Teens 'learning about sex through magazines, not parents'

A new research has claimed that teenagers are learning about sex through magazines.

According to a leading Australian sexuality researcher, teenage magazines are making up for the lack of initiative on the part of the parents to give their children proper information about sex.

The head of the Promoting Healthy Sexuality Research Group, Professor Alan McKee, said that lack of sex education from an early age meant young people were having sex at an earlier age and contracting sexually transmitted infections (STIs).

"''Thank god for the media, because in Australia today that's where young people are finding out much of the necessary information," the Sydney Morning Herald quoted him as saying.

"''Ideally, parents would be able to do this. We know that in the real world, talking openly with young people about sex leads to young people putting off their first sexual contact, lower rates of STIs and lower rates of unplanned pregnancies," he stated.

According to the figures from the Bureau of Statistics, more than 12,000 teenagers gave birth in 2008, whereas according to estimates by the University of Melbourne, about 5 percent of 16 to 25-year-olds have the STI chlamydia.