Philadelphia Gives Condoms to 11-Year-Olds

April 17, 2011— -- With the largest rate of teens having sex in the country and the fifth-highest HIV/AIDS rate in that age group, Philadelphia has launched a campaign to reverse those trends with a website that offers mail-order condoms to children as young as 11.

A similar effort in Provincetown, Mass., last year stirred up vigorous protest from parents when the school board made condoms available to children of all ages, as long as they went to a school counselor and asked. After the uproar, officials limited access to fifth-graders and up -- or those 11 and older.

But so far in Philadelphia, the parental reaction has been minimal, according to city health department spokesman Jeff Moran.

Though not much data exists on sexual behavior among kids as young as 11, the 2009 CDC Youth Risk Behavior Survey shows that 15 percent of children under 13 have had their first sexual encounter.

"I haven't heard much in way of public outcry -- not yet -- but I anticipate it," said Gary Bell, executive director of Bebashi-Transition to Hope, a local nonprofit that works with teens on prevention of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.

"We hear from teachers and school counselors and sometimes the principals that kids are cutting school in the afternoon and leaving early to go have orgies -- and that's in middle school," said Bell.

"They get groups together with kids of different genders -- sometimes same-sex and sometimes mixed. The parents are not home and so they go there and have sex and trade partners."

He also reported that city teens use different colored lip stick to signal "how far they will go with oral sex with a guy," according to Bell. "We are hearing about them acting out in school in the bathrooms and the stairways. This is not entirely new, but we don't think of it in middle school."

And, he said, most teens have no idea that they are exposing themselves to the dangers of risky sex. The organization's 24/7 hotline gets questions like, "Can I get pregnant standing up?" or "Can I get pregnant with anal sex?"

"We had another kid kicked out for a ménage a trois -- three boys who were 10 and 11," he said "It's really apparent that many do not realize they can get sexually transmitted infection with oral or anal sex."