Sequim teens use their art to promote abstinence from sex

Published 6:36 am Wednesday, May 2, 2007

SEQUIM – Mercedes Meyer, comic-book composer, blows away assumptions about teenagers.

She created one of her pen-drawn dramas recently about the consequences of teen sex, and took second place and a $50 prize in the Sequim School District’s “Take It Seriously: Abstinence and the Media” contest.

In Mercedes’ cartoons, a teenage boy gets his girlfriend pregnant, then he leaves her.

She gives birth to a baby boy, Sam. He has trouble in school and ends up dropping out.

In just a few pages, the drawings and text show that Mercedes, 15, doesn’t fit a stereotype about adolescents: She thinks about future consequences, not just about right-now gratification.

Asked whether she worries that her Sequim Middle School classmates might think her uncool for taking part in the abstinence project: “I don’t care what other people say.”

So much for peer pressure.