boyfriend have intercourse without applying protection. However none of the girls use protection other then a couple of them using birth control pills but other then that the women don't apply condoms or any other protection to their privates.
Question 5. Do you want to / or ready to have kids?
All 8 girls that were part of our focus group said they were not ready to have kids. They stated that they wanted to finish college and get their degree, they wanted to wait till they were older and none of them actually thought they were with the person that was going to be with them for the rest of their life. All of them agreed that at this time they were not ready to have kids because they couldn't support the kid properly and that their parents would have to be the main parents right now and the parents of these girls had jobs and careers as well. Question 6. Do you understand the full out consequences of getting pregnant and what scares you most about getting pregnant?
Most of the group admitted that they were aware of the consequences of getting pregnant but sometimes don't take into consideration the risks when they are having a good time. The group admitted they know the risks but sometimes don't take them as serious as they should because you just don't believe it will ever happen to you that you will get pregnant. The thing that scared the group most about getting pregnant was having to give up their freedom and having to support a child and take care of them 24/7 of every day. In conclusion, I felt that teenagers really didn't know enough about pregnancy that they really should have. For one, they didn't know the different types of relationships. I found this disturbing because this could mean that they are not aware of the problems with having many sex partners, which we found, may be way to common among college students. Most of the interviewees found that protection was important, but I was surprised to see how many didn't use it one-hundred percent of the time or thought pulling out would be effective enough a method of pregnancy prevention. They also seemed to completely forget about transmitting STD's and the effect unprotected sex can have on their bodies. A good thing we found was that none of the girls we questioned said they were ready to have kids. This was a very interesting and stimulating conversation between us and the girls. I thought that some of the participant would have felt they could easily raise a child while attending college full time, but, fortunately, the school system had taught them something about teen pregnancy. As the focus group interview concluding, and in the following days after, I was able to focus on the findings of the communication project. I concluded several things about both the surveys and the focus group interview and found several striking similarities. A major issue I had was with the lack of knowledge teens have on the topic of teen pregnancy. I feel as if teens these days feel that they are on top of the word and nothing can hurt them. Therefore, they go out and participate in sexual activities without being fully prepared or fully aware of the consequences. Teens also don't understand the importance of condoms and other forms of protection in my mind. They loosely joked about pulling out and many of them truly felt that it would be a good enough protector for their body. The fact that they are sexually active with more than one partner is equally disturbing. Teens today don't realize the long term potential of the actions they are taking today. I found that you should always ask your partner if they've been sexually active and if they have any sexually transmitted diseases. If they have been sexually active, you should try and convince them to go and get tested to make sure they aren't carrying anything harmful or dangerous to your body. You should also only have one partner at a time and you should always use the proper protection to prevent anything terrible from happening. If teens would just use their heads a little more and play it safe, we would be able to greatly cut down on accidental pregnancy and also abortion. This heated topic might not be so important if people who got them had more knowledge about sexual relationships, which I hope can be take care of in the schools and at home while the teen is still young enough to make the choice to be safe during sex or to not have sex at all. Now I never told any of the participants to refrain from all sexual activity completely as I don't think that is the real answer to the problem. I feel the real problem lies in education and awareness, both of which can eventually be fixed.