The media is talking about this like it's a disaster. But it's not all bad.

The images are graphic and strike fear into the heart of every parent with school age children.

We see pictures of drunken teenagers raging through the Gold Coast, vomiting and getting arrested every night on the news.

You could be forgiven for thinking that if a child is about to finish school, then it’s inevitable that they’re going to dye their hair green, get high on multiple pills with Gen Y-esque names, and have wild, unprotected orgies with everyone they set eyes on.

The police are naturally nervous. So they want parents to be nervous as well. After all – they want to prevent potential teenage disasters before they happen. So they hype it up. They talk the media and the media does it’s thing: Scares the bejesus out of every mother and father in the country.

But.

This year has been a bit different. So far, the teens have gotten together, there have been a few arrests (mostly adults and not actual schoolies), they’ve gotten drunk, had a bit of sex. And…. well that’s it.

In fact if you turn on the telly, there is almost a sense of disappointment that our kids aren’t behaving horrifically badly at schoolies this year. The truth is that there have been fewer arrests, less accidents and all but a few doing the right thing.

Boring. Huh?

So when these dire predictions didn’t ring true, the authorities needed to find new ways of selling the message to parents and society that kids have no idea how to take care of themselves.

Enter: THE RISE IN THE ISSUING OF THE MORNING AFTER PILL. *Inset scary sounding Darth Vader music here*.

So the news organisations have changed tack: warning that schoolies are ignoring the safe sex message and claiming that an increase in the use of the morning after pill as a form of contraception is evidence that kids are failing to use condoms.

Drunken teenagers having sex and then making the responsible decision to access contraception? Who knew it could make for such scandalous and salacious fodder? But turns out? It does.

Recent reporting seems to suggest that because the morning after pill is easy to get (you don’t need a prescription, just an awkward conversation with the local pharmacist) it’s become the preferred form of contraception for party goers on coast. It also makes the usual implications: That these teenagers are naughty, slutty, uninformed idiots.

It’s a big leap to make this assumption.

There are a number of legitimate reasons for the morning after pill. Most of us have been there, the condom breaks or it falls off  or you forgot a pill and want to make absolutely sure…

So it seems a bit simple (and convenient for a scary news story) to assume on this basis alone, that schoolies are being flippant about contraception.

Because consider this: Surely we WANT young women to be accessing the morning after pill if they’ve had unprotected sex.

Why don’t we flip this on its head and celebrate the fact that teenage girls are smart and knowledgeable and responsible enough to go to a pharmacist and deal with a problem immediately.

The news reporting also underestimates the capacity of young women to make informed decisions about their bodies. Let’s face it, the morning after pill is a legitimate form of contraception. Of course it shouldn’t be the only or the preferred form but it is important that young women are not discouraged from accessing it to prevent unwanted pregnancy.

The alternative is that girls are made to feel ashamed, dirty, naughty or ‘bad’ if they access it. And when they feel like that? They’re not going to be gutsy enough to get it. And that is absolutely the sort of shameful pressure we DON’T want to put on these girls.

As these stories and images continue to be dominate the media, it is important to remember that it’s far too easy to witness the excess of schoolies and condemn the actions of all participants. But it is important to make sure that we don’t generalise a whole generation of young women as careless in their attitudes towards sex.

They are young, they’ve worked hard at school for thirteen years. Just like we did – they want to blow of some steam and have a well deserved break. So long as they’re not doing it in a horrifically dangerous or stupid way – and they’re making responsible choices when things don’t go to plan – then that’s exactly what they should be allowed to do.

Did you go to schoolies as a kid? Would you let your son or daughter go? Tell us your morning after pill story, have you ever had to access this sort of emergency contraception?