Is ‘Gaga girl’ the answer to our teenage pregnancy epidemic?

MANILA, Philippines - Much has been said about the Department of Health’s anti-teen pregnancy music video. Every single part of it, from the message to the packaging, reaches deep into the nerves that cause us to cringe. For instance, I highly doubt any self-respecting (teenager) person would use the words “Boom boom boom boom boom! Ahaaay!” to describe their amorous feelings. We all already have that dated relative who tries to be cool and “with it” when asking us about our love lives. We did not need that kind of awkwardness on our Facebook feeds as well. I had to watch it one more time before writing this article to be familiar enough, and that is the extent of subject exposure I’m willing to do for this assignment.

One thing the video is not, however, is surprising. It brought me back to my high school days and to the attitudes toward sex that were encouraged at the time. And I found it sad because it’s been 10 years. My peers and I can hardly even remember what we were like back then. But apparently, the system that the succeeding batches have gone through is still the same. It was a stark reminder of where the Philippines remains when it comes to matters of sex and reproduction. That all the movements and articles that have been written with the aim of lifting unhelpful stigmas have barely made a dent. Should I even continue with this piece? Yes, because I’m a freelancer who needs to get paid.

Lost intentions

A closer inspection of the narrative of the song reveals that there are good intentions to empower the youth. For starters, it’s not a monologue. Each character gets a say. And the teenager does sing about owning and taking care of her life, and getting up if she falls. But I guess it was all drowned out by the terms “Gaga girl” and “Bobo boy” chanted from start to finish. It basically gathered the current stigma we have toward young people who get pregnant out of wedlock, and concentrated it into two simple but powerful labels that can have far-reaching effects. I wouldn’t dream of throwing those words at anyone, whether directly or indirectly. And the worse, subversive part is that these now infamous terms are mouthed by the teenagers in the song — not by the adult who is supposedly lecturing them. So the youth, while they are just getting started with their lives, are being molded to be the new source of the stigma. Now, doesn’t the future look bright?

And just because it’s a fictional dialogue in a song, that doesn’t mean that the matter is merely abstract. I remember high school well. It is perhaps the meanest, most uninhibitedly malicious stage in most human beings’ lives. I’m sure there are a number of mature and gracious eggs in there, but many kids will also pick those insults right up and hurl them mindlessly at those who fit the description. As if it isn’t bad enough to find yourself expecting in high school, now these kids also have to deal with the government-sanctioned “Gaga girl” and “Bobo boy” — at a time when the thing they need most is support (on a tangential note, if you claim to be pro-life but shame the individuals who bear the brunt of bringing this life up, that’s called hypocrisy).

Lecture from above

All in all, despite the effort to involve the young addressees of the song, it is the same old lecture from above, poorly disguised as a two-way conversation (the teenagers disturbingly sound like every parent’s cardboard ideal). And we all know how those things turn out. I guess the tragic thing about growing up and “knowing better” is that it’s easy to forget what it was like to be in the throes of youth. We hand down our “wisdom” with a taken-for-granted attitude that sometimes even has traces of condescension. You can’t speak to someone if you can’t see his world.Raging hormones and the discovery of healthy sex drives is part of that world. I’m not saying kids should be encouraged or resignedly released to f*ck all over the place like bunnies. I have no idea what each of them ought to be doing. But does propagating the stigma for teenage pregnancy—and then using this as a reason to demonize and sanitize one’s sexuality — really help? Didn’t we collectively gasp when we found out our high school classmate had a bun in the oven, and thank the heavens it wasn’t us? Don’t we already understand that we’re not ready? Haven’t we always been terrified? And yet recent (2014) data from the Philippine Statistical Authority reveals that every hour, 24 teenage mothers give birth. That is with a strong stigma already in place. So what’s the solution? More stigma?

Protection from

‘dark things’

I don’t think having a sex drive is the problem. But being scared away from certain parts of ourselves so much that we’re encouraged to deny them or put them on hold can have tragic, counterintuitive effects. As Neil Gaiman put it, “If you are protected from dark things, then you have no protection of, knowledge of, or understanding of dark things when they show up.” Not that sex is a dark thing (well, we do treat it as such), but we have been trying so hard to protect our youth and society from it. So when our urges do show up, which they always will for as long as we’re human, we’re taken by surprise. We’re unprepared. We didn’t know ourselves very well and therefore haven’t bothered acquainting ourselves with our options and considering what suits us best. This is backed up by psychology. A study done by Donn Byrne and William Fisher found that “erotophobic young adults may not accurately anticipate future intercourse, preventing them from learning about and taking contraceptive precautions in advance.”

For the record, I have nothing against abstinence, virgins, and the more conservative part of the spectrum when it comes to sexual behavior. To each his own. What I’m saying is that we should realize a young person’s right to be sexual, and encourage them to really get to know this aspect of themselves; present them with all the options available and the possible consequences of their actions — ideally with no bias as to which direction they choose to go. Because the only way a person can have a proper handle on herself is if she knows what she needs to know, and is allowed to be very good friends with her humanity.

Tweet the author @catedeleon