Recently, I watched an episode of Blind Date on UPN 9 at noon. What is surprising, though, is the time it was on. Any child home from school could flip around the channels and watch this. Well anyways, the show started off innocently enough with a young man, no older than 24, by the name of Dennis picking up his lady friend Ashley, who looked like she could have just graduated college. After some idle chitchat, he decided to get some dirt. He asked a surprised Ashley

Watching this episode, also may give some young girls the impression that sex can be a convenient and easy to deal with choice. I have a quote I found that speaks volumes:

This episode gives off the impression that sex isn’t sacred, and no emotional attachment has to be made to have it. They don’t give viewers warnings about the dangers of being sexually active. The show just makes jokes about it in the little bubbles that go across the screen. An example of this is when he asked her where was the weirdest place she had ever had sex was. The bubble that came out of her mouth while she was saying was in a restaurant, which was where they happened to be. Obviously, though, this isn’t a joking matter.

Another reason not to be promiscuous is the dangers of pregnancy. According to Women’s Health Channel, in the United States, approximately 1 million teenage girls become pregnant every year. As many as 5% of teenage girls give birth and, in 1997, about 13% of U.S. births were to teens. About 25% of teenage girls who give birth have another baby within 2 years. Shows like Blind Date, The 5th Wheel, and Dismissed may have a lot to do with this. They add fuel to the fire because these shows devalue what our society deems as “dating,” and just desensitize children to the world of sex. They see it so much on television that it doesn’t seem like a big deal to them. It is only natural for them to try to emulate the adults they watch on the little screen. Just look at these startling statistics from The Westside Pregnancy Resource Center. About 25% of 15 year olds have had sex and about 55% of 17 year olds have had sex. This is startling cause the kids are still in high school. They don’t realize that having sex is risky. It's not like the after effects of sex are shown on these TV shows or movies, where characters rarely get pregnant or contract a sexually transmitted disease. Shows like Blind Date depict real world type situations when merely it is really fantasy. While studies have shown teenage pregnancies have went down since the 90s, there are still too many grandmothers in this community who are in their 30s. A lot of nurturing and sharing of information between generations is lost in the process. In order to lower

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