2023-05-04 04:45:04
Are young people sufficiently informed about sexuality? Throughout the month of May 2023, the Regional Health Agency and the Regional Coordination Committee for the Fight against Sexually transmitted infections and HIV
(COREVIH) organize “the month of sexual health without taboo”. This is the second edition in Pays de la Loire. Objective : inform and prevent young people from the various sexually transmitted diseases and infections, and talk about sexuality freely. This involves some sixty actions of screeningexhibitions in the region and a play presented in five schools departments of Loire-Atlantique, Vendée, Sarthe, Mayenne and Maine-et-Loire.
Young people more or less aware
By talking with young people this Wednesday, May 3 in the streets of Nantes, we found that they were not always very informed. The question of sexuality is sometimes a little bit taboo. “I’ve never done anything, not even foreplay, it scares me, says Bianca, 15, high school student in Nantes. I am also afraid to go to the gynecologist. I don’t like the idea of anyone entering my privacy. I prefer to preserve myself.”
Other young, older women talk about it more freely. Romane, 21, is a 4th year medical student. She wants to become a gynecologist. “Personally, I get tested with each new regular partner, she explains. I do it because with my medical studies, I was pretty well sensitized. On the other hand, I was not very informed about it when I was in high school. I really got informed through social media and through my studies.”
111 patients tested for HIV in Pays de la Loire
The Regional Health Agency (ARS) also notes this: young people lack information on these issues. For Dr. Eric Billaud, president of COREVIH Pays de la Loire, some figures speak for themselves, especially those for abortion: “In France, there are more than 14 women out of 1,000 aged 15 to 49 who resort to abortion, he explains. In the Pays de la Loire, it is a little less: 11 per 1,000 women, but with a younger average age. The problem, in my opinion, is whether women are sufficiently well informed about contraception, and about the possibility of having sex without having babies. Another figure in Pays de la Loire: 111 patients were tested for HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) in the region in 2022. This is more than in 2021, when they were 94.
So to continue to inform young people, various prevention actions are taking place in the Pays de la Loire region the whole month of May to talk about sexual health : “Sexual health is the possibility of having sex, or not, with the person you want, with complete peace of mind and without danger.”
“Kama Vortex”: a show that addresses sexuality
The novelty of the awareness campaign this year: a play, proposed by the company Structure Trouble, which will be played in five schools in the region : Raphaël-Elizé high school in Sablé-sur-Sarthe (Sarthe) on Thursday May 4, Douanier-Rousseau high school in Laval (Mayenne) on Friday May 5, Pierre-Mendès-France high school in La Roche-sur-Yon ( Vendée) on Friday May 12, the URMA of Angers (Maine-et-Loire) on Wednesday May 24 and the URMA of Sainte-Luce-sur-Loire (Loire-Atlantique) on Thursday May 25.
The spectacle addresses in particular the question of consent, an essential aspect of sexuality for Anaïs Hunebelle (known as Nana), the director of this play: “I have the impression that at school we teach a lot of things, but not a lot about sexuality and emotions, she believes. I myself had the feeling, as a teenager, of being thrown into the void. In my day, for example, we didn’t talk about consent. Today, it’s a real power: the power to say no.” Entitled “Bed Vortex”, the play also addresses, among other things, contraception, abortion, gender identity and sexual orientation.
Since January 1, 2023everywhere in France, young people under 26 have access to free contraception and condoms
. HIV testing is also free, without a prescription and without an appointment in the laboratories, and the deadline for the abortion (Abortion) has also increased : it went from 5 to 7 weeks for medical abortion and from 12 to 14 weeks for surgical abortion.
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