Sexuality and procreation according to youths from social and urban peripheries

Abstract

This study was conducted with youngsters (14 to 19 years of age) who lived in a slum area of the city of Santo André (São Paulo, Brazil). They were participating in a project of artistic initiation, and the absence of pregnancies among the enrolled students constituted an event to be investigated. Data were obtained by means of a questionnaire (N=100), applied in a controlled situation, aiming to learn about some aspects of the subjects sexual and reproductive lives. The answers were classified into indicators: sources of information about sexuality, age of first sexual intercourse, use of contraceptives, reasons for getting pregnant, ideal age to have the first child. Results showed that, for all the subjects, the best age to have a child is not during adolescence. When this happens, it is mainly due to poverty and lack of opportunity. Therefore, events such as drug use and traffic, violence and higher frequencies of pregnancy in adolescence seem to be related to contexts of poverty and to expectations of privileged social groups. Particularly, adolescent maternity can be understood as an alternative to deal with models that cannot be reached and, implicitly, as a result of negative self-perception. In this sense, the absence of adolescent pregnancy among the youths participating in the artistic initiation project can be explained by the fact that it was a cultural setting that offered favorable conditions in terms of leisure, project construction, interpersonal exchange, and elaboration of values. It also provided a sense of personal and social pertinence, as well as the idea that work possibilities were being opened.