By Bryna Sim

SEX, sex, sex - yes, it seems that is all young people think about. Yet it appears we remain largely ignorant about it.

As a group, news reports have it that we are a walking contradiction.

There are those who are utterly clueless about sex - 2008 yielded news reports that young people in their 20s believed jumping after intercourse could prevent pregnancy.

Then again, we seem to be engaging in the very thing we do not understand earlier, with more children here having sex at a younger age than before.

The forecast is bleak: The number of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among teenagers is expected to hit a record high in Singapore this year, with twice as many girls being infected as boys.

You would think that growing up in the information age would serve us better.

But no.

The Internet, while it educates, is also an enabler, a double-edged sword that grants instant access to potential sex partners as it piques our curiosity about the topic itself.

Boys and young men, especially those aged between 10 and 20, are transfixed by their computers, at the expense of school, food and sleep - and not always for gaming.

Just last month, an 11-year-old girl befriended a 16-year-old boy on Friendster, invited him to her house and had consensual sex with him.

What I find most disturbing, however, is the relative calm that pervades Singaporeans about all this.

We seem frighteningly underwhelmed.

A few short years ago, just one report of an underage sex scandal would have set aflame parental and societal concern.

But today, confronted with the problem of not just one, but many, young teens in the same situation, we seem to have accepted it as a kind of norm.

Yet nothing is normal about this.

For starters, sexuality has become a commodity to be bartered for popularity - an attitude validated by the Internet's various social networking facilities, where virginity has no place.

Gender roles have been remade, too.

Males, once the lustful, corrupting influence on gullible girls, have become as much prey as predator, with perpetrators taking the form even of an 11-year-old girl.

We are facing, with all this talk of youth and sex, not only a lament about young people going from bad to worse, but something a lot deeper.

We are facing a generation gap.

While this generation's youth are encouraged to be boldly vocal, to push boundaries and be cynical towards absolute authority, we seem also to be unsure of where adventure stops and stupidity begins.

Sure, adults can no longer order children about or use the rod, but surely more can be done to better define the lines between good and bad, honourable or otherwise.

It has to come from an understanding of how sexual attitudes are spread - virally, and through the Internet.

If mess-ups, hook-ups and break-ups can all now be done online, surely, it is time the opposite can be accomplished as well.

The writer, 22, is an honours student in History at the National University of Singapore.

This article was first published in The Straits Times on January 05, 2009.