Oct. 25, 2008 — Wait until you are ready for sex and be responsible about when, how and with whom you have relations or you risk sexually transmitted diseases, unplanned pregnancies, years of child support payments — maybe even a criminal record or jail, expert legal and medical volunteers told a group of adolescents Saturday.
The brothers of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity were holding their annual Project Alpha seminar at the University of the Virgin Islands' cafeteria on St. Croix. Project Alpha is part of the local fraternity's national program to reduce the rate of adolescent sex and pregnancy, stressing abstinence as a personal choice while promoting the use of contraceptives to those who choose to be sexually active.
Some 20 boys ages 13 to 17 from St. Croix's public junior high and high schools spent Saturday morning and afternoon hearing lectures and asking questions of a series of speakers. Adrian Edwards, an outreach officer with the Health Department, spoke bluntly about sexually transmitted diseases, giving the teen boys straight, unvarnished and graphic explanations of the risks of unprotected sex, along with the benefits of condom use.
Terrence D. Joseph, there in his capacity as a member of the Board of Education, spoke about child support payments, an issue he is intimately familiar with from his job as manager of the Justice Department's division of Paternity and Child Support Services on St. Croix.
"If you don't support your child, child support services will find you," he said. Your child has needs whether you are ready for them or not, he said, and one way or another you will pay.
"It's not like a regular bill; you can't escape it by moving away," he said. "The states work together and if you move to New Jersey we will bill you in New Jersey. If you are in Missouri or Mississippi we will find and bill you there. If you go to Florida we'll be there. If you move to Africa for 10 years, we will wait for you and your bill will keep building up while you're gone, to welcome you when you come back. … And if the child is grown up, and you didn't pay when they were young, you still owe it."
To avoid the pitfalls of unwanted pregnancy and heavy child-support payments to a woman who you are not in a relationship with, Joseph urged the young men to develop a healthy, respectful relationship first.
"If you wouldn't say it to your mom, why say it to any woman?" he asked. "If your mom is like mine, and you spoke to her like some men speak to women they don't even know, she'd hit you so hard the back of your head wouldn't have any hair left."
He urged them to hold off on sex until truly ready.
"Don’t rush to have sex," he said. "There will be plenty of opportunities. Take your time with your education. Finish high school and go in to college. Meet a young lady, really interview her, ask her all the stuff we've been talking about, establish a relationship with her first, be making some money, then when ready, have protected sex. If you do you'll go home happy. Or if you take risks, outside of pregnancy, the other consequence is illness and death."
Joseph elaborated in some graphic detail, giving plain and factual information to the group of young men.
Attorney Robert Molloy closed out the seminar, lecturing the students on the Virgin Islands' age of consent and what it means to them. Holding a volume of the V.I. Code, he read the legal definitions of forcible and statutory rape and described the legal consequences of breaking the law.
"The first thing to keep in mind is; somebody under 18 cannot have sex legally (in the Virgin Islands)," he said. "Whether they agree or not, whether forced or not, it's illegal."
"What if two 15 year-olds are behind closed doors?" a student asked.
"It is illegal and a parent may be held accountable," he said, continuing to detail the difference between statutory and forcible rape, the exact, explicit definition of sexual contact, and the legal penalties for breaking the law.
One student asked why the Alpha Phi Alpha brothers put the seminar together as unpaid volunteers.
"That's the best question today," Molloy said. "Did you know there are more 18-30 year old African American males in jail than in college? … We take this very seriously. We want you to go to college."
Molloy described his own education, including four years of college, three years of law school and a year of classes for a master's degree.
"I want you guys to be as successful or more successful than myself," he said.
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