now, some of you might rememeber that there was one of those "boy shoots people at school" incidents there last may. however, this documentary was not focused on that. it turned out that frontline had covered the young people of the town -three years- before the shooting took place.

why? because in 1996 there was a sudden outbreak of syphilis among the teenagers there. not one, not two people - tons. as they investigated what had happened, it turned out that a pasttime for a lot of the teens had been sex. a whole lot of sex.

they made a 'map' connecting the sexual encounters and found that some of the kids with syphilis had connections with as many as 50 other people that they had spread it to. this wasn't the scariest part, though. it was that the kids ranged from around 20 years of age down to 12 (!!!), and apparently the people of the town learnt -nothing- from this.

they featured interviews made earlier this year with the fresh batch of kids and found that nothing had change - kids were still having sex to a frightening degree with justabout anybody, and the ages were still down to 12.

now, it's not the sex part that upsets me. it's the kids -attitude-, particularly the girls. three 14-year old's telling how they all lost their virginity when they were 13 and they all regretted it. a girl telling how she figured sex must have been invented for men alone because obviously there was nothing in it for the women (which indicates that not only do they all have a whole lot of sex, it's.. BAD sex).

the one that upset me the most was a third girl talking about how she lost her virginity. she said that when she was 12, she had gotten really drunk, left her house and gone to friends, blacked out and waken back up with her panties gone. she stated that she couldn't call it a rape because -she- had gotten drunk and -she- had voluntarily left the house and gone there.

it saddens me that a person has now gone years from being raped (-i- call it a rape.) and has not only rationalised it to a point where she finds excuses for the person/people who did it to her, she also considers it to be her own fault because she 'invited' it.

i don't know what can be done in a world where so many teenagers are growing up like this (i recognise the attitudes from so many other young people and places i have encountered in my life). i just know that it scares me. it scares me a lot.

*sigh*