Yeah I Wrote This!

What’s all the hullabaloo about? 

Recently, there has been all kinds of hullabaloo concerning the thoughtless broadcasting over the Internet and over other electronic devices of Bahamian teens and ‘tweens’ engaging in, well let’s say, ‘adult entertainment.’   In fact, the Bahamian media pages and airwaves have been flooded with articles, commentaries and editorials from scores of concerned citizens who earnestly wanted to weigh in on the salacious issue.

The more recent of the alleged sex scandals included the son of Cabinet Minister and his apparent girlfriend who were caught on tape by their school’s security cameras doing an intimate act.  This scandal followed an intensive police investigation into a number of Internet forwarded sex tapes and pornographic pictures involving apparent young people; in fact, one of such forwarded material allegedly showed Bahamian students in uniform engaging in sexual activity in a classroom.  These scandals quaked the
Bahamas’ awareness to the fact that our young kids are in deed having sex, and in fact, they were blatant with it.

But really, how is this alarming?  In the Bahamas, it is legal for sixteen year olds to engage in sexual activity; more so, it is suggested that the average age of first intercourse is at sixteen.  Teenage pregnancy has always been an issue here in the Bahamas and it seems as if every year our mothers are becoming younger and younger.  

In a recent article printed in Newsweek magazine, entitled “Talking the Talk:  Discussing sex with your tweens and teens can help them make better choices,” it was revealed that in a study of more than a 1,000 tweens (kids between the ages of 11 and 14), nearly half said they’d had a boy-or girlfriend, and one in four said that oral sex or going “all the way” is part of a tween romance. A startling reality?  Perhaps, but it is in deed real.

In truth, we have always known that our young kids were sexually active; we see the alarming evidence of  this at the crowded school for pregnant teens (The Bahamas PACE Foundation); we see the ‘big bellies’ on the streets and at the bus stops, and now we are seeing the recorded video tapes in colour. 

However, the issue at hand is not that our teens are sexually active, as that is a given; the earnest issue at hand is that it seems as if our young people have become voyeurs.  With the advent of the camera phones and computer cameras, our children have embraced such devices to record themselves in the most intimate of acts.  Bahamian youths are Internet stars on You Tube.  The webpage is flooded with uploads from young Bahamians who record themselves conducting deviant behavior, causing mayhem and in this case, performing sexually suggestive acts.

It appears as if our children have apparently lost respect from themselves.   Our young men defame and degrade our women; and what even more sad, it seems as if our young women has accepted this ill treatment.  Our kids now live the hip hop life where promiscuity is a norm.  Their heroes are the rap stars who degrade women and the heroine is the scantily clad video vixen who shakes her rump to make money.