Teenage pregnancy & Transactional Sex vs Prostitution

The scurge of teenage pregnancy has made huge headlines this week. With some gender activists even proposing that we have preschool and breastfeeding facilitities in our schools. What? You may say; kids are there to learn, not play mommy at school. I am just as outraged with that proposition andd most people may be as it would seem as if we're conding pregnancy, and are even helping these teenagers to raise the kids. But aren't we helping them already? with the child support grant being paid out to most teenage mothers in South Africa, really, we know what portion of our tax money is going.

Another argument would be to say that; teenagers are having sex already, and getting pregnant. So let's accept the reality, that our kids and sisters are having sex. so deal with teh consequences, and forget the problem. 

But really, is this the way to deal with the problem. Reactionary instead of addressing the root cause? According to most in civil society, teenage pregnancy is a social ill, and is a made up of a complex range of issues such as poverty, low self esteem, the lack of relationships with male models, etc. So shouldn't we be striving towards redressing these social ills, instead of accomodating consequences of the root cause problem?

Then there's the issue of transactional sex. According to Wikipedia, transactional sex
relationships are sexual relationships (often involving older men and younger women) where the giving of gifts or services is an important factor. Transactional sex relationships are distinct from other kinds of prostitution, in that the transactional sex provides only a portion of the income of the person providing the sex.

Prostitution, on the other hand, is the business or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute or sex worker, and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms.

Evidently, there's very little difference between the two, if any. I'm not sure I know the difference either, other than the one is a once-off with a stranger, and the other possibly a longer-term relationship, so long as the benefits still exist.

So, given these two scenarios, how many of us really, have used sex as a power bargaining tool with our boyfriends, husbands, spouses; either because we're mad at them or we want them to do something for us first? Haven't we wanted them to 'work for it first'? Isn't that transactional sex or even prostitution?

Call it whatever name, but at some point, haven't most, if not all of us, been a prostitute at some point.

Your thoughts?

Mind-blogged,
Lady B!