An Exploratory Study on Health Reproduction Understanding and Community Social Control towards Pre-Marital Sex Behaviors among Adolescents in Makassar

Facts about premarital sex behaviors are found everywhere. Media, in addition, reported many cases of abortion, infanticide, and so forth. The Indonesian Center for Family Planning (so-called PKBI) in 2008 reported that abortion cases in Indonesia were no less than 2.5 million cases each year. The study, therefore, aimed at exploring factors triggering premarital sex behavior in Makassar. This research was quantitative and qualitative research. The quantitative method descriptively presented the data. Meanwhile, the qualitative method was an explorative technique to conduct in-depth interviews with re- spondents who have experienced premarital sexual intercourse (coitus). The sampling technique applied snowball sampling. The study samples were 300 people. The results suggested that there were 11 adolescents or teenagers (3.7%) who have ex- perienced sexual intercourse (coitus). This study, moreover, found that teenagers used different media to access pornographic materials, such as electronic and printed media. It was found that 91 (30.3%) teenagers accessed it from the internet; 60 (20%) from mobile phones; 46 (15.3%) teenagers read the content from books/novels/comics; 14 (4.7%) from magazines; and only 11 (3.7%) teenagers accessed it by means of video discs. Another study related to the teenagers’ knowledge about sex education revealed that there were 157 (52.3%)adolescents who were considered having good knowledge about sex ed- ucation and the negative effects of free sex, 142 or 47.3% have fair knowledge and only 1 (0.3%) who did not know about sex education and the effects of free sex. Based on the study results, it is advised to the school authority to add sex education subjects, especially regarding the dangers of premarital sex and the negative effects of free sex and so forth. In addition, the school should build cooperation with formal health care teams to provide teaching, counseling, and important information about sex education and the dangers of free sex. Furthermore, it is highly suggested for the school to improve religious teaching-learning activities and counseling for the students and to provide constructive punishments when students did not participate or involve in the activities