A young unmarried couple who produce a child they do not want are not prepared to care for may feel forced into marriage by family or church. They will have to marry in haste and probably not because they have chosen each other as life partners. Their chances of married happiness are small, experience shows. Before log the boy and girl may feel angry at each other for all of the difficulty that has been caused. What may have started off as a happy moment has resulted in a heavy burden that may never be entirely unloaded.

The divorce rate among such young couples is unusually high - ata least one out of every two marriages within five years. Divorce usually leaves a baby and its mother to struggle alone; and a young father is left with the legal obligation, unless his former wife marries again, to support them in addition to the second wife and the family he may eventually have. If the couple do not marry, the girl often is left without a partner to share the responsibilities of parenthood. Perhapa with the help of her own family, she will have the child and give it adequate care. Perhaps she will place it for adoption. Whatever she does, she is likely to think of it with deep concern all of her life. Some girls, when they become pregnant, seek an abortion.

* One other possible consequence of sexual intercourse, especially casual intercourse with several partners, is Venereal Disease. Today, VD is easily cured, but it is also widespread and is causing serious discomfort and damage. Boys and Girls often ask about the effects of alcohol and drugs on sexual feelings and performance. Alcohol does have the effect of reducing a person's self-control and inhibitions.

A famous cartoon by George Price shows an eager-looking man at a bar standing behind a sexy-looking young woman and saying to the bartender, 'Fill her up!' Evena a moderate amount of alcohol tends to relax people's inhibitions, to make them less likely to say no. However, self- control, especially when a couple is not married and no well prepared or mature, is what both urgently need in a sexual situation. Aside from the lessening of self-control, alcohol, especially if quite a lot is taken, has a depressing effect on a boy's ability to have an erection and to ejaculate and on a girl's ability either to respond to or to reject sexual relations.

As for drugs, the situation is complicated. Marijuana may, like alcohol, relax a peson. Some users say that it heightens sexual feelings. It also lessens self-control and may sometimes reduce the ability to have a orgasm. Stimulant drugs, such as 'speed', reduce the ability to perform sexually. 'Heavy' drugs like heroin knock a person out sexually, although they don't knock out his imagination.

If you feel that you need the crutch of alcohol or drugs to make sex acceptable or good, you have a problem, and alcohol or drug's won't solve it. What you need is to talk to a counsellor and get some help before taking the risks that sex involves. Alcohol and drugs can make you less able to deal intelligently with sexual feelings. This Chapter has placed more emphasis on the problems and possibly unhappy consequences of sexual activity entered into thoughtlessly and irresponsibly, without communication and preparation, than on the pleasures and deep satisfactions grown in from sexual relationships based on consideration, caring, and love. This is because I am convinced that to manage the responsibilities of your life you need to know both the bad news and the good news about sex and social life. The bad news may take more time to tell, but the good news is certainly the more important.